In 2001, Lance Hanson was a software engineer in California. He wasn’t looking for a life change or a reason to leave. After a visit to a family farm Colorado, things changed.”Here we were, on the road, talking about the farm, and felt a pull, a very strong pull.” “We had no background in farming, organic or otherwise. But suddenly we envisioned something bigger.”

The Hansons sold their home in California and were back on Redlands Mesa within two months. They moved into a small barn-apartment on the land, designed and built their new home, and opened Jack Rabbit Hill Winery in time to celebrate their first harvest in September 2002. As the first growers to raise grapes on Redlands Mesa – or anywhere
in the state outside of the Grand Valley – they faced challenges, not the least of which was a 1,400 foot jump in altitude.

Peak Spirits, an offshoot of Jack Rabbit Hill, is also Colorado’s only organic distillery. The label’s brandy, made from fresh, organic fruit, has made a name for itself nationally. Hanson’s Jack Rabbit Hill wines are also the first, and only, labels featured in the Sustainable Settings state-certified tasting room. Sustainable Settings – at the Thompson
Creek Ranch Homestead off Highway 133 in Carbondale – houses research, demonstration and educational activities focused on sustainable agriculture and green development.

Jack Rabbit Hill and Peak Spirits, two pioneering organic wine and spirits makers in western Colorado, are now Demeter-certified Biodynamic(R), completing a two-year transition from USDA-certified organic practices that began in March of 2006. The estate winery and
distillery are two of only 39 agricultural producers in North America to embrace the rigorous Demeter Biodynamic standard.

Visit Peak Spirits http://www.peakspirits.com/index.php

Wenonah Hauter

is the executive director of Food & Water Watch. She has worked extensively on energy, food, water and environmental issues at the national, state and local level. Experienced in developing policy positions and legislative strategies, she is also a skilled and accomplished organizer, having lobbied and developed grassroots field strategy and action plans. From 1997 to 2005 she served as Director of Public Citizen’s Energy and Environment Program, which focused on water, food, and energy policy. From 1996 to 1997, she was environmental policy director for Citizen Action, where she worked with the organization’s 30 state–based groups. From 1989 to 1995 she was at the Union of Concerned Scientists where as a senior organizer, she coordinated broad–based, grassroots sustainable energy campaigns in several states. She has an M.S. in Applied Anthropology from the University of Maryland.

In her new book with co-author Mark Worth - Zapped: Irradiation and the Death of Food is a call to action for those of us who actually care about what we eat.

Lab animals fed irradiated food have developed illnesses from cancer to immune system failure. So why is the government pushing the same food on you? When food is exposed to ionizing radiation, it doesn’t hold up too well either. Irradiation can wilt and discolor food, and cause it to smell and taste nasty—apparently comparisons have been made to “burned feathers” and “wet dog” – yummmm. We also don’t have to swallow the lie that irradiating greens would prevent most cases of food born illness the greens may carry. The majority of food borne illness linked to greens come from viruses, not bacteria. Irradiation won’t kill the viruses — but it does increase the greens’ shelf-life. Nutritionally, irradiation is also a disaster, destroying up to 91% of Vitamin E, 90% of Vitamin C, 50% of Vitamin A, and 95% of Vitamin B1. So why would we do it?

The motivation for irradiating is of course, industry-driven. Irradiation allows food producers to store food longer, ship it farther, and avoid cleaning up dirty conditions at food production facilities. What this means for the consumer is older food, fewer vitamins, and continued risk of foodborne illness. Irradiation is ineffective against mad cow disease and several other threatening pathogens, so irradiating instead of improving sanitation at plants is simply paying lip service to food safety.

But it won’t kill you…right? Actually, we don’t know. Lab animals fed irradiated food have developed illnesses from cancer to immune system failure. Experiments on lab animals fed irradiated foods have shown ruptured hearts, sterility, blindness, internal bleeding, cancer, tumors, stillbirths, mutations, organ damage, immune system failure, stunted growth, and a host of other problems.

There just isn’t enough research. While there isn’t conclusive evidence that eating irradiated foods could have the same effects as being exposed to radiation itself, some studies seem to suggest it. Of course, onflicting studies do exist that show irradiated food as having no health effects whatsoever.

Order the Book: http://www.amazon.com/Zapped-Irradiation-Death-Wenonah-Hauter/dp/0980115701

Read More:

The FDA Approves Food Irradiation: Food That Makes You Sicker Rather Than Safer

The Alliance for a Healthier Generation is a partnership between the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation. We have come together to fight one of our nation’s leading health threats – childhood obesity. Along with our co-leader Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California and American Heart Association President Dan Jones, the Alliance is working nationally to create awareness and real solutions to the childhood obesity epidemic.

