The End of the Growing Season

All the vegetables today are local except the squash and garlic and this marks the end of New Jersey’s growing season. In future weeks, we will be getting some local root veggies that Karley, our grower, is storing, otherwise all of the produce will be coming at least as far as from Pennsylvania. Karley and I agreed today that it has worked out well for us and we will be working together again next year.

Milk Feedback Wanted!

I’d like to either get more people purchasing milk or stop carrying it. I’ve noticed we have been selling less milk and it goes out of date and I have to take a loss because of it. I know some of you have bought outdated cartons, and I know it’s annoying when you get home to find you have old milk. I am, myself avoiding milk because it’s not good for older women to drink. This, however, is particularly good milk, being from grass fed cows and locally farmed in PA. I like the flavor of it the most. If you have a wish for me to continue getting the milk, what type and any other comments about it, please email me. 

Local Christmas Trees

One of our members has a tree farm! For a local, fresh cut Christmas tree go to the Small Wonder Tree Farm. Located at 170 Sunset Rd, Pompton Plains, NJ. Open weekends only - 9:30 till dark. They have Norway spruce, balsam, spruce, blue spruce, Douglas fir, Fraser fir and Concolor spruce - All sizes and shapes. Talk to Bob Crescitelli for directions and details.

Enjoy! Marnie

The Holiday Season

I hope you all had a tremendous feast for Thanksgiving. Once again, the holiday season is in full force with the decorations up, sales in the stores, and cookies in the oven. You can make your holiday a little healthier by buying a locally grown Christmas tree, learning how to juice, and sticking to raw organic fruits and vegetables - at least when you’re not at a party - or introduce them in your pot luck!

There was a lot of confusion over the Thanksgiving week off. Please, everyone watch the calendar for holidays with the Co-op: www.mountainlakesorganic.com/Calendar.html . We will have the last week of the year off too. We follow the Mtn Lakes school holiday schedule.

The Benefits of Juicing - Food Prep Class

This Thursday, Dec. 2nd - 12-2 PM

At The Mountain Lakes Organic Co-op

Juicing is one of the most effective ways to get vitamins and minerals into your body. Freshly extracted juices are far superior in nutrient content than store-bough pasteurized juices. They are also very healing and can be used to treat many health problems or to implemented as a cleanse from toxins in the body. In this class you will learn why juicing should become an essential part of your daily routine. Chef Zoe will demonstrate recipes for three juices - green juice, fruit juice and therapeutic roots juice. She will provide tips on how to pick, store and maximize the use of product in juicing.

Each class is $25 individually, or a four class package is $75.
For more info and to sign up visit the Events Calendar at www.mountainlakesorganic.com/Calendar.html .

Local Christmas Trees

One of our members has a tree farm! For a local, fresh cut Christmas tree go to the Small Wonder Tree Farm. Located at 170 Sunset Rd, Pompton Plains, NJ. Open weekends only - 9:30 till dark. They have Norway spruce, balsam, spruce, blue spruce, Douglas fir, Fraser fir and Concolor spruce - All sizes and shapes. Talk to Bob Crescitelli for directions and details

Enjoy! Marnie

Standard of living vs Quality of life

-Another part of my term paper

My presentation is Thursday. Wish me luck!

The term standard of living is not to be mistaken for quality of life, which also includes ones health, environmental quality, and social well-being, though they are often used interchangeably. There has been quite a debate over which indicators are better to use to show how happy people are. The Easterlin Paradox is where this particular discussion begins. In 1974 Richard Easterlin published a paper “Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence.” He found that, within a country, citizens happiness increased as their incomes got higher. But when comparing countries, happiness increased only until their subsistence was taken care of, and did not increase substantially beyond that, no matter what the incomes. The intensive fury we are in, to make more and more, is called the “hedonic treadmill”. In layman's terms, keeping up with the Jones’ gone wild. 

The western business world, which uses the GDP to indicate well-being, did not like this finding. Our economy is built for growth. The more it grows the more healthy it is said to be - new houses, new products, citizens are labeled consumers. The Easterlin Paradox indicates that this growth is not necessary for our well-being, and it indicates that people would be just as happy with a steady state economy.

The Easterlin Paradox ‘opened up a can of worms’  and perhaps even began a new science - of measuring happiness. Since 1974, scientists have performed similar surveys arriving at similar results. Which indicators to use and techniques of measuring happiness have been argued between social scientists and economists. The point that we can live just as happily with far less, also began to interest the environmentalist. This topic of measuring happiness via GDP versus other indicators, has produced a number of reports worthy of discussion...

Don’t you want to read the whole paper?

Enjoy! Marnie

World Imbalance

World Imbalance - quote of the week

"For years, humans have tried to conquer nature, but in doing so, they themselves became conquered. They lost their connection with the earth. They destroyed the land they were tilling. In Buddhist belief, there are no pesticides, no bad insects, no good ones. There is only imbalance in the world. We must restore that balance."

