Conscious Choice: Inspired Organics

January 2006 | Choice Feedback

Inspired Organics

BACK IN February of this year, unhappy with my current job and looking for a way to help family farmers and make organic foods more accessible and affordable for consumers, I came up with the idea for my business, Organic Networking, Ltd., “Connecting Organic Farmers with Restaurateurs.”

As a shareholder in Community Supported Agriculture, Angelic Organics in Caledonia, Ill., I noticed that the organic vegetable shares didn’t always sell out. I wondered why they didn’t just sell directly to restaurants and grocery stores. Then I realized that the farmers are so busy farming that they don’t have the time to make sales calls. Restaurant owners and grocery store buyers also don’t have the time to search for the highest-quality foods. I could provide a valuable service for them.

Interesting idea, but how would I meet organic family farmers? Imagine my amazement when I opened the Feb. ’05 issue of Conscious Choice and found a two-page ad highlighting the FamilyFarmed.org Trade Show at Navy Pier for March 6-7. Kismet.

I met the good men of Dakota Beef and now enjoy a fabulous working relationship with them. I also met Russ Buchholz of Neighboring Farms, Healthy Foods of Malta, Ill. A few days after the show, Russ called me. I visited his farm and he showed me his silo and new building and how he mills his organic grains into flour and expeller presses them into cooking oil. I’m honored to represent good, hard-working family farmers and sell their quality foods.

— Wanda Arakaki Leopold, President, Organic Networking, Ltd.

I AM TOLD that Conscious Enlightenment, Inc, based in L.A., Calif., has purchased Conscious Choice and three other U.S. publications with the intention to expand and include some national monthlies as well. I am told, further, that there will be a format change. I am concerned about the trajectory of this great local publication now becoming yet another casualty of the same vertical integration that is sanitizing, censoring and essentially killing local media of all kinds around the country.

While I support national, progressive organizations such as CoopAmerica and national, progressive pundits such as Jim Hightower, we are very clearly losing a local voice. That concerns me, and my guess is it concerns many others as well.

— Gregg R. Baker, Evanston, Ill.

Editor’s note: The new owners have told the staff they are committed to keeping the local voice strong and any format change or redesign efforts would be done with our input.

Organic Family Makeover

I WANT to thank Mia Tennenbaum for her honest portrayal of her family’s quest to change their eating habits (“Organic Family Makeover” Nov.’05 issue). Her sincerity was palpable and really drove home the rewards and pitfalls of her challenge.

Adding more organic food to a family’s diet really can be daunting — particularly when the actual definition of the word “organic” is stretching and changing every day. It sometimes seems as if the challenge is just too great; taking time to read labels, traveling from store to store, and suffering sticker shock all in one day — and that’s just the grocery shopping! (It sounds more like buying a car!)

Although my four children are now grown, I walked in Ms. Tennenbaum’s shoes when it came to getting the family to come around. If your children like peanut butter, you can use the organic version and make the sandwich with one slice of whole wheat bread, and one slice of white – the bread can be organic, too! When everyone is getting home right at dinnertime, the fastest healthy dinner in our house is omelettes with organic eggs and leftover organic veggies from the week, toast and juice.

I’ve found that the goal of eating 100 percent organically is simply unrealistic — it’s a pursuit that creates too much stress. Rather, substituting organic for commercial items that we eat all the time and trying some new ones now and then for fun has really done the trick for us. I wish Mia Tennenbaum and her family all the best as they travel this path to health. It’s an adventure, and it’s worth it.

— Rita Frueh, Timber Creek Farms Organics, Yorkville, Ill.

Timber Creek Farms Organics has been delivering USDA-certified organic food to homes in a 100-mile radius of Chicago for over 15 years, and works directly with the growers, people who believe in true organic food. tcforganics.com.

Alternative Thanksgivings

THANK YOU for your article “Adopt a New Tradition” about how Americans can now adopt rescued turkeys instead of eating them. Our nonprofit’s mission here in Chicago is to reduce the suffering of animals by promoting a vegetarian diet, and with each passing year we find more and more Americans are going vegetarian. Adopting a rescued bird (or pig, chicken or cow) and adopting a vegetarian diet is a great way to put compassion into action this holiday season. In the year 2005, with grocery stores stocked full of delicious, vegetarian alternatives, no animal should suffer for our holiday traditions.

— Danielle Marino, Chicago, Mercy For Animals

I ENJOYED Darlene E. Paris’ article “Real Thanksgiving” in the November 2005 issue of Conscious Choice. Being a vegetarian and part raw-foodist, I also find it difficult to invite people over for special occasions.

I am interested in how your Thanksgiving turned out. Were your kinfolk welcome to trying new types of food? Was the focus more on thankfulness rather than the food itself, due to the change from what is commonly served?

— Karen Woytowich, Bolingbrook, Ill.

Darlene E. Paris’ response: My plans went awry this Thanksgiving. My cousins from New Orleans decided they’d visit in December, so I couldn’t use their arrival to lure my kinfolks to a non-traditional meal and when I suggested everyone come over for dinner anyway, they decided to take a pass.

Although I did not prepare dinner for my family, I did prepare a vegan meal for myself. Some of my relatives were interested in the tofu turkey I was eating and wanted to try it. But I wound up spending Thanksgiving again with cousins who served the traditional holiday meal: turkey, dressing, macaroni and cheese, string beans and, of all things, chitterling — pig intestines. This year they got revenge because the menu didn’t even include a salad!

Everyone rushed to eat like we’ve done for the past 20 years. I watched the entire scene, as I wanted to learn from this experience so I know how to approach them when I tell them I’ve decided to host Christmas dinner.

Correction/clarification: A December 2005 Conscious Choice article, “Reincarnated Trees,” misidentified the hometown of Roxanne and Mark Junge, who arranged for a fallen maple tree to be made into a coffee table. The couple resides in Glenview — not Glenwood, Ill.

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: