Peggy received $50, a gift card to the Co-op and a Co-op t-shirt, and widespread acclaim!

Stay tuned for the staff-pick recipe, “Stodge” from Muriel Gay of Jonesboro.

In 1982, the actor co-founded Newman’s Own, a line of foods that he himself loved and helped to create. Thinking that the company would probably post losses or at best break even, Newman was pleasantly surprised when people around the world took to Newman’s Own products in droves. Since its founding, the company has donated 100 percent of its profits to charity—and as of August 2009, that figure had topped $280 million.

In 1993, Paul’s daughter Nell decided to step up to the plate herself and established a purely organic division of the company, Newman’s Own Organics.

A Natural Introduction

From childhood, Nell had been exposed to natural foods. At their rural Connecticut home, the Newmans had a garden and raised chickens. Nell was taught to cook by her mother and spent many hours fishing with her father. While in college she continued to experiment in the kitchen, and she is still the designated chef when home for family holiday dinners.

Nell attended the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in human ecology. She worked briefly at the Environmental Defense Fund in New York but, preferring a more rural environment, soon moved to northern California. It was there she rediscovered fresh, locally grown food.

“When I was in college, there was not a lot of organic,” Nell told Organic Connections. “It was mostly nasty little wrinkled apples. Eden Foods had some stuff, but there simply wasn’t a lot of fresh organic produce. It was just things being grown in people’s backyards or whatever was wild.

“So I was amazed that, when I moved out here in 1988, there was a Wednesday farmers’ market that had already been there for a couple of years, and as far as I know, it was largely organic. I had never seen anything like it. Then I ate at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse restaurant many times. I told my dad, ‘Pop, organic does not have to mean heavy whole wheat!’ I told him there was a world of organic out there that he wouldn’t believe. And then when I was fundraising for a small non-profit, I kept looking at what Pop was doing and thinking, That looks like an easy way to raise money for non-profits. Maybe I should start thinking about doing something a little different. So I came up with this harebrained idea to do an organic division of Newman’s Own and see if we could make a go of that. And it’s done pretty well.”

Indeed it has. Beginning with a line of pretzels, the company—with the motto “Great tasting food that happens to be organic”—has expanded to include chocolate bars, Fig Newmans, Champion Chip Cookies, chocolate cups, Newman-O’s, Pop’s Corn, Alphabet Cookies, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Balsamic Vinegar, dried fruit, Soy Crisps, Hermits, mints, coffee and Royal Tea. Of course, much more is planned.

The Importance of Defining “Natural”

Along the way, Nell made sure that the products for Newman’s Own Organics were truly organic. More than 70 percent of all ingredients used in the formulation of Newman’s Own Organics foods are organic, and all products are certified by Oregon Tilth, a leading organic certifier, following strict guidelines laid down by the USDA on organic production.

Nell has recently discovered just how important such stipulations are—and how necessary it is for retailers to help educate consumers to watch for them. As it turns out, it is equally important for products labeled “all natural.”

“I saw an article the other day saying that Eden Foods had put out a call for having a standard for ‘all natural,’ which I thought was real interesting because there isn’t any,” Nell said. “I now know how important that is. I was home about a month ago, and my mom’s housekeeper had gone out to buy a brand of soy milk that my mother has been drinking for years. She thought she was buying the right stuff, but when she brought it back I looked at the box and I thought that it looked like their organic product. But on closer inspection, it wasn’t. It turns out they now have a line of organic and a line of conventional, but the original product has the same packaging; so unless you look, you won’t know.

“Our housekeeper also bought for me what was labeled ‘16-grain bread,’ and I thought that was really impressive. But then I looked at the packaging, and the ingredients listed were whole wheat, oats, corn syrup, barley malt—basically it had 2 or 3 grains and a bunch of filler. At the very bottom the label stated that there was ‘no more than 2 percent of the following’ and it listed the other 13 grains. It was mind-boggling! Basically wheat and filler. The consumer knows what the consumer wants, but the consumer doesn’t always know what to look for. I think the retailer has a big responsibility to not just sell products but to sell good products. It’s frustrating when you realize that you’ve bought the wrong thing because you weren’t paying attention, but it’s hard to tell sometimes.”

Genetic Modification

Like a number of other top food activists today, Nell is also speaking out on a matter many consider dangerous, and one which a lot of consumers are unaware of because the law doesn’t require labeling: the genetic modi-fication of crops. Not long ago, she wrote an excellent foreword to Andrew Kimbrell’s book Your Right to Know: Genetic Engineering and the Secret Changes in Your Food.

