Feta Fest

Summer is here and you are bound to end up cooking some food of some kind for some event/reason. For those of you who end up cooking for something because you allowed yourself to get roped into it, here is a pretty simple meal that tastes good and looks great.

Food for Life Baking Company sent me a few of their products including Sprouted Whole Grain Penne Pasta, Almond Sprouted Whole Grain Cereal and Cinnamon Raisin Whole Grain Cereal.

As mentioned above the simple meal I prepared is just pasta with a few basic ingredients added in. I cooked the Sprouted Grain Penne Pasta and added some baby spinach once the pasta was pretty much finished cooking. FYI baby spinach cooks down pretty fast. I also added in Feta Cheese and tomatoes. I don't know if there is an ideal time to add the Feta and tomatoes so you may want to search around and see what you can find as to preparing pasta dishes.

The link below has pictures that can give you an idea of what these ingredients look like in case you have never eaten or cooked with them before.

http://www.fortheloveofcooking.net/2013/03/spinach-saute-with-grape-tomatoes-feta-cheese-and-toasted-pine-nuts.html

I am learning as I go about sprouted grains. I added some of the Cinnamon Raisin Whole Grain Cereal to a yogurt snack and I have also had it as a snack by itself. I've had the Almond Sprouted Whole Grain Cereal as a snack by itself as well.

If you are interested in a self guided/self-paced introduction to Sprouted Grain they have a resource on their website that gives you information about the benefits as well as the available Food For Life products that include sprouted grain as an ingredient. I like that it is detailed and it seems to me that these products would be good for anyone who has food sensitivities or is preparing meals for someone who does. Their website says that sprouting produces Vitamin C, I wonder if sprouted grain products would be a good source of Vitamin C for people who have a citrus allergy. (* I am not a health care professional and this is not meant to serve in any way as medical advisement*)

http://www.foodforlife.com/about_us/sprouted-grain-difference

Food For Life also has a section on their website that lists out the Low Glycemic and Diabetic Friendly offerings. I'm impressed that they obviously took a lot of time to address the potential concerns of a wide variety of customers. Very inclusive.

http://www.foodforlife.com/about_us/diabetic-friendly



Ezekiel 4:9^® Sprouted Whole Grain Penne Pasta
http://www.foodforlife.com/product/pasta/ezekiel-49-sprouted-whole-grain-penne-pasta
Ezekiel 4:9^® Almond Sprouted Whole Grain Cereal
http://www.foodforlife.com/product/cereals/ezekiel-49-almond-sprouted-whole-grain-cereal
Ezekiel 4:9^® Cinnamon Raisin Whole Grain Cereal
http://www.foodforlife.com/product/cereals/ezekiel-49-cinnamon-raisin-whole-grain-cereal

Dulce Bean

I had the opportunity to interview Clara Botero, founder of Dulce Bean,a MWBE bakery featured in the Miami Herald. The food heritage of Ms. Botero's business goes back to her family roots in Colombia and cooking for her family when she was younger.

Dulce Bean provides a variety of gluten free and grain free choices such as Organic Wheat and Gluten Free Apple Ginger Cake and Organic Wheat and Gluten Free Bananas and Cream Cake.
  
Between interviewing Clara and visiting her website I learned about some of the healthy products she uses including coconut flour, something I have not yet baked with as well as coconut oil which I previously wrote about while interviewing Pooka Pure and Simple.

I have to give credit where credit is due and take a moment to mention that the food photography on her website is amazing.

In addition to selling her products she includes the article, "How to Get Started in Health," on her site that reviews healthy eating and gives a primer of sorts for those who are starting out with the process of changing their food choices.

Check out the FAQ's section to find out about shipping, pricing, billing, order status, international shipping etc...

All Dulce Bean products are offered Whole Sale and you can find out more information about this by contacting the company directly.

The Resources section on the website includes topics such as and I think is a great addition as it is a way for you to build a relationship with her brand based on the quality of her products as well as looking to Dulce Bean as a source of information.

