Making Your Kitchen a Greener Place
We are celebrating Earth Day this week. Being earth friendly in the kitchen is a growing trend. This reaches beyond recylcing papers and cans. I read a few articles recently about going green in the kitchen. Buying locally produced foods, growing your own, and eating organic. More people than ever will be gardening this year due to the poor economy. You don’t even need a yard to garden, just a few pots on a balcony. So how does this affect you? Have you ever wondered what locally produced means? Or organic? What about these new labels on our produce that state the country of origin? Did my strawberries come from the US or Canada? It’s all so confusing!
Organic food production has grown in the past ten or so years. In the 1990 Farm Bill, the USDA set the standards for growing organic foods. They define ORGANIC as food produced without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and they are not bioengineered. Producers who meet the standards set in this act may label their products as USDA Certified Organic. The FDA lets producers use the term natural on food products that contain no added colors, artificial flavors, or synthetic substances. It says little about how the ingredients are grown. There is no set definition. Local is another unregulated term. It usually means that the food item was grown within a 100 mile radius of where you are purchasing it. COOL stands for the new regulation that states that certain meats and fruits and vegetables must be labeled with their country of origin. This law will give consumers an idea of where their food is originating from.
So what does this all mean? First, there haven’t been enough studies done to determine whether or not organic foods are more nutritious that regularly grown foods. Second, eating a variety of fruits and vegetables is part of a healthy diet, and is encouraged-no matter how they are grown. Third, now it will be easier to find out where your food was raised. Finally, local farmers markets bring in produce that is usually picked the same day it is sold. A product has the most nutrients in it when it is first picked, and it loses quality and nutrients for every day it sits on the shelf. This means that the sooner you eat something after it has been picked, the more nutritious it is.
