- Author: Julie Cates
When was the last time you were excited about school lunch? For most of us that answer might be “never” or perhaps “pizza day,” but for the students at Tulare County's Farmersville High School, breakfast and lunch have become interesting every day of the week.
This is due to the efforts of James Lohry, director of Farmersville Unified School District Food Service. Lohry completed a program called “Smarter Lunchrooms,” sponsored by the Cornell University Behavior Economics Center, the California Department of Education, the Dairy Council of California, and the UC Cooperative Extension Cal Fresh nutrition education program.
In essence, the
- Author: Penny Leff
Have you thought of trying to sell your homemade jam, granola, pies, or candy? Do you have fruit from your orchard or vegetables from your farm that would have more value processed than sold fresh? Maybe a Cottage Food Operation is the place to test your product and your market and start your new business.
Cottage Food Operations recently became legal in California. Before the California Homemade Food Act (AB1616) was signed into law in 2012, no commercial food production was allowed in home kitchens. The new law allows individuals to prepare and package certain non-potentially hazardous foods in private-home kitchens (referred to as "Cottage Food Operations"), and to sell limited quantities of these foods directly to the public...
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Bees do it. Birds do it. Even bats do it. They all help plants reproduce by carrying pollen from one flower to another. Beetles, butterflies, wasps, flies and moths are also pollinators.
About 35 percent of the food we eat depends on the assistance of bees to pollinate plants and trees so they will produce fruit, nuts or vegetables. It takes 1.6 million colonies of honey bees to pollinate California's 800,000 acres of almond trees.
Our food choices would be dramatically reduced if bees weren't around to pollinate. To illustrate what the produce section of a grocery store would look like in a world without bees, Whole Foods Market removed the products that depend on pollination from one of its stores and took a photo. See...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
You skipped breakfast and you're walking into the supermarket without a shopping list. Distracted by several two-legged and four-legged members of your household trying to compete for your attention, you left the list clipped to your refrigerator door.
You're famished. The potato chips look good. The glazed doughnuts look even better. And that chocolate candy bar? To die for.
Bring ‘em on!
No, wait a minute. Let's get real, let's get green and let's get healthy. And let's save some money.
Nutritionist Amy Block Joy, Cooperative Extension specialist emeritus, teaches a University of California, Davis, freshman class on “Eating...
- Author: Marissa (Palin) Stein
Nutritious food is an essential part of healthy growth and a healthy lifestyle. What we eat greatly influences how we feel and how happy we are. Nearly every community in California contributes in some way to food production, from large farms to backyard gardens. But even though California is the No. 1 agricultural state in the county, many residents feel far removed from their food sources, often not even recognizing them in their own backyard.
With demand for food supplies increasing, it's becoming more important for all of us to recognize exactly where (and what) fresh food is being grown around us.
Lend a helping hand
On May 8, 2014, we need your help populating our California food map. Get...