Some of the topics include, "How to Sprout Your Own Flour","Sprouted Flours and Products," and "Great Recipes, Blogs and Sites."

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

 

It has been a while since I did a post related to food assistance. The North American branch of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is participating in a really interesting event coming up that I myself would like to live stream. 

Based in Washington, DC FAO North America is participating in the upcoming 1st Annual Food Tank Summit which will be held at the George Washington University on January 21st. You can sign up to watch the live stream and check out the participants such as the National Young Farmers Coalition,Harvard Law School and the GWU Institute for Sustainability on the Food Tank website.

I spoke with Nicholas Nelson, Director of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in North America on a variety of topics.

Q How did you come to develop an interest in agriculture and social justice?

The organization I work for, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is a specialized agency of the United Nations with headquarters in Rome, Italy, and 5 Regional Offices which are in Africa, the Near East, Asia, Latin America, and Europe. FAO also has more than 80 country offices in those regions, where we advise governments directly and conduct project operations. The FAO is a key player in the global community’s fight to end hunger and poverty and I’ve been privileged to work for FAO for over 25 years in several roles, the latest as director of the FAO’s North America office in Washington, DC.

Q What was the impetus for the creation of FAO and specifically, the priority of Investment in Agriculture?

The founders of FAO over 60 years ago had the foresight to understand the central role of agriculture for human development and the duty of the international community to tackle the problem of hunger and malnutrition. They realized the need for an international organization with equal representation by all nations in the world which could coordinate agricultural policies and global interventions and give a voice to millions of people living in poor countries and who are unheard. FAO has been able to adapt to the demands of a constantly changing world and help countries respond to new challenges that have emerged: climate change, degraded land and water resources, wide-scale animal epidemics, food crises and natural disasters, and in recent years soaring food prices and market instability.

As to the priority of investment in agriculture, it’s been demonstrated over the last two decades that investment in agriculture is one of the most effective ways to reduce hunger and poverty, especially in rural areas.

Many countries that have consistently invested in agriculture are on track to achieve the UN’s first Millennium Development Goal which is to reduce by half the proportion of hungry people in the world. FAO’s recently published State of Food and Agriculture (2012)* (2014 publication is at the link below) provided comprehensive data on the relative sizes of investment and expenditure flows by farmers, governments, donors and private foreign investors in low- and middle-income countries. 

                                            State of Food and Agriculture 2014 

 

 

What emerged is that in these 76 low- and middle-income countries, farmers themselves are by far the largest investors in agriculture, but face all kinds of risks because of poor access to resources, lack of infrastructure, political instability and lots of other challenges. 



Recognizing that investing in agriculture raises productivity and incomes and reduces hunger, FAO has drawn up guidelines for countries to improve their governance of land and resource rights, and principles for responsible investment as a basis for determining long-term benefits and choosing the best investment options.

Q Is it possible to end hunger and/or poverty?  

Measuring the different dimensions of food security is very complex; one standalone indicator that most people are familiar with is the number of people in the world suffering from chronic hunger, which is defined as suffering for at least one year without enough food for an active and healthy life. While this number has dropped from 1 billion people in 1990 to 842 million as most recently reported in 2012, the rate of progress is too slow to reach the international goals for hunger reduction set by the United Nations (part of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals), often because of high rates of population growth in many hunger-affected countries. Still, it shows that real progress can be achieved when countries and communities take action to address the various dimensions of food security which are: food availability, economic and physical access to food, food utilization and stability (vulnerability and shocks) over time.

Some countries, notably Brazil and others just a few years ago, set much more demanding targets of eradicating hunger, and in 2012 the UN took up that theme with its own “Zero Hunger Challenge” with the goal of eliminating hunger in our lifetimes. The global community is putting much more effort into addressing the burdens of malnutrition: hunger, under-nutrition, micro nutrient deficiencies, and overweight and obesity.                                                       

                                            

Q Are these conditions reflections of the worst parts of human nature?   

