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Posted on January 10, 2011 - by JamieYuenger

An Ethical Act

Watch the full episode. See more Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

I recently watched this video of Norman Wirzba speaking about meditations on food and faith. Norman is a professor of theology, ecology, and rural life at Duke Divinity School. His insights are so profound to me that I wanted to share this with the FRESH community. Norman has a new book coming out in May called “Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating,” put out by Cambridge University Press.

My favorite quotes from the video:

“Ethical eating asks the question, how can we honor the creatures, the life forms that we ingest?”
“Every time you eat, you give expression to what you think the world ought to be.”
“If you believe in a creator God, then you also have to believe that the world that we live in is a gift. How do you learn to receive a gift? Because a gift is very different from a commodity.”

-Jamie, FRESH’s Community and Faith Outreach Coordinator
Feel free to be in touch! jamie@FRESHthemovie.com

Posted on November 9, 2010 - by JamieYuenger

Makin’ Groceries by Megan Burns

As a newly transplanted New Orleanian, I am overwhelmed by the amazing food system work underway in the city of re-birth. I moved to New Orleans over a year ago to study Community Public Health as it relates to school and community gardens and, thanks to a new friend, quickly joined forces with a neighborhood group working to build a combination community-schoolyard garden a few blocks from my house.

Before starting graduate school, I studied and worked in the fields of environmental education and organic agriculture. While working on farms and community gardens, it became impossible for me to ignore the patterns of food access and community health. Growing fresh healthy produce was fulfilling work but I decided to shift gears towards making this food available to everyone. There are so many organizations and individuals in New Orleans who are doing just that. The most inspiring aspect of the food/urban agriculture community’s work here is the commitment to addressing the problems in our food system by bringing everyone to the table to ensure that the movement is not circumscribed by class or race.

I recently attended the Community Food Security Coalition’s annual conference in New Orleans, an amazing event not to be missed by anyone interested in food and community. Among the many, many inspiring speakers was Aba Ifeoma, a founding member of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. She posed this question to those in the audience doing community work around healthy food and food justice: Are you working for or are you working with? If we are working for, we lack community engagement and as Aba pointed out, we may be reinforcing traditional roles of power without even being aware of it. If our work lacks community engagement, especially those communities who suffer the most from our broken food system, we will never bring strength to the food movement.

This engagement is not easy and requires time and trust. I am currently working with students at the James Weldon Johnson Elementary School in New Orleans as a New Orleans Albert Schweitzer Fellow to develop and implement a garden program called Makin’ Groceries. (Makin’ Groceries is slang for grocery shopping in New Orleans.) Students at the Johnson School are predominantly African-American (99%) and eligible for free or reduced lunch (98%). The goal of the Makin’ Groceries program is to incorporate families and communities through a school garden program to improve attitudes towards fresh fruits and vegetables and begin a conversation about food accessibility. I developed this program quite blind to community work in New Orleans and the strains young families face these days. I’m positive that I am learning more than anyone else involved in the project!

Although the in-school portion of the Makin’ Groceries program has been successful, the community and family engagement is slow going. Just last weekend I invited all my students to a free children’s event at Hollygrove Market and Farm, an urban farm in the neighboring community. Only one of the thirty-six students in the program attended. I was in the middle of lamenting my recruitment failure to a fellow community gardener when she interrupted- “You had someone come out, that’s great. That’s how it starts!”

We have had some unique engagement successes. In order learn more about their own culinary and agriculture traditions, 3rd graders at Johnson developed questions and conducted interviews with a family or community member. Many students asked about how to make traditional dishes such as yaka mein and jambalaya. Others learned of grandparents and parents who kept large gardens at one time. Students took notes during the interviews and are still in the process of writing up their reports. This
was an authentic way to engage families and communities and honor culture while respecting travel and time constraints faced by these families. We hope to send copies of our final reports along with pictures of the students and their interviewees to First Lady Michelle Obama.

