Thanksgiving Recipes!
In our co-op kitchen, we produce fresh, delicious foods made with local, organic, and nutrient dense ingredients.
While many restaurants cut corners with cheap vegetable oils, fillers, and non-organic ingredients, we go above and beyond to produce the best, most nutritive food we can.
Don't believe us? Check out some of our recipes below - we want to share how we're making food, so everyone can make great food for themselves and their families at home. After all, Thanksgiving is not about making money, it's about sharing good food with our community.
So check out these recipes for our favorite holiday items, and grab the ingredients while they're on sale before Thanksgiving!
Click here for a bigger recipe sheet!
Organics Votes to Approve Aquaponic and Hydroponic Operations!
Is it the organic apocalypse or a much needed expansion of the market?
Hydroponics and aquaponics are newer growing systems that involve growing plants in a recirculating system of water and nutrients. While hydroponics focuses on plants, aquaponics adds the extra step of cycling water through a fish tanks, resulting in a better closed-loop system, as well as a potential secondary fish harvest.
To their proponents, aquaponics and hydroponics are ways to grow more intensively, save water and carefully use only the exact amount of fertilizer that is needed.
However, many organic growers think that aquaponics and hydroponics rely too much on plastic, heated greenhouses, and added nutrients rather than a healthy soil biota.
What does this have to do with the organic program?
Well, the NOP (National Organic Program) voted 8-7 to allow aquaponics and hydroponics to be certified organic according to USDA rules.
And that has certainly ruffled some feathers - is it diluting the organic standard and allowing industrial farms to profit off the ideals of small scale ecological farmers? Or is it allowing more growth in the small scale and focusing on environmental standards like drastically reduced water usage?
We buy from Dayton Valley Aquaponics in Dayton, where they tout a 90% decrease in water, which is super important in this desert ecosystem. Plus, they provide tomatoes and basil year round, when we might have to be otherwise buying from farms in Central and South America to get tomatoes, so supporting our local farming system can provide a whole host of benefits that we would not have access to with soil based farming.
Of course, we are aware of bigger companies diluting important movements - many stores in Reno advertise "local" eggs from industrial farms on the California coast, which makes it harder for small scale Nevada farmers to succeed, and we certainly don't want that.
As is true with anything worth paying attention to, there is more than meets the eye to this controversial decision. And as always, we will continue to support our local producers, where we can have real conversations with real people about real world impacts.
Last Chance,
Turkeys!
Thanksgiving is less than a week away, so get your turkeys while we still have some! All our turkeys are sold by preorder only, so email grocery@greatbasinfood.coop to reserve yours today. We have already sold out of the pastured turkeys and organic heirloom turkeys, but there are still organic turkeys available for $3.99/lb from Diestel Ranch in Sonora, CA.
Genetically Modified Apples?!?
Proponents of genetically modified food frequently use a simple justification for their consequences-be-damned tinkering with DNA: "we need to feed a growing global population." Which is all well and good, if you conveniently ignore that more than a third of the corn grown in the US of A is turned into ethanol, or the $12+ billion worth of food we feed to pets in this country alone. Somehow, though, genetic modification gets turned towards other purposes, like the purely cosmetic GM apple that is now secretly on sale throughout the midwest. Cure world hunger? Reduce our dependence on fossil fuel-based fertilizers? Nah, let's focus on making apples prettier.
Know anyone in the midwest? Get them to help the OCA (Organic Consumers Association) make it clear that we don't need genetically modified apples in our food system.
Click here to help!
Ben and Jerry's Boycott
As you may have heard, many food cooperatives and health food stores have joined a boycott against Ben and Jerry's ice cream for selling their "premium" ice cream at above-organic prices while testing positive for the herbicide glyphosate in their ice cream.
We didn't need to join the boycott since we already don't carry Ben and Jerry's - we know that the organic ice creams (and vegan alternatives) we already carry like Straus and Luna & Larry's are so much better. Plus, they aren't owned by a Dutch-British multinational corporation like Ben & Jerry's is.
But we still wanted to show our solidarity with all our fellow co-ops joining in the boycott, and maybe throw in a quick plug for Straus - seriously the best ice cream short of homemade!
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Our mailing address is:
240 Court St Reno, NV 89501
775.324.6133
info@greatbasinfood.coop
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