Most people are unaware that the quantity of food produced on a global basis  is more than enough for everyone, and yet chronic hunger persists on such a scale whereby one person in eight around the world cannot get enough food to live an active and healthy life. 

There are severe and lasting consequences to this problem because hunger is accompanied by under-nutrition: one in four children in the world under five years of age is stunted; this means 165 million children are so malnourished they will never reach their full physical and cognitive potential; about two billion people lack the nutrition they need to grow and develop into healthy human beings. 

Q Is the role of government to (1) recognize the value in preventing poverty and hunger, (2) recognize that this requires constant effort and (3) be responsible for creating and enforcing legislation that establishes a standard quality of life for all?

Well, returning to the theme of investment in agriculture, and that farmers must be central to any investment strategy, a good investment climate depends on markets and governments. Markets generate price incentives that signal to farmers and other private businesses when and where opportunities exist for making profitable investments. 

Governments are responsible for creating the legal, policy and institutional environment that enables private investors, both smallholder farmers and larger enterprises, to respond to market opportunities in socially responsible ways. Without this enabling environment and market incentives, farmers will not invest enough in agriculture or achieve socially optimal results.  

Q In a world where all governments were responsible (according to the standards set by international social justice organizations), would non profit organizations and non governmental organizations solely exist to conduct scholarly research and advise political representatives during the process of creating legislation?

A world facing a major challenge such as eradicating hunger needs all possible resources and entities involved in food security to be committed to action: no single entity or sector can achieve such a goal alone. Over the last several years the UN system, built on a traditional constituency of member nations, has become much more inclusive in its formulation of policy and thematic challenges to be addressed by the world community. 

The FAO, among others, has greatly expanded its dialogue beyond governments in order to get full involvement of civil society organizations and NGOs in the analysis of issues, exchange of concrete on-the-ground experience in all areas affecting food security. The challenges of hunger are vast and multi-dimensional; no government can confront these issues alone. Partnerships with CSO, NGO, academia and the private sector is the only way to achieve progress and lasting results.  

Q From the perspective of the young person living in poverty in a rural area what kinds of current programs, initiatives and opportunities exist to improve their life in the immediate future as well as over the long term? 

On a global scale, many factors justify a strong focus on better enabling smallholder farmers to invest in agriculture, starting with their sheer numbers and economic importance and relative productivity. About 85 percent of 525 million farms worldwide are operated by smallholders on plots measuring less than 2 hectares. Sampling in developing countries showed that smallholder farms generate 60 to 70 percent of total rural income through farm and non-farm activity; they have high potential to be engines of growth and poverty reduction. 

Compared to large-scale farmers, smallholders can have significant advantages in terms of land productivity. At the same time smallholders face disadvantages such as access to land, markets, inputs, credit insurance and technology and sometimes government polices work against them. Many smallholders are women, for whom these constraints are, almost everywhere, even more severe. Closing the gender gap and ensuring equal access by women to resources and assets is needed to accelerate agricultural and rural development and reduce poverty.

Q Are under served communities, both rural and urban, in the United States and other developed counties, included in the conversations and investment priorities of FAO and other partner organizations? If not, what steps are necessary to move this outcome?

While developed nations are the main financial sources for the FAO and other humanitarian and development organizations, the governance, the definition of objectives and priority setting is decided and agreed together as a community of member nations, with most of the work directed to support developing countries in the challenges of food security. 

The developed nations also provide vast technical expertise, goods and services which are deployed in developing countries under FAO programs and projects. The experience of developed nations in addressing their own challenges of poverty, hunger and rural development, or confronting animal, crop and plant diseases, is also a factor in determining priorities and action plans. 

                                                       

Communication Fingerprint

I was getting my day started and thinking about communication styles, idiosyncrasies we all have as a result of where we are from, where we have lived, languages spoken etc....

In short, communication fingerprints and how interesting they are in their origin.