-Han Guojie, water-quality engineer turned farmer, quoted in "Sowing Seeds for an Organic Revolution," by William Wan in the Washington Post, November 2, 2010

San Francisco Bans Happy Meals

By Sharon Bernstein - Los Angeles Times, November 2, 2010 

The city's board of supervisors votes to forbid restaurants from giving away toys with meals that have high levels of calories, sugar and fat. This effectively bans most of McDonald's Happy Meals as they are now served in the restaurants.

The ordinance would also require restaurants to provide fruits and vegetables with all meals for children that come with toys. 

"We're part of a movement that is moving forward an agenda of food justice," said Supervisor Eric Mar, who sponsored the measure. "From San Francisco to New York City, the epidemic of childhood obesity in this country is making our kids sick, particularly kids from low income neighborhoods, at an alarming rate. It's a survival issue and a day-to-day issue."

Just after the vote, McDonald's spokeswoman Danya Proud said, "We are extremely disappointed with today's decision. It's not what our customers want, nor is it something they asked for."

For related articles and more information please visit OCA's      http://www.organicconsumers.org/afc.cfm .

Enjoy! Marnie

The Holiday Season Begins!

I hope you all had a spooky Halloween. I gave out the organic apples as usual. I bought 500 and we ran out by 7:00 pm so the last couple hundred kids got candy. As always, Halloween in the Village is exhausting. So now the Holiday Season has officially begun! I will look into organic turkeys for anyone who is interested. Expect to hear more about them in the coming weeks.

I have some papers due in school in the next few weeks too. Here is an excerpt from my paper for the Ethics in Sustainability class:

A person’s Standard of Living is an economics term for the measure of ones income and ability to purchase the items desired. It is a measure of a citizen’s ability to consume. The term standard of living is not to be mistaken for quality of life, which also includes ones health, environmental quality, and social issues. One’s standard of living is the primary scale by which Americans judge themselves as better or worse off than others, but does not mean a person has a better “quality of life.” Yes, living sustainably may degrade one’s standard of living, but it will not necessarily degrade a person’s quality of life. People are repelled by the idea of living a “sustainable” life style because they immediately envision hard labor and the loss of material goods. However, studies have found the quality of life does not diminish until poverty levels. In some cases quality of life increases with more sustainable lifestyles. This is due to personal satisfaction with behaving in a sustainable way and working with others of a like mind...

More to come!

Enjoy! Marnie

Goodbye Harvest Season!

The end of of New Jersey’s harvest season is coming. We have a couple weeks left and can only get the leafy greens, winter squashes, peppers, potatoes, and kiwi berries. We’ve already started getting citrus from Florida and California and will begin to source more from these winter growing states like the pineapples. I’ve enjoyed the fresh Jersey produce this summer. It was a bumper crop of tomatoes and the berries, cukes, carrots, peas, beans, basil, broccoli were all so delicious! 

Safeguard Organic Standards

Chemical and energy-intensive industrial food and farming poses a mortal threat to life on the planet. Monsanto and Food Inc. are rapidly destroying the soil, contaminating water, reducing biodiversity, and destabilizing the climate. Meanwhile consumers are being stuffed with junk foods that make us fat and sick. Industrial agriculture's fatal harvest includes trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and filthy, disease-ridden factory farmed animal products laced with pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, nano-particles and bacteria. ...

The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) is holding its twice-yearly standards-setting meeting in Madison, WI next week. Organic Consumers Association political director Alexis Baden-Mayer will be speaking at the meeting on behalf of our quarter-million active members and we need you to back up her testimony with letters to the NOSB on the topics that are most important to you.

There are 8 Action emails you can send at this link! If there is ever an opportunity to voice your opinion, this is it.

Take Action: www.organicconsumers.org/sos.cfm

Enjoy! Marnie

Focus on Energy

New Jersey has some issues regarding the energy we use. Now with the ability to choose our electric supplier we can switch away from JCP&L to greener sources. One of our Co-op members, Laura Nisivoccia, is a sales person for Viridian. Take home a brochure and find out how you can get green energy for less.

Coal Country & New Jersey

Wednesday Oct 20th - 6:30 pm

Coal Country spotlights Appalachian coal mining through the eyes of miners and activists. What is behind promises of "cheap energy" and "clean coal?" And what are the alternatives for our energy future?

After the film, Christine Guhl, a field organizer for the Sierra Club will make a 30 minute presentation about the coal and it's past and future in New Jersey. The focus of her presentation will be on the existing Hudson generating station and the proposed PurGen plant in Linden, as well as the Susquehanna-Roseland transmission lines.

More info: http://www.mountainlakesorganic.com/Calendar.html

Food Prep Class: Superfoods

Thursday, Oct 21st - 12 to 2 pm

Join Phyllis, a certified Holistic Health Counselor, here at the Co-op, as she teaches us how to prepare superfoods. Superfoods are vibrant, nutritionally dense foods that have recently become widely available. They offer tremendous dietary and healing potential. They include goji berries, hempseed, cacao beans (raw chocolate), maca, spirulina, bee products, and a host of others. In this workshop we will prepare delicious recipes using superfoods and discuss their health benefits, quality sources for obtaining them and where to go to learn more so you can make them a daily part of your diet.

More info: http://www.mountainlakesorganic.com/Calendar.html

Enjoy! Marnie