A few ways to begin to address these issues in your city, town, and community:

Learn about the work of your local or regional Food Policy Council; if none exists think about creating a coalition to address food policies in your area. Agriculture is intrinsic to culture; work with local media artists, students, and community members to record and document food and agriculture traditions, highlighting variety and diversity.

Partner with a community organization working with a low-income community to sponsor a dinner and evening program to talk about health concerns, food access, and local projects addressing these issues. A screening of FRESH is a perfect kick off to such an event!

Join (or start) local efforts to support low income community members to grow their own food through community gardening, garden education, and backyard gardening programs. Make sure your farmers market accepts food stamps.

Posted on November 8, 2010 - by JamieYuenger

Sustainable Seafood: What to Enjoy and What to Avoid

Seafood is a staple of many a person’s diet, but for those who are environmentally conscious, it can be very difficult to sort out what is OK to eat and what should be avoided. Seafood comes from all over the world and is grown, caught, processed, and transported in a wide variety of conditions. Finding sustainable seafood is confusing, especially because what sustainability actually is is often misunderstood.

To clear up: sustainable seafood is either fished or farmed in a way that does not harm the surrounding ecosystem and does not decimate a species’ population. Fish that reproduce slowly, like an orange roughy, are vulnerable to over-fishing, but small breeds that reproduce quickly like anchovies are sustainable. Check these seafood do’s and don’ts to figure out which seafood is sustainable, and which is not.

WHAT’S SUSTAINABLE

Alaskan salmon and halibut: Buying American is almost always the way to go, as US fishing standards are much higher than those in other countries. Alaskan fish are considered healthy species with thriving populations, and so are sustainable. Plus, they’re pretty tasty too.

Oysters and mussels: For shellfish, oysters and mussels are considered the most sustainable. They are plentiful, and so fishing will not decimate their populations; often grown locally, and so reduce the energy costs associated with freezing and shipping; and as a small shellfish, contain less mercury than bigger fish. In that way, they are better for your health as well.

Sardines, anchovies, and other small fish: Small fish populations have little concern of over-fishing — there’s just too darn many of them. Though you can’t make a meal out of them, as a nice accompaniment to a salad or other dish, small fish like sardines and anchovies are a worry-free addition.

Atlantic lobster: Many a New Englander’s favorite seafood is actually sustainable when bought locally. Atlantic lobster populations are doing fine, and when bought locally don’t leave a carbon footprint. That said, don’t buy Central American lobster: they’re fished in subpar conditions, and the environmental cost of bringing them up north is just too much.

WHAT’S NOT SUSTAINABLE

Tuna: Tuna is a favorite of people all over the world, and that is why it is being over-fished. Some species of tuna are doing OK, like some albacore, but in general, it’d be best if people stopped fishing and eating tuna altogether to allow the species to recover.

It is estimated that 90% of the sea’s large predators are being over-fished — they just don’t re-populate as quickly as small fish. Plus, most tuna, even dolphin-free brands, are not caught using environmentally-friendly practices. And more so, tuna contains high amounts of mercury, which causes health problems for people the world over. Say no to tuna.

Shrimp: Imported shrimp are grown in Asia and Central America and grown in their own raw sewage. Sound appetizing? Worse, this waste is allowed to pollute the sea as the shrimp are held in open pools or mesh cages. Even US-farmed shrimp are caught using trawl nets, which hurt sea turtle populations. It’s just not worth it for such a small fish.

Tilapia: Tilapia is native to Africa’s Nile River and so is extremely rare in the wild. Imported tilapia is farmed in Asia, where fish are given hormones to induce sex changes so they turn into bigger, more lucrative males. They are also treated with pesticides and other chemicals, which are absorbed by humans when eaten. Plus, a lot of energy is used to freeze and transport the fish to your local grocery store. Local tilapia is not perfect either, as it still may contain antibiotics and pesticides.

Edward Stern is a guest blogger for An Apple a Day and a writer on online nursing classes for the Guide to Health Education.

Photos by boboD90 and Mitchell Goldstein, respectively (via Flikr Creative Commons).

