iDevice program streamlines farmers’ market purchases

Apr17

This year, it will be even easier to shop at the Southeast Area Farmers’ Market with EBT, WIC and Double Up Food Bucks. Market customers will be able to make these purchases directly from the market vendors rather than wait in line for tokens at the market welcome table.

Farmers’ market vendors throughout the state will use iDevices for processing WIC, WIC Project FRESH, Summer EBT for Children, SNAP and Double Up Food Bucks transactions for their customers. The Our Kitchen Table (OKT) market management team and our local vendors are undergoing training in May to prepare for this change.

The state is providing the devices free of charge to all market vendors throughout the state accepting Bridge/EBT cards. The question comes to mind as to whether this is the wisest way to spend monies budgeted for providing food insecure Michigan residents with access to much needed fresh produce.

During the 2011 market season, the Garfield Gerald R Ford Middle School market locations processed a large number of EBT and Double UP Food Bucks transactions. With Double Up Food Bucks, market patrons can double their buying power. For every dollar they spend on fresh Michigan produce with their EBT/SNAP card at the markets, they receive two dollars’ worth, up to $20 ($40 in food).

Other local farmers’ markets accepting EBT, WIC and Double Up Food Bucks are Fulton Street Farmers’ Market, Plainfield Township Farmers’ Market, Sparta Farmers’ Market and the YMCA of Greater Grand Rapids Farmers’ Market. This year, OKT also hopes to offer market patrons the opportunity to sign up for other government assistance programs when they visit the market.

The Southeast Area Farmers’ Market is committed to improving access to fresh healthy foods in our urban neighborhoods. Market season begins June 2 at the Garfield Park location and June 15 at the Gerald R Ford location. Please spread the word!

Protect Michigan’s Yard Debris Ban

Apr13

This message is reposted from the US Composting Council’s Protect Michigan’s Yard Debris Ban campaign. Click here to send the message to your senator that the curent yard waste law needs to stay in effect.

Michigan HB 4265 and HB 4266 would exempt landfills with gas recovery systems from the state’s longstanding ban on landfill disposal of yard trimmings.

There are many reasons to oppose these Grass-to-Landfill Gas bills including:

  • Will hurt or put out of business the 75 operations registered in Michigan as composting facilities. Along with this will be a loss of potentially hundreds of jobs.  According to The Institute for Local Self Reliance, on a per-ton basis, composting creates four times as many jobs as landfilling or incinerating the same material.
  • Will not contribute to energy independence. Yard trimmings, due to its high lignin content, decomposes slowly and only partially in a landfill environment, contributing an insignificant amount to Michigan’s energy needs. The landfill energy argument is a convenient smoke screen to obscure the real goal:  increased revenues at landfills at the expense of recovery via composting.
  • Will hurt the environment. Landfill gas collection systems capture 60 to 90% at various times of operation, according to the EPA.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledges that over a landfill’s entire life that rate may be as low as 20%.  The remainder of the methane is released to the atmosphere.  Landfill gases have been viewed historically as local nuisances.  We now know these gases have the potential to impact our environment today and in the future.  The global warming impact of methane is 25 times higher than carbon dioxide.  Reducing the amount of biodegradable materials flowing into landfills – such as through composting – is the best way to reduce methane landfill emissions. Composting also has numerous other environmental benefits including improved water dynamics, reduced irrigation needs, healthier plants, and improved stormwater management.  Michigan’s composts could reap many benefits for the state’s agricultural crops.
  • Landfills do not responsibly process yard trimmings.  Contrary to landfill gas industry claims, landfills are not equally capable of responsibly processing yard trimmings as compost operations.  Compost is a valuable soil amendment product with multiple and growing markets. It is widely recognized for its ability to restore depleted soils, manage erosion, and increase crop yields.  Compost is a high-value product.  Furthermore, landfill bans extend the life of landfills, thereby reducing the costs of siting, zoning, building, and maintaining new landfills in the State.
  • Contradicts Michigan’s own laws. Act 451, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act, Part 115, Solid Waste Management, section 324/11514, states in part “The state shall develop policies and practices that promote recycling and reuse of materials and, to the extent practical, minimize the use of landfilling as a method for disposal of its waste.” Burying yard trimmings in landfills, methane collection or not, is NOT recycling, because there is no return to use.  Capturing landfill gas is not a form of recycling.  It is an end-of-pipe option.
  • Primarily benefits one corporation at the expense of many Michigan businesses.  By far the biggest beneficiary of this legislation would be the Granger corporation, which operates 16 landfill gas projects in six states.   But it would jeopardize the operations of dozens of businesses and hamper the ability to grow the composting industry in Michigan at a time when composting is expanding from coast to coast.  Composters and other recyclers of organic waste are generating high value products used to support a variety of important industries, such as agriculture, horticulture, landscaping, stormwater management, and erosion control.  Markets for compost continue to grow.
  • This legislation co-mingles trimmings and solid waste.  This would allow importation of out-of-state yard waste into Michigan landfills, turning Michigan into a waste dump
  • Contradicts the position of Solid Waste Management Association of North America (SWANA), the national association representing the landfill industry. In a joint position statement in 2006 by SWANA and the USCC, it states that advances in landfill technology “should be accomplished without encouraging more organics to be placed in landfills, and without reversing hard won and effective programs and regulatory efforts that have raised recycling rates for organic residuals. Energy recovery, in bioreactor or conventional landfills, must be pursued without relaxing recycling initiatives and without improperly creating incentives for more land disposal.” The joint position paper is attached for your review.
This entry was posted on April 13, 2012, in Policy.

New greenhouse intern helping to grow food plants for community

Apr11

OKT's greenhouse intern, Liseia Woodard.

After job postings at Grand Valley State University and Calvin College failed to draw an available, qualified applicant for the position of greenhouse intern, the women of Our Kitchen Table began asking friends and community members to send applicants our way. Sure enough, the perfect person for the job was right under our noses.

Miss Liseia Woodard grew up gardening in her own back yard from the time she was a small child. She participated as a peer educator in the Blandford Farm school garden program during middle school and was a vendor during last season’s Southeast Area Farmers’ Market, where her mother, Ms. Yvonne Woodard, serves as market manager.

Liseia garnered near perfect scores during an intensive interview with three OKT representatives—she scored extra points for enthusiasm. Ms. Leslie Huffman, greenhouse supervisor, is happy to have found a candidate that brings both extensive gardening experience and a passion for growing food.

Liseia earns her high school diploma this June and, in addition to working in the greenhouse 20 a week, will begin her higher education at Grand Rapids Community College. Liseia, Ms. Huffman and the OKT team are already busy in the former Molesta Greenhouse, planting flats of vegetables and herbs that will grow into healthy food for our neighborhoods. These food plants will be distributed to yard gardeners and OKT’s demonstration gardens in June and again in July. Food harvested from the demo gardens will be put into baskets and distributed to pre-selected food insecure families each week at the farmers’ market. OKT yard gardeners have the option of selling excess produce at the market.

Would you like to be an OKT yard gardener? Email us today at OKTable1@gmail.com or call 616-570-0218.

OKT peer educator, Sheri Munsell, helps organize march for Trayvon Martin

Apr9

This is reposted from GRIID.org 

Trayvon just the most recent victim of a racist system of power is message of march in Grand Rapids

APRIL 8, 2012

Yesterday, about 50 people marched in downtown Grand Rapids to denounce the murder of Trayvon Martin and to stand in solidarity with his family and all those who have been recent victims of racist violence.

People gathered at a small storefront space, which is home to Take Hold Church. The two women responsible for organizing the march then addressed the crowd.

Sheri Munsell spoke first and talked about how the murder of Trayvon impacted her emotionally. She said she kept thinking that Trayvon looked just like her nephew all grown up and it made her fear for his future.

Sheri then went on to say that Trayvon’s murder should be a wake up call to all of us to not stand by in the future and let this kind of violence happen to our brothers and sisters. She said we needed to stop the so-called justice system from profiling and abusing communities of color.

Sheri also acknowledged that Trayvon’s murder was just the most recent in a long list of people, primarily young black men, who have been shot or beaten to death by police officers around the country. This is a theme that many writers and organizations have been communicating in recent weeks.

Sheri was followed by April Bert, who began her comments by quoting the poet Maya Angelo. April said that Trayvon represents so many who have been victims of a racist system of oppression, but he also represents the past, the present and the future of what we want to be.

After the opening remarks by the organizers, people marched down Division to the Kent County Court House. Along the way people chanted and carried signs. At one point several other people joined the march and one man and his son joined even though they were not aware of the action, but joined because as he said, “it was the right thing to do with my son.”

Once the group arrived at the Kent County Court House, Rev. Paul Mayhue said a prayer and then continued to address the crowd. Mayhue acknowledged that there was a great deal of injustice happening in the US, but he put the emphasis of his comments on the importance of working within the system. Mayhue challenged those in the crowd to run for political office and judicial seats so that they could make the right decisions when faced with racist and violent actions in our community. In light of what has been happening with violence against communities of color and the lack of any real justice, Mayhue’s comments seem to contradict what had been said by Sheri Munsell before the march even started.

