Good Food is Everybody's Business
Just the words “Thanksgiving dinner” can strike fear into the hearts of the “kitchen challenged.” After all, there are romantic images of beautiful crispy brown turkeys, delicate pastry, and robust gravies and sauces plastered across the walls in nearly every supermarket, spread throughout those “women’s magazines” (thanks to Oprah and Martha), and flashing on TV.
Deep in the heart of Capitol Hill, behind closed doors, national corporate bully Monsanto is working to ensure its world dominance by pressing President Obama and Congress to fast-track trade deals that force other countries to treat GMOs with the same lack of caution we in the U.S. currently do. Should this come to pass, countries could lose their right to regulate factory farms and genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Chances are your family’s daily bread is just another item on your list when you shop at your favorite supermarket. Let’s take a closer look at what you’re bringing home; your bread may be “in disguise.” It’s pretty clear that fluffy loaves of mass-produced soft, damp, nutritionally deficient, chemical-laced bread made in large industrial “bread factories” and sold in tightly sealed plastic bags contain additives and preservatives to make them easy to process and to give them a long shelf life. But what about the rest of those loaves lined up just asking to be dropped into your shopping cart?
When most people are asked about the “Local Food Economy,” they talk about local farmers, food hubs and CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture). It’s not often that they think of a small manufacturer. Jack Jenkins, manufacturer and marketer of Country Living Grain Mills, is a unique member of one of Washington’s local food economies.