“It’s clear to me that a handful of chemical corporations have rushed gene-altered foods into our fields and supermarkets without conducting the science needed to demonstrate the safety of these foods for our children, the environment and us,” Nell observed. “In fact, independent studies coming in from universities and government agencies, both here and abroad, demonstrate the hazards that these biotech foods can present to our health and to the natural world.”

A major part of the problem that genetic engineering represents—especially to organic farmers—is cross-contamination. “Initially the party line from chemical companies was ‘There will be no problem. The pollen only blows three feet. There will be no genetic crossing.’ And of course they were wrong about that,” said Nell. “It does happen and it’s something that organic farmers have to deal with—hopefully not too often, but it is a problem. And it is a problem because organic farmers are out there working as hard as they can to grow a crop that has not been contaminated, and processors work as hard as they can to process that crop into an uncontaminated product, and they’re doing everything possible. But the cross-contamination is sometimes out of their hands. It becomes a very expensive proposition for the organic farmer to make sure that nothing is contaminated.”

In support of her statements, Nell points to a lawsuit recently won by the Center for Food Safety in which, for the first time in history, a court ordered the halting of plantings of a new genetically engineered crop. In 2007, a US District Court in California ruled that the USDA illegally approved genetically modified alfalfa without first preparing a full Environmental Impact Statement taking into account the contamination of conventional and organic alfalfa. Monsanto, the defendant in the case, appealed twice. CFS defended its victory and in June 2009 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court decision, denying both of Monsanto’s appeals, thus upholding a two-year-old nationwide ban on the planting of genetically engineered alfalfa.

As to why the government allows genetically modified crops to continue without testing, Nell—like many of us—suspects some “insider” work with the government. “I always wondered why,” she said. “It seems to be such common sense and yet nothing appears to be happening. Then about five or six years ago, I read an article in Mother Jones and realized exactly why it’s so hard to get something done about it. In this article, they actually followed the heads of all these big biotech companies as they left their jobs and went to work for the government and wrote policy and then went back to their former positions. It’s a flowchart; it was an amazing article. For example, they worked for Monsanto and then they worked for the USDA and then they wrote food policy for two years and then they went back to Monsanto. After that, I understood why it was so hard.”

Nell advises all of us who are in the know to keep ourselves informed and to keep others informed as well. “I think doing your homework, educating yourself about organics and the issues around them, is very important so that you can become an educated consumer. You can also join a non-profit that you think is actually doing a good job in terms of helping regulate these issues. The Center for Food Safety is a great one, and there are others. You can also pressure your local congressmen to consider this a matter of importance. Without a doubt food safety is a big concern these days and you could certainly consider this a food-safety issue.”

The Growing Market

“I believe, on a consumer level, interest in sustainably grown food is really increasing, which is indicated by the growth of farmers’ markets. People are more interested in where their food is coming from and are willing to go that little extra bit to find it. It is an opportunity to get fresher produce directly from the source. I also think that trend will help promote growth by having the buyer’s dollar go directly to the farmer, and we’ll continue to see an increase in farmers’ markets and more ability to buy on a local level.”

For more information on Newman’s Own Organics, please visit www.newmansownorganics.com.

To learn more about the Center for Food Safety and their continuing work, visit www.truefoodnow.org.

Reprinted from Organic Connect Magazine

Emilie Hermans of Surry speaks about growing her own food as part of a panel discussion on food security. The discussion was one of the Eat Local Challenge events sponsored by the Co-op.

The Maine Millennium Commission on Food Security’s definition is “access by all people at all times to sufficient food for an active and healthy life. Food security includes, at a minimum, the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.”

When he was a boy, Will Hopkins remembers digging clams with his Dad and brother. An abundance of food was available from the land and sea. There was plenty to feed his coastal community from fishing, clamming, crabbing, farming, and hunting. When he returned to Maine as an adult, Cobscook Bay was the only diversified fishery in the area. In addressing the issue of food security, Will noted the loss of “generational abundance” and the need to work together to recreate a marketplace for fishermen. As the Executive Director of the Cobscook Bay Resource Center, Will has coordinated a shared facility (to be built in the spring) to provide scallop processing, wholesale shipping and retail sales in Eastport.