Cole Dorsey, with the IWW, followed up those comments by saying that he was not only encouraged by the fact that people came out for the march, but that it was grassroots organizing and mobilizing of people that can make real change and create real justice. “When we organize together, we can challenge the system,” said Dorsey. He also mentioned that the Prison Industrial Complex disproportionately targets and punishes communities of color, which should tell us something about how the system is corrupt and that we shouldn’t wait for elected officials to make the changes that we want.

The last person to address those who marched was Rev. Fred Wooden, pastor at Fountain St. Church. Rev. Wooden framed his comments within the theme of the Jewish Passover and made three points. First, he said that we all need to be willing to move when injustice confronts us, but he also acknowledged that this kind of change would require a cost to all of us. Second, he said that we should not be deceived by those who wish to control us and that we should expect that deception will occur. Lastly, he said that need to challenge those if power, which means we need to challenge the system if we want real liberation.

The group than walked back to where the march started, with lively conversation and a second opportunity to communicate to those walking or driving by that indeed there were some people in this community who were not going to remain silent about the murder of Trayvon Martin.

“Cook, Eat & Talk” Middle Eastern food demo a fun and healthy success

Mar27

On Friday March 23, Wafa Haddad, middle Eastern chef and proprietor of TigerLilly Arabic Language Academy, invited Our Kitchen Table’s guests to help her prepare a delicious and healthy dinner at Gerald R Ford Middle School. “Mama” Wafa’s menu included fatouch salad, thyme pie, artichoke with herbs bake and lemonade with sage and mint. The dishes used herbs that OKT is growing for this season’s gardeners. Click here for Wafa’s Middle Eastern Recipes

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It was a big day for Wafa as that afternoon Mayor George Heartwell, city dignitaries and friends joined her for the ribbon cutting ceremony at her new classroom.

Driven to Distraction: Food, chemicals and child behavior

Mar26

Last week, Our Kitchen Table shared an overview of a webinar that spoke to how chemical exposures harm babies in the womb. This follow-up post shares how specific food additives are impacting our children’s physical and behavioral health. 

 Reposted from Healthy Food Action

Compelling science now suggests synthetic food dyes and caramel colorings often added to candy – as well as junk food and other kids’ foods – can affect their learning and behavior, and may increase cancer risk. This science forced the adoption of safer alternatives to food dyes in the UK; the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been petitioned to do the same. An FDA science advisory committee reviewed the new science in April 2011. Developmental brain toxins are also found as additives to other children’s products, like toys and lunch boxes. Child advocates are pushing for policy reforms addressing these risks as well.

Speakers Karen Bowman, MN, RN, COHN-S, Michael Jacobson, PhD, Lawrence Rosen, MD, and David Wallinga, MD, will discuss the latest science and policy reforms now being debated.

This entry was posted on March 26, 2012, in Press.

Chemical exposures harming babies in the womb

Mar23

The Michigan Green Chemistry Clearinghouse broadcasted a free Webinar March 14, “Neurodevelopmental outcomes in children associated with chemical exposures occurring early in life.”  Presenter, Amir Miodovnick, MD, MPH, DTM&H, who works in Pediatric Environmental Medicine at The Mount Sinai School of Medicine, revealed that chemical exposure in our everyday environment is doing great harm to our infants and children—especially babies in the womb.

The list of toxic substances would be hard for any pregnant woman to totally avoid, even if she was up on the latest research, had money for safer product choices or ate a totally organic diet.

These chemical toxins are in the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink. High on the list of damaging toxins are organophosphate pesticides, fire retardants in clothing and furniture, compounds found in most plastics and even on every electronic receipt we get when we buy something. Miodovnick noted that organophosphates were first developed for deadly chemical warfare and later modified for use as pesticides.

Recent research has shown these chemicals are linked to premature labor, low birth weight, autism, hyperactivity, lower IQ and cerebral palsy in children. Girls exposed in the womb have more risk for emotional illness; boys are more prone to aggression. “These effects are occurring at lower andlower levels, at levels lower than the (EPA) standard,” Miodovnick said.

While folic acid as a supplement or when consumed in deep green leafy vegetable, can amend the effects of some of these toxins in the first trimester of pregnancy, lead is the only toxin that can be reduced in the body through a nutritional approach, according to Miodovnick. He noted that eating foods high in calcium and maintaining good iron stores can help rid lead from the body.

That said, eating organic foods can reduce exposures to these deadly chemicals.

Current EPA regulations do little to protect us and our children from toxic contamination. The sole regulations in place were adopted after the most toxic substances were already in widespread use. These were grandfathered in and excluded from safety testing requirements. Because safety testing is costly, chemical companies simply do not look for safer alternatives as these would require safety testing.

Click here to view a .pdf of the webinar presentation in full.