CBAN Alert:Stop Canada from legalizing unapproved GM foods

This alert was received from CBAN today...

Concerned about what you are eating and may be eating in the future? Don't really want to be a guinea pig? Please consider taking the following action and having your concerns heard.


This is what we already need to worry most about. Why add to the list?

Stop Canada from legalizing contamination from unapproved GM foods. 

Write to Agriculture Canada from http://www.cban.ca/llpaction

The Canadian Government is proposing to allow contamination of our food supply with genetically engineered foods that have not been approved for safe eating in Canada. Agriculture Canada has opened a comment period until November 25, 2011.

The Canadian government wants to allow a percent, 0.1% or higher, of our food to be contaminated with genetically modified (GM, also called genetically engineered) foods that have not been approved by Health Canada for safe human consumption. The GM foods will have been approved for safety in at least one other country but not yet evaluated as safe by our own regulators. The federal government calls this “Low Level Presence” or LLP and argues that this “low level” of contamination from unapproved GM foods is not harmful.

LLP is unacceptable and unjustifiable:

- LLP is trade policy at the expense of public health. The goal of LLP is to facilitate the free flow of goods into Canada, without the restriction of safety assessment.

-  LLP overthrows public health policy. LLP rejects Canada’s “science-based” regulation of GMOs because LLP assumes that GMOs are safe before evaluating the available data.

- LLP makes safety regulation irrelevant. LLP establishes an exception to the (already highly criticized and woefully inadequate) process whereby government regulators review scientific data to determine human health safety. The introduction of LLP will further undermine our international reputation for food safety as well as the confidence of Canadians in our food system.

- If LLP is introduced, it will be clear that the Canadian Government has no interest in protecting the health and safety of Canadians.

Write your letter today from http://www.cban.ca/llpaction

For more information visit http://www.cban.ca/llp

Donate today to support the campaigns at http://www.cban.ca/donate

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Guest Post-Beet Leaf Buns

Thanks again to Leslie ( and her friend Jennifer) for this very special recipe and blog post.


Food can evoke some powerful memories and allow us to share time with special people in many ways, even if they are not with us.


Blessings,
Linda

Beet Leaf Buns

This past summer I saw a posting on Facebook (yes facebook) by a friend of mine, Jennifer, about how she was going to make Beet Leaf Buns. I was instantly intrigued as I had never heard of Beet Leaf Buns so I sent Jen a message. Turns out her Baba (Grandma) made these all the time when Jen was growing up. At the time of our chat about these buns Jen explained that her Baba had had Alzheimer’s disease for awhile and in the last few years it had progressed significantly and as a result Jen was becoming quite nostalgic, hence her trying to make them on her own. Coming from a part Ukrainian family like Jen, I was surprised that I had never heard of the buns. After inquiring with my mom and aunts they too had never heard of them before. Well after many batches this has now become a new tradition for my family. Thanks Jen for sharing your family’s tradition with me! I hope other people enjoy this recipe as much as my family does. 

This recipe is a combination of a few different ones that can be found online. Now Jen told me her Baba never made the sour cream sauce but she did fry chopped green onions in “skads” of butter and drizzled it over the buns and then tossed it all to make sure everything got a nice light coating. The choice is yours as both ways taste great! 

This blog post is in memory of Verna Serhienko (Jen’s Baba) who passed away on November 1, 2011. 

Ingredients

Raised bread dough (make your own or buy it ready made) 

Beet Leaves 

Sour Cream 

Onion powder 

Garlic powder

Fresh dill

Butter 

Salt & Pepper 

Wash and dry beet leaves. 

Mix together approximately 1 cup of sour cream with onion powder, garlic powder, dill, and salt & pepper to taste.  Set aside. 

Grease a round roaster or large casserole dish with butter. Cut off small pieces of bread dough (about the size of a walnut) and wrap each in a beet leaf, rolling loosely. If leaves are very small, use 2 or 3 per bun. Place in the pan. Place the rolls tightly together. 

After you have laid the first layer, spread a few “small specks” of butter here and there and then slather with some of the sour cream mixture. 

Lay the next layer on top, and finish with more butter and sour cream mixture. 