Posted on September 22, 2010 - by JamieYuenger

We Are The Ones

“Women Nourish Us” is FRESH’s femme-focused blog series. For the past twelve weeks, we’ve turned to a leading woman in the good food movement for ideas and inspiration. Today is the last post of this series, and it asks for action. Send out the charge!

Carrie Oliver is the founder of The Artisan Beef Institute™ and owner of The Oliver Ranch Company™. Her mission is to transform beef and other meats from commodities to a more deeply appreciated food by leveraging a little known secret: the very best meat is like wine, it presents a wide array of flavors and textures depending on the land and the artisans who craft it. Beef has terroir. Often referred to as “The Robert Parker of Beef,” “The Meat Sommelier,” or more simply, “The Beef Geek,” Carrie asks a simple question: If Rutherford is famous for Cabernet Sauvignon and Carneros for Pinot Noir, why not similar appellations for beef? She hosts exciting educational Artisan Beef, Pork, Lamb, Poultry, and Goat tastings across North America and offers home tasting kits through her online marketplace, The Oliver Ranch Company.

What would you do if you walked into a grocery store and saw only one flavor of ice cream, a single variety of lettuce, or one kind of bread: Wonder Bread. My guess is that you would first be mystified and then promptly take your business to a different store.

Would you consider doing the same if your store offers just one variety of beef?

When it comes to processed goods and some produce, grocers almost invariably present us with a huge variety from which to choose. On one visit to a small supermarket I counted 76 different tomato-based spaghetti sauces, 7 varieties of apple, and a selection of wines that would fit any budget, flavor preference, or occasion.

Now think for a moment how meat is merchandised. We see a lot of different cuts of beef, pork, or chicken. Beef is sometimes further sorted by the amount of fat in it, e.g. USDA Select, Choice, or Prime. You may occasionally see a brand name or label claiming that the cattle were raised without certain drugs.

Five years ago this would have seemed like a lot of variety to me. After careful study and countless beef tastings, I know that it is not. For fans of FRESH, The Movie, and readers of this blog, this has important implications.

Let’s debunk one myth. Marbling – the primary metric considered in the USDA grading system – plays a less important role in predicting the flavor and tenderness of beef than is generally perceived. One 1994 study concluded that fat marbling explains “only 5% of the variation in tenderness… and palatability…”

I’d like to let you in on a little secret: beef is like wine. There are some 800,000 ranches in North America raising hundreds of different breeds and crossbreeds of cattle. As with wine, flavor and texture can vary widely by farm, breed, specific diet, the age of the cattle, husbandry practices, low stress handling, marbling and – importantly – by the relative talents of the farmer, trucker, slaughterhouse worker, and butcher.

If one looks at the farm level, there are likely far more actual or potential varieties of beef as there are types of spaghetti sauce, apples, and even wine.

The retail industry has, perhaps understandably, looked upon this as a negative. Perhaps it’s because it would arguably be difficult to clearly label multiple different cuts of beef from different farms on the shelf. As well, since there is insufficient labeling and consumer awareness, from a consumer’s perspective it can be frustrating to have flavor change from one week to the next. Hence, the industry has been striving over the past several decades to create uniformity, relying on the USDA grading system to provide differentiation to support premium versus budget price options.

Unfortunately, this has led beef to become a commodity product focused on yield and throughput, not flavor. When I asked one rancher whether his beef (Blonde d’Aquitaine) would taste different than another rancher’s beef (Shorthorn), his response was “You know, no one has ever asked me that question. The only thing we get paid for is how much marbling is in the beef and how much beef comes off the bone.”

Now why does this matter and what does it have to do with women?

16% of we women go grocery shopping on any single day and on average, we dedicate more than two times the amount of time to grocery shopping than men. We are the ones in charge of what is offered on supermarket shelves because our dollars are what make a product or store succeed or fail.

If we want to take the widget out of beef, here are two things we can do.