While living in NYC a few years ago I met a student who was originally from India but had been raised in Sweden. I got the impression that she had fielded more than one awkwardly worded question about 'what' she is.

I can remember meeting a Ghanaian who speaks English as a fourth language and she shared that her husband (then fiancee) is Korean and was adopted by an Italian-American family.

Working for a non profit in Washington,DC I met a London School of Economics grad who was raised on a Norwegian compound in Madagascar.Not making that up folks.I would think that having this sort of experience in your formative years would yield a pretty exceptional worldview but I didn't set off with an endless stream of questions.

According to a Pew researcher featured in the hourly news summary currently up on NPR, interracial marriage is on the rise.Add to that, if it's not just my impression, people in general seem to be moving alll over the place for work, education,marriage or just travel for their own leisure.

What will communication fingerprints look like in the future?

The Sundara Fund

"I think at our highest level we are all in some way searching for connectivity and a purpose. I love the feeling of going to bed each night feeling like someone,somewhere has benefited from my work.It keeps me going though the hard times- and there have been many. before this I certainly had my fair share of soul-less jobs that I just did for the paycheck or the status, but they left me feeling so empty,which makes me really appreciate the higher meaning in this work."

"One of the best parts about Sundara is how cost-efficient our entire mission is. $130 pays a hygiene ambassador's salary for an entire month and lifts her and her family out of extreme poverty. $100 provides soap to 50+ children in a village school for an entire year.Fundraising for these children is the best way to support Sundara's mission-along with spreading the word!

We would love and welcome you to get in touch with us(michelle@sundarafund.org,erin@sundarafund.org) if they want to be a member of our board,intern or be involved in any other way.

We are so grateful for any and all support!

"Through recycling soap, we’ve rescued thousands of kilograms of waste from ending up in overcrowded landfills – but more importantly we’ve brought soap to those who couldn’t afford it, given economic opportunity to unemployed women and seen increased rates of hand washing in all the communities we work in."

                                      sundarafund.org

Soap Box Soaps

The movement towards using business as a source for social impact has gained a considerable amount of traction as a variety of companies have decidedly established a presence within the landscape of philanthropic initiatives.

Corporate resources combined with a foundation arm have the potential to steward various forms of support as appropriate. 

Over the years I have learned of several companies that have some level of community engagement. I was at my local grocery store and came

across a product from Soapbox Soaps. 

Through Soapbox Soaps, I learned of another opportunity for conscious consumerism. I purchased the,"Smooth and Repair Coconut Oil Body Wash."

The goal of Soap Box Soaps, "Is to empower customers to change the world through everyday, quality purchases."

I see great value in demonstrating that conscious consumerism can be applied in a way that the average person walking down the street can access. 

So exactly what impact was created here?

While visiting www.soapboxsoaps.com/hope, I entered the, "Hope Code," printed on the container and learned of the Sundara Fund.

soapboxsoaps.com

Sundarafund.org

My impression of the idea of conscious consumerism is that purchasing decisions complimented with grants and other forms of support can affect a meaningful social impact.

Book Reccomendation: "Left to Tell" by Immaculee Ilibagiza

Book Reccomendation
"Left to Tell" by Immaculee Ilibagiza

Authors, share your story, say what you have to say because you never know who it may impact. The post below is a piece I originally wrote for Facebook. It is a reflection about the book "Left to Tell," by Immaculee Ilibagiza.

Your book,"Left to Tell," had an incredible impact on me. So much so that I consider it to be a significant life event. I have drawn a great amount from your life story. When you relate your ability to still believe in humanity and love it reminds me of a book by Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. called, "Strength To Love," and to me, your book is the epitome of having the strength to love. One of the things I take from your book is that the human heart could be described as a world unto itself and your writing takes the reader through all of the intricacies within that world. I came across this book when I was about 25 years old,a time when deciding what love is supposed to look like is critical. Your book was a central part of guiding the process of making a conscious decision about what I want in that regard. I thank you for writing, "Left To Tell."

http://immaculee.com/