Misson:To eliminate childhood obesity and to inspire all young people in the United States to develop lifelong, healthy habits.

GoalsThe goal of the Alliance is to stop the nationwide increase in childhood obesity by 2010 and to empower kids nationwide to make healthy lifestyle choices.

healthiergeneration.org
Alliance for a Healthier Generation’s Kids’ Movement Director Kim Perry. Kimberly has worked for more than fifteen years successfully mobilizing communities to create a collaborative environment in which educators, legislators and policy makers can be educated and held accountable for improving the quality of life for low-income children and their families. She is nationally respected in the advocacy community for her steadfast work in child health public policy – including access to quality health care; and food and nutrition policies that address the paradoxical issues of childhood hunger and childhood obesity.
Before coming to the Alliance, Kimberly was the founding director of D.C. Hunger Solutions, a non-profit anti-hunger advocacy organization based at the Food Research and Action Center. Under her leadership, D.C. Hunger Solutions led three historic policy wins for children and youth: replaced junk food with healthier choices in public school vending machines, made school breakfast free to all public school students daily; and gave poor kids, who relied on free lunch during the school year, access to nutritious meals in their neighborhood, during the summer time. These victories were the platform for Kimberly’s leadership of another innovative social justice venture that organized over 150 citizens representing 14 sectors of the city to implement a Ten Year Plan to End Childhood Hunger in the Nation’s Capital. Now, more than half of all children living in poverty, in Washington, D.C., have access to three nutritious meals each day. The plan is nationally recognized and is currently being replicated in a number of states across the country.

The Kids’ Movement will be rolling out programs and activities to ENGAGE, EDUCATE and ACTIVATE youth across the country to be empowered and take the Go Healthy Challenge.
Carson Miller
Santa Fe, New Mexico

Since 2005 the Alliance has been working to create an on-air, online, and grassroots movement to reach millions of kids with “cool” messages about healthy living. Kids across the country have heard our message and to date over one million have taken the Go Healthy Pledge to dedicate themselves to a healthier lifestyle and to help their families, friends and communities make healthy changes.

carsons12.wordpress.com

Carson Miller is an active 12-year-old from Santa Fe, New Mexico. She loves to cook, particularly healthy foods to take to school for lunch. She enjoys going to farmers’ markets and meeting farmers. Carson plays competitive soccer and a variety of other sports. She has been recognized by Farm to Table for her efforts in promoting school nutrition. Later in life she hopes to combine her interest in business and cooking by going to Stanford and the Culinary Institute of America. Among other skills, Carson brings multimedia and advocacy skills to the Youth Advisory Board.

When asked what the biggest obstacle youth face when trying to live a healthier life, Carson replied:

“Junk food, snacks, and soda are advertised everywhere—from television commercials to computer pop-ups and movie theatres—with scrumptiously tempting pictures. Processed foods take up aisles and aisles at grocery stores and are always being promoted with coupons and sales.”

Alliance for a Healthier Generation

The initial mission of The Quivira Coalition, which was founded by a rancher and two environmentalists in June 1997, was to offer ‘common sense solutions to the grazing debate,’ principally by broadcasting the principles of ecologically sensitive ranch management.

The debate at the time was marked by extreme polarization between traditional ranchers and environmentalists, resulting in gridlock at a variety of levels. Seeking to break this gridlock by advocating a new set of tools, they vowed not to do lawsuits or legislation. Nor would they be mediators or facilitators between extremes in the grazing debate. Instead, they concentrated on creating a ‘third position,’ outside the continuum of brawling. They called this position The New Ranch, and invited others to join them.

Their goal was was to work simultaneously in the ‘radical center’ – a neutral place where people could explore their interests instead of arguing their positions.

Courtney White is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Quivira Coalition, and author of “Revolution on the Range”.

Sharon Louise Crayton has been intimately involved with cooking and food for more than 30 years. After studying nutrition and French cooking at San Jose State University in California and the Bay Area, she began creating recipes for companies such as S&W Foods, Foster Farm Chickens, Del Monte, and Spice Islands. Then she struck out on her own, opening the Cafe Sparrow, a California-French fusion restaurant, in Aptos, California. There she served as proprietor, chef, and matre d’ while also raising two children. In the mists of this busy operation, she met Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, who became her Buddhist meditation teacher and inspired her to slow down her life and begin investigating the intersections of Buddhism, cooking, and compassion.