There are artisan producers who raise and process beef not just to make a particular label claim, such as Choice, grass-fed, or naturally raised, but also to make fabulous tasting steaks, burgers, and roasts. They carefully choose cattle to fit their growing region and a diet, slaughter date, and aging technique, along with low-stress handling, because they make for better meat. We need these people to be wildly successful!

I provide tasting notes and reviews of meats from these producers on my Artisan Beef Institute Web site. If you have a favorite producer, help them sell their products by telling me who they are so I can meet them, too. I also invite you to write a guest review of your favorite beef, pork, lamb, or poultry for my site.

Second, retailers have catered to our different needs, desires, and values by offering variety in just about every category one can think of other than meat. It is up to us to let them know that we want.

I invite you to download a list of questions to ask your butcher (or even your farmer). Share this with friends and ask the meat counter team the questions. If they can’t answer to your satisfaction, ask whether they can find out for you and, if you can, don’t buy the meat until they are able to answer these questions to your satisfaction. Build a relationship with your butchers based on mutual respect and we’ll see changes with time.

Finally, I will leave you something to ponder. Think about where wine was in the 1970s (white wine, red wine, fine wine, jug wine) and where it is today. We are the ones who can make a difference. By rewarding and recognizing the best, we will help support humane animal husbandry, keep good people on the land, and have better tasting, more personalized meats on our plates. It’s a win – win – win – win for all. What could be better than that?

To get in touch with Carrie or learn more about her work, visit the Oliver Ranch Company website.

*If you believe in the power of women’s words and our growing sustainable food movement, please spread the word about our Women Nourish Us blog series via email, Facebook & Twitter (http://bit.ly/bDJGtX). If you would like to host a screening of FRESH for your friends or organization, please – be in touch!

Posted on September 15, 2010 - by JamieYuenger

Interview with Lia Huber of Nourish Network

“Women Nourish Us” is FRESH’s femme-focused blog series. Every week, we turn to a leading woman in the good food movement for ideas and inspiration. Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lia Huber about her new and impressive endeavor, The Nourish Network.

Lia Huber is the founder and CEO of the rich-content website, Nourish Network, and its companion small group coaching program, My Nourish Mentor. Lia is also a widely published food writer and recipe developer, for magazines like Cooking Light, Prevention and Health, and a rising presence both on-screen and in-person. In any format she tackles, Lia brings passion—and fun—to her message of nourishing body, soul and planet with every bite.

I was reading that you lived in Greece for a while. Is there a Greek dish you make at home now – from memory?

I used to work in my ex-fiance’s family restaurant. I started out as a salad girl. I still make a mean Greek salad – which is helpful – especially now at this time of year when there are so many tomatoes and cucumbers. I also make souvlaki. I just made souvlaki the other night with tzatziki – with that yogurt cucumber dip. And this potato dip – skordalia – that’s an awesome, awesome dish. They serve it traditionally with salt cod fritters. Dip it in or spoon it on top…

You have a greeting on your website’s front page that says, “If you’re looking to enjoy a healthy body, a comfortable weight, and an eco clean conscience, while getting more pleasure from your food, you’ve come to the right place,” which I found really intriguing. I’m wondering what eco clean conscience means to you, since it’s potentially a kind of intimating phrase that people might not know how to decipher…

I define that as a way of eating that matches your values. There’s a whole sector of people now who are very well versed in the sustainability realm, but there’s an even bigger chunk of people who are really confused by it. It’s disheartening that people have to go to the fish counter and feel uneasy about buying fish, or walk through the produce aisle and be like, “should I buy organic, should I buy – what should I buy?” Or eggs! Let’s take eggs. There’s a recall and people are all of a sudden terrified to buy eggs. Food shopping now is a really stressful experience.

There’s the health aspect, but now I think there’s also this value aspect, where more than ever people are now going, “Wait a second – I want food that’s safe for me and my family. I want food where the animal hasn’t been completely mistreated. I want food where I know people haven’t been mistreated.” I feel like there’s a deep-seated, bubbling up in people, where they don’t even know exactly what they are looking for, or what they’re questioning, but they want to eat in a way that gives them a clean conscience.