Let sit for about 40 minutes, or until bread dough doubles in size. Place in a 350C oven and bake for 45 minutes to an hour (or until bread is baked and getting golden on top) 

Serve with extra sour cream mixture for dipping. 

Seed Saving Season Never Ends

Last April I began the age - old process of saving seeds for the 2012 garden and for my seed sales.

Those plants considered "biennials " in terms of their seed saving cycle were planted back in the newly thawed ground. Winter radishes, turnips, carrots, beets, mangels and cabbages are amongst my favourites to save and replant.

The multi-legged Long Black Spanish winter radish above needed a large hole needless to say, coming in at a weight over 10 lbs. Big radish.

I store these items with the tops removed, in barrels and layered in straw, then plant them in the cool spring soil.  Then magic happens. The seed stalks shoot up, and months later I am harvesting the lovely dry seed.

Imagine- a bean necklace!

Jolly Jester Marigold

The seed saving continues for the entire season. From tomatoes, to peppers and eggplants, flowers, seed potato and potato berries, beans, peas and lettuces. I could go on, and certainly do!

The beans I am still in the process of gathering.

A late wet spring resulted in late bean plantings, and a wet fall has made it difficult to get the beans off the field. But worth the effort none the less.

I have dry beans in their dried up pods everywhere! On my bedroom dresser, hanging in the garage, in the basement, and "lucky beans" in most of my pockets. As does Mollie. Some of them are just so beautifully patterned we carry them for luck. They remind me of the beauty of nature and of diversity.  They also speak to the potential of everything...even a small pretty patterned bean.

These beans are food for now and for the future. They are also 'objet's d'art" in my opinion. I believe the potential of bean jewellery is huge. However I have failed to sell anyone on this idea just yet.

Beans are one of the last seed harvests in the garden, as are the members of the physalis family. Tomatillos, ground cherries and cape gooseberries sit well in their little husks for weeks, so I get to them when I have the time.

My massive Salinas Valley tomatillos

They are fun to get seeds from. I pull out my trusty "Vita Mix" blender, pop in the de-husked fruit with a healthy splash of water and whir the fruits on low speed until it is a pleasant mash.

I wait for a minute for the contents to settle and the heavier seed has sunk, while the pulp and skin floats above it. I strain off the mash on top ( feeding it to my resident pig Joey) and clean the seeds below in a sieve with cold running water.

They are then laid out to dry, packaged, hopefully labelled and stored in a dry cool place. For me, that's the bottom of my freezer in a mason jar.

Want to save more of your own seed? They key is saving seed from open pollinated varieties, isolating varieties so as to prevent cross pollination and ensure seed purity and storing seed properly.
The very best guide I have found is Suzanne Ashworth's book "Seed to Seed", worth every penny you will pay for it.

When you learn the basics, you can really start to have fun. You can create your own varieties, work on growing out your favourite hybrids until they are open pollinated, and join the seed exchanges to share your valuable seed.

And of course, Niagara Seedy Saturday provides this opportunity too. Mark your calendars and get your seed packaged.

And I'll see you at Brock University, Pond Inlet on Feb 11, 2012!

Stuck

Ever feel stuck? Stalled or immobilized?

Stuck in a rut, in a job, in a relationship, in a mood?

Can't move. You're paralyzed.

Imagine how this little soul felt when he tried to get through a 1/2 " circle in a hard plastic planting box.

I'm so glad I found her.  It was really just a fluke of a thing. I looked in the right direction and there she was. Her gorgeous little brown eyes staring up at . Pleading silent. Help me, please.

She was wedged in pretty good. Her poor little bottom end just couldn't slip through.

What to do, what to do?

A few weepy moments then to the task at hand. It took me about 30 minutes to cut through the hard plastic with my secateurs. And ever so carefully as I approached her little body. I was so scared I would nip her.

But I freed her. She was in shock I think. I made her a nice little bed of straw to rest in, where it was safe.

When I came back she was gone. Scampered off I hope to do mousy little things. Survive.

Good luck little soul.

Turn to friends, I think that's the lesson. And friends might be those who you least suspect will help you.

We all need each other and can do good.

Why wouldn't we?