Aaron Dority, Penobscot East Resource Center, said for fishermen security equals access. Besides access to the waterfront, another issue for fishers is equity—receiving a fair price for their catch. PERC is working to increase security for area fishermen and is addressing concerns with government regulations, licenses and permits. Aaron is working specifically on the Downeast Groundfish Initiative to create a sustainable groundfishing industry.

From the perspective of food justice, the number of local families accessing supplemental food sources has almost quadrupled in the past four years, according to the Tree of Life Food Pantry. “We need to let go of our judgments,”said Hadley Friedman, co-creator of the Simmering Pot Community Suppers and board member of the Tree of Life. The Simmering Pot provides wholesome food in a safe place where people are not judged, everyone is welcome, and no one is turned away. With an increase in numbers, Simmering Pot needs more people to help coordinate preparation of meals and coordinate donated food items.

They are also looking for volunteers to work on a recipe project. Hadley has taught the CookShop curriculum in schools and implemented a Learning Garden and Kitchen at Sedgwick Elementary School. She said education is a big part of food security—teaching families how to prepare healthful meals using basic, affordable ingredients. Hadley is also helping to improve the choices offered to individuals receiving food from the pantry by increasing the number of items from local producers.

“Going to the store to buy food is not true food security,” said Emilie Hermans, who homesteads in Surry with her husband and daughter. They grow vegetables and fruit and raise chicken and pigs on their land in order to be more self-sufficient. Emilie spends most of her time planning, growing, harvesting, and keeping (storing and preserving) their food so they are less reliant on the global food system. She also trades with neighbors and local farmers and supports others who produce food for our communities. Emilie encourages people to produce their own food as much as possible, preserve their harvest, and learn how to cook again. However, she believes it will take more of a crisis to make our communities take action to have a secure food system.

Nicolas Lindholm of Hackmatack Farm said food security starts with the soil. He didn’t get into farming for the money but for the sustainability of the soil. After years of trying to grow more intensively (using bio-intensive methods), he is employing more bio-extensive methods: ridge tillage and a crop rotation system. Nicolas said that in order to maintain soil over time, farmers and gardeners need to care for their soil and pay attention to its needs.

The harvest gathering was organized by the Eat Local Challenge team and sponsored by the Blue Hill Co-op, Tinder Hearth Bakery, Clayfield Farm, Wind & Sun Farm, Brooksville Farmers’ Market, and the First Congregational Church of Blue Hill.

Further information about the Eat Local Challenge is available at the Co-op and on their website at www.bluehill.coop. Additional resources are also available at the Blue Hill Library.

“The Simmering Pot” soup kitchen is open every other Monday at the First Congregational Church of Blue Hill on Main Street. The project began on January 12 and has served about 20-25 families each time. Hadley Friedman and Brendan Murray, who work together at the Blue Hill Co-op Café, started the free community suppers after recognizing a need in the community. They contacted the Tree of Life Food Pantry seeking fiscal and organizational sponsorship. After a brief presentation and exchange of ideas, Tree of Life board members agreed that this project was a great match for them in expanding their current services.

The cooks and volunteers serve soup, bread, and fruit from 2:30 pm–6:00 pm, and participants may eat-in or take-home (or both). They encourage you to pick-up soup for your neighbor or friend! The chefs are also giving away copies of their soup recipes so you can create them at home. Co-organizer Hadley Friedman said they are trying to use local products for the meals whenever possible.

There is no charge for any of the meals. The community supper is open to all; however, the organizers respectfully request that all children under the age of 16 years old be accompanied by an adult. The Simmering Pot will hopefully become a year-round offering. For more information, contact Hadley at 374-2898.

The Simmering Pot project is a subsidiary food program of The Tree of Life Food Pantry. Presently, this project is generously supported with the time, energy and creativity of the community members of the Blue Hill Peninsula, The First Congregational Church of Blue Hill, The Town of Blue Hill, The Town of Castine, Union Trust Bank, Bar Harbor Bank and Trust, Tradewinds MarketPlace, Mill Brook Bakery, the Blue Hill Co-op Community Market and Café, Blue Bay Catering, the Brooklin Inn, Buck’s Restaurant, the Blue Hill Library, and Healthy Peninsula.

To inquire about making a food or monetary donation, or to discuss volunteer opportunities, please contact Hadley Friedman at 207-374-2898. You may also e-mail Hadley at hadley.friedman73@gmail.com.