The other thing that I noticed in my research and that I thought was a pretty deep intention on your part – personally – was that you talk about wanting to help people find fulfillment. I’m wondering what being fulfilled means to you personally, and how you think your work helps people find fulfillment for themselves.

As a teenager, I used to really eschew the word contentment. I used to think it meant you were sitting around, twiddling your thumbs. But, as I’ve gotten older (and wiser!), I’ve discovered this richness around contentment, this richness around digging deeper in every moment… I find this a lot with my daughter, where you’re in that moment, I have this choice of being like, “hang on, honey, I gotta check my email,” (which I do sometimes), or to sit down and look her in the eye and meet her where she is. And that applies to food. We have to feed ourselves three times a day – roughly – in our world, in our society, we eat three times a day. And that’s three opportunities we get each day to to either be nourished by that experience and have it be something deeper than just what we put in our bodies, or just a to-do to get past. You know, “I have to make dinner!” rush. It enables us to connect to where that food is coming from…it’s a sensual experience to be grateful for the food that’s coming to my plate. And then in preparing it, becoming present in preparing your food.

If you’ve ever gotten heirloom tomatoes – my husband once cried when he cut open an heirloom tomato because it was so beautiful. They are just so lovely.

And then the two-fold experience of eating, where you’re connecting with your body, and also those you are sharing it with others. It’s a huge spectrum of being filled – ful/filled at very deep levels. I guess that’s what I mean by being fulfilled.

I was hoping you could explain what “grow food” is and what you think adults could pack into lunch boxes in mid-September.

Well, one of the issues with kids is that no matter how healthy a lunch you pack, they’re gonna go for the chips or for the cookie, first. And so, my daughter’s teacher came up with this term of “grow food,” where the kids have to eat their “grow food” first. And the cool thing is, Noemi has gotten excited about it. So when I’m making her lunch or we’re getting dinner together, we have a conversation about “which of these are ‘grow food’?” She understands that these are the foods that are helping her grow. When she has the cheddar bunnies, yeah they taste good, but she knows that they aren’t ‘grow food.” It’s fun, because it’s giving this healthy food this caché, this specialness to it.

So, in terms of what to pack. I think that quesadillas and omelets are two awesome, sort-of overlooked items for the lunch box. Because quesadillas, just a simple bean or cheese quesadilla with a whole grain corn tortilla, are good and healthy with whole grains and protein, and it’s great finger food. Or I’ll make like a little mini omelet with whatever we have on hand. I’ll just chop up greens and sauté them and then put a scrabbled egg in it. It gets nice and firm at room temp, and you can cut it up into triangles or whatever, which is how a lot of cultures eat a frittatas or omelet sort of things.

Bottom line is you want food that tastes really good.

Nourish Network, I imagine, was an incredible endeavor to create. What in the past or now has been hugely challenging for you personally? Was there something frustrating or disappointing in the process of making it come together?

{Laughs} Everything’s been a challenge! Actually….Nourish Network….I’d been a writer and recipe developer for twelve years for major magazines, so I had “chops.” But, I did not want to write a recipe, I did not want to do a cookbook for a long time, because I wanted to really find my calling before I did that – before I stepped out and did a book. And about two years ago, I did find my calling after lots and lots of soul searching. I’ve also been a branding consultant for many years, so I thought, I’m going to work on my own brand. “What is the message that I’m supposed to bring to the world?” Big question. It really got distilled down to, “I want to nourish people. I want to teach people how to nourish themselves.” That bubbled up and it turned into a book proposal.

Well, that book proposal went out to the world the week the market crashed. And the whole idea was that I was going to have this book proposal go out and use the advance from the book to pay for Nourish Network, for the website development. But the publishing industry just went “craultpltz!” and imploded on itself and nothing ever happened with the book. But I decided I still wanted to move forward with the development of Nourish Network. So, then I started having big conversations with my husband, “OK, are we ready to dip into savings and max out credit lines?”…to do all this stuff to build this? Bless his heart, man, he’s been an amazing support through all of this. But, it’s been all on our own resources, through a very, very difficult time, to do anything, let alone something that is not easily package-able. So, it’s been a challenge to simply do this, to rally the resources to do it.