In 1989, after selling Cafe Sparrow, Crayton immersed herself full-time in the study of Western and Chinese herbal medicine, food theory, and acupuncture. Eventually, she began traveling the world. Her journeys took her for long periods to Dordogne, France, and to Portugal, where she honed both her culinary skills and her Buddhist knowledge, cooking fresh, simple, lovingly prepared meals for some of the great Buddhist masters of our time. She currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

www.SlowFood.com
Good, clean and fair food is only possible with knowledge: the knowledge of those who bring food to the table and the knowledge of those who eat it. Understanding more about our food, how it tastes and where it comes from makes the act of eating all the more pleasurable.

Recorded: June 25th, 2008
Show: 32

Ivy Manning is a freelance food writer, cooking instructor, and personal chef. Her work has been featrured in Cooking Light, Fine Cooking, Best Places Northwest, Sunset, and the Oregonian. Her website is www.chefivy.com , and her new book is “The Farm to Table Cookbook: the Art of Eating Locally..”

www.SlowFood.com
Good, clean and fair food is only possible with knowledge: the knowledge of those who bring food to the table and the knowledge of those who eat it. Understanding more about our food, how it tastes and where it comes from makes the act of eating all the more pleasurable.

Shannon Hayes has a rare relationship with her food – she writes and works with her family on Sap Bush Hollow Farm in Upstate New York, where they raise and sell only grassfed meats, including beef, pork, lamb and poultry.

She holds a Ph.d. in sustainable agriculture and community development from Cornell, and a B.A. in Creative Writing from Binghamton University. She is the author of The Farmer and the Grill and The Grassfed Gourmet, as well as numerous articles and essays on food, farming and rural living. To learn more about Sap Bush Hollow Farm, visit www.SapBush.com.

More onGrass Fed

Grass Fed Cooking Books:

The Farmer and the Grill
A guide to grilling, barbecuing and spit-roasting grassfed meat …and for saving the planet, one bite at a time.

The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook
The original, definitive guide to finding, selecting preparing and enjoying grassfed meats.

www.SlowFood.com
Good, clean and fair food is only possible with knowledge: the knowledge of those who bring food to the table and the knowledge of those who eat it. Understanding more about our food, how it tastes and where it comes from makes the act of eating all the more pleasurable.

Diane Hatz is the Executive Director of SustainableTable.org. Sustainable Table celebrates the sustainable food movement, educates consumers on food-related issues and works to build community through food.

The program is home to the Eat Well Guide, an online directory of sustainable products in the U.S. and Canada, and the critically-acclaimed, award-winning Meatrix movies – The Meatrix, The Meatrix II: Revolting and The Meatrix II½.

Sustainable Table was created in 2003 by the nonprofit organization GRACE to help consumers understand the problems with our food supply and offer viable solutions and alternatives. Rather than be overwhelmed by the problems created by our industrial agricultural system, Sustainable Table celebrates the joy of food and eating.

More on Sustainable Table
More on The Meatrix

Tom Philpott is Grist’s food editor. Grist is based in the Emerald City of Seattle, in the Evergreen State of Washington, with contributors scattered the world ’round. They are a nonprofit organization funded by foundation grants, reader contributions, and just a touch of advertising. Their website and email services are free — and worth every penny.

Tom is a founder of Maverick Farms, a sustainable-agriculture non-profit and small farm located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. He writes the biweekly Victual Reality column for Grist.

The Tale of Two Counties

More on Grist
More on Tom Philpott
More on Victual Reality
More on Sustainable Agriculture

Slow Food Good, clean and fair food is only possible with knowledge: the knowledge of those who bring food to the table and the knowledge of those who eat it. Understanding more about our food, how it tastes and where it comes from makes the act of eating all the more pleasurable.

Born and raised in Honolulu, Dr. Pang graduated with Honors from Princeton University with a degree in Chemistry. He received an MD and Masters in Public Health Degree from Tulane.

Board Certification in Preventive Medicine, Dr. Pang worked for 20 years with the Walter Reed Overseas Research Laboratories, assigned to Bangkok, Rio de Janeiro and Geneva, developing drugs and diagnostics for tropical diseases. He is a consultant to the World Health Organization since 1985 on tropical diseases. Dr. Pang retired and moved to Maui as the District Health Officer position in 2000, and has about 5 dozen publications in peer reviewed medical journals covering rabies, HIV, malaria, hepatitis E, and most recently dengue, and was selected in years 2006-8 to America’s Best Doctors list (3% of US physicians).

Dr. Pang speaks about the dangers of Genetic Engineering in our interview today.

More on Generic Engineering
More on Preventive Medicine
More on World Health Organization
More on National Academy of Science

Articles on Dr. Lorrin Pang

Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Sierra Club, Maui Chapter
Genetically Engineered Organisms, Are They Safe?