There were sometimes during our beta launch {the website} where I’d just lie there at night and think, “This isn’t going to work. What are we going to do?” because there were a lot of technological problems then. There’s definitely those nights of not sleeping, thinking “What if all of this is for naught?” But, it always comes back to, this is what I’m supposed to be doing. There’s kind of no choice for me, because this is my calling.

What is really exciting right now – or a new initiative – with Nourish Network?

My Nourish Mentor is so exciting to me. Being somebody who would write an article…and then a year later it would go to print…it’s incredible to be so much closer to the impact. Nourish Network got a little closer, with people’s comments and the member area, so there’s a closer aspect to it. But, My Nourish Mentor takes it even closer, where literally for six months I’m walking with people through this transformation process. It’s been unreal to hear people’s stories, how people are changing their whole relationship with food. It’s just amazing.

We’re doing this with individuals, but we are also doing this with corporations. So companies are starting to offer Nourish Mentor to their employees.

Interview by Jamie Yuenger

To get in touch with Lia or learn more about her work, visit the The Nourish Network website.

Posted on September 8, 2010 - by JamieYuenger

Women Farmers: An Irresistible Force

“Women Nourish Us” is FRESH’s femme-focused blog series. Every week, we turn to a leading woman in the good food movement for ideas and inspiration. Be sure to check us out every Wednesday for a new write-in. Then pass the post!

Mary Peabody is the Director of the Women’s Agricultural Network as well as a Community & Economic Development Specialist with University of Vermont Extension and most recently as Associate Director of the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development. She has worked in agriculture since 1988 working on business development; feasibility studies; diversification and small farm profitability. She has developed many workshops and courses for small-scale farmers and offers several classes online each year. Her research interests include the sustainability of rural communities, sustainable development and issues pertaining to social and economic justice for women.

Every five years the federal government takes a census of the farmers in the U.S.A. As the findings make their way into the media stream there are inevitably inquiries about the stories these numbers tell. The story I’m most involved with has to do with the rise in the number of women farmers. As of the last count in 2007, women make up just over 30% of the farmers in this country. This is a 19% increase from the previous 2002 Census of Agriculture.

As these numbers are released I receive calls from journalists around the country interested in the phenomena of women farmers. The most consistent question is “Do you expect this trend to continue?” The short answer is “YES!” Explaining why is a bit more involved. While women are increasingly visible in agriculture, there are multiple factors driving the increase.

The first contributor is the aging of the farm population. Since women have a longer life expectancy it follows that more women will inherit farms as widows. This seems to be a significant trend primarily in the mid-western states but will continue to grow across the country.

The second contributor involves who gets counted. Women have always been farm partners but given that the Ag Census traditionally counted only one farmer per farm, women were frequently left uncounted. The 2002 Agricultural Census was the first to allow more than one farmer per farm to be identified.

Third, women who have been a consistent part of the workforce are now able to retire with the resources, both personal and financial, to invest in a business startup. Many new women farmers are career-changers who are leaving positions in education, healthcare, banking, and government to pursue their passion for farming.

Finally, increasing numbers of women are graduating college with agricultural degrees and entrepreneurial spirit. These women have the skills, knowledge and passion to pursue farming as a livelihood.

The second most common question I field about women farmers and the Women’s Agricultural Network is, “Why do women need their own program—isn’t it all the same information?” [All the feminists reading this can do a collective eye-roll now.]

We are well into the planning of our second Women in Sustainable Agriculture Conference being held November 1-3 in Fairlee, VT. As marketing for the conference unfolds we will get a fresh round of these questions. So, for the record, the single biggest reason to offer programs targeting women farmers is that women farmers want them. Women feel empowered by being in the company of other women. They approach business development and planning from a wholistic perspective so while the content might look familiar the delivery is often quite different.

Other reasons to target women farmers include the fact that they are still an under-served population in most agricultural programs. Their farms tend to be smaller and under capitalized. Women tend not to have the same types of networks in place making it more difficult for them to find the right resource at the right time. Women farmers are still more likely than their male counterparts to be juggling family and household management while trying to start a business.

If you are lucky enough to have a woman farmer in your life I hope you will pass along the information about the conference.

To get in touch with Mary or learn more about her work, visit the Women’s Agricultural Network website.

Posted on September 1, 2010 - by JamieYuenger

Farming’s Indispensable Woman

Nicolette Hahn Niman is an attorney and livestock rancher. Much of her time is spent speaking and writing about the problems resulting from industrialized food production, including the book Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms (HarperCollins, 2009, www.righteousporkchop.com ) and four essays for the New York Times. She is regular blogger for The Atlantic online, and has written for Huffington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and CHOW. Previously, she was the Senior Attorney for the environmental organization Waterkeeper Alliance where she was in charge of the organization’s campaign to reform the concentrated livestock and poultry industry. She lives in Bolinas, California with her husband, Bill Niman, founder of Niman Ranch, a natural meat company supplied by a network of over 600 traditional farmers and ranchers. They now market the products of their ranch under the name BN Ranch.

A filmmaker recently asked me why so few women were involved in raising livestock. I paused before answering because the question surprised me a bit. Over the past ten years, I’ve visited dozens of farms and ranches raising cattle, dairy cows, pigs, goats, sheep, and poultry in every region of the United States. At every operation women were an absolutely essential part of the team.

At most of these farms, women kept everyone fed, dressed in clean clothes, and ran the household; they often kept the books. Usually, they were also deeply involved with the stewardship of lands and animals. These women are agile, nimble “Jills of all trades” who seamlessly flow from one varied task to another throughout their jammed packed days.

In my experience, women bring a unique sensitivity to animal husbandry, ensuring that each animal gets the individual attention it needs. Our good friends Rob and Michelle Stokes run a cattle, heritage turkey, and goat ranch in eastern Oregon. Both are skilled in the arts of agriculture and grazing, but during the kidding and calving seasons it’s Michelle who makes sure that every last goat kid and calf gets nursed and bonds to its mother.

And then there are the farms and ranches that are being taken over by women. The latest Census of Agricultural shows that the number of women farmers is increasing. One of these is my friend Cory Carman. She graduated from Stanford with a degree in political science with no intention of ever returning to the cattle ranch she grew up on. But when family circumstances drew her back to the ranch, she decided to stay. Now she and her husband have taken over her family’s cattle ranch, which she has converted to a totally grass based operation. She direct markets her beef on the Internet and sells it to restaurants. “It’s a totally different beef industry today than the one I grew up in, which was totally dominated by men,” she told me recently. She had the revelation when she sat down to talk about meat at a business meeting with two other women, both also in their thirties.

Women make up the vast majority of the membership in animal protection organizations. Moreover, as an article in E Magazine noted, women have an innate environmental ethic. It quoted Theodore Roszak, director of the Ecopsychology Institute, which studies the relationships between individuals and nature. While men traditionally viewed Mother Nature “as a devious female to be put in her place, to be tamed” by technology (just as they historically viewed marriage in terms of domination and submission), women have shifted the emphasis from using science to subjugate nature to finding ways to accommodate nature. “Women in the environmental movement have always had sense of being on Earth’s side,” says Roszak.

It naturally follows that the more women are involved in farming and ranching, the better agriculture will be toward natural resources and farmed animals. I’m proud to be among their ranks.

To get in touch with Nicolette or learn more about her work, visit her website where you can buy her book, Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms (HarperCollins, 2009)

If you believe in the power of women’s words and our growing sustainable food movement, please spread the word about our Women Nourish Us blog series via email, Facebook & Twitter (http://fdl.me/d1nqNe). If you would like to host a screening of FRESH for your friends or organization, please – be in touch!