Well, we made it through the holidays. The New Year is here and with it another year of possibilities. It seems that for the last few years there has been a resounding unhappiness with the results of the recent years gone by. “Hopefully 20XX will be better than last year!”, I see on the majority of Facebook posts. This year was a decent one for myself. It wasn’t anything to great and it wasn’t anything too bad either. All in all it was a fine year and I am happier now then when it started.

I get asked every year by one person or another, “Do you have any resolutions for this year?”. No, not really. I usually get a critical eye when I say that. My reasoning being that I try to not let things get bad enough to need a resolution to fix. However, this year I am resolving to eat less meat. Something that I am continuing from the latter half of last year. I have been doing a pretty good job so far too. There have been a few opportunities while out eating that I have chosen to go with the no-meat main course. Of course, it doesn’t help that my parent sent me a gloriously bountiful cooler full of steaks, franks, and assorted other gourmet-goodies from Omaha Steaks. An annual gift I receive yearly for the holidays. Oh well, waste not, want not. The steak I had the other night was delicious. I actually can’t remember the last time I had steak. I think it may have been around May of last year. I’m not sure. It doesn’t really matter anyway.

So eating less meat. That is a start. If you haven’t already, please go watch Food Inc. I saw it on Netflix and it has been out for a while. It is an eye opening documentary that tells the story of the behind the scenes going-ons of the corporate food supply business. It is at times disgusting and cringe inducing and at other times enlightening. I highly recommend you watch it if for no other reason than to expand your mind and take look from a point of view that many do not even knows exist.

Good luck with your resolutions and Happy New Year!

Below is an excerpt from an email response I sent to one of my customers regarding the availability of grocery items offered by one of our competitors. It roughly summarizes my viewpoint of the larger organic produce deliver chains that have moved into the Bay Area in recent years.

Hi, AWESOME CUSTOMER

Corey

Good question!

With all the talk about organic foods nowadays it is easy to look past the obvious question; “What is organic foods?”. Well, organic food is vegetables that have been grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals. That’s it in a nutshell.

So why is organic food such a big deal then and why does it cost more? Organic foods are only as big a deal as you make them out to be. Organic foods are no different than the vegetables that have been farmed for the past 5000 years, before the advent of modern chemistry. Some say that organic vegetables taste better and have higher concentrations of vitamins and minerals. Many critics disagree. Only in the last 60 years or so has corporations taken over mass farming and just like in fast food corporations attempts are made to cut costs anyway they can. Organics also cost more because the produce is usually grown on smaller Mom & Pop farms. Do you notice a difference in quality between Mom & Pop stores and Wal-Mart? They don’t get to save money by buying in bulk. Synthetic fertilizers and herbicides are also very cheap when compared to the natural non-synthetic options organic farming use, so that also add’s on to the price. It has been my experience that most of the organic farm’s usually sell their produce close to home usually within 500 miles or so, although, most are considerably closer than that so your money also stays in the local economy.

One age old lesson of organic farming is crop rotations. Organic farmers are forced out of necessity to rotate their crops throughout the growing seasons. This keeps the soil fresh and allows the vegetables to grow as best they can naturally. Speaking of soil, with organic farming methods you do not have to worry about all those synthetic chemicals running off and contaminating the water supply, causing algae blooms, and generally wreaking havoc on the ecosystems of ponds, streams, lakes, and oceans.

Another reason, and the one that resonates most with organic food shoppers, is that organic foods have not been processed or modified. Organic food is the same vegetables that would grow in the wild if mankind were never around. Some would say that the peace of mind alone is worth the premium of organic foods.

Your best bet to finding out more about organic food is to keep on researching. Read as much as you can about organic foods and then use all of those sources to make up your own mind. I also recommend watching the documentaries Food Inc. and Forks Over Knives. Both could be found on Netflix at the time I wrote this blog and both provide interesting insights into the current food supply system. By researching “What is Organic food” you will undoubtedly find many varied definitions but only YOU can decide if organic food is worth your money or not.

While traveling through Michigan and Ohio this past 4th of July I noticed lots of signs. Signs for car dealerships. Signs for Veterinarians. Signs for McDonald’s. Stop signs. I haven’t lived in Michigan since May 2, 2002 when I enlisted in the Coast Guard and was shipped off only to return a handful of times since. This time around I noticed some new signs. Signs that caught my eye. I saw signs for Farmers Markets, Organic Farms and CSA’s. I didn’t remember these signs from when I was growing up. There were also signs and stands for people selling Cherries. Cherries are a cash crop for Northern Michigan farmers who grow four-fifths of the nation’s tart cherry crop. I know, I used to sell them at a roadside stand when I was 14. Check it out in the picture below; I have some farm-cred.

Upon arriving to meet family at my Uncle’s cottage in Silver Lake, Mi I completely drove by the driveway. It looked eerily familiar but nothing was the same. The old Apple orchard looked smaller. It wasn’t the same orchard, or was it? The driveway, and the road for that matter, were both paved. I doubled back once I got to the end of the road. I knew I had to be in the right place. The next day while walking with Jen and my Uncle. I asked about the orchard. He said that the apple orchard was dying and the owners decided to remove all the apple trees and replace them with the new Cherry trees I was seeing. “It’s all good”, I thought. They were all sour apples anyway! Uncle Donn went on to tell us that the Michigan Cherry season had been devastated by late frosts. Some farmers lost everything. Even fewer farmers had only partial crops. One estimate had 80-90 percent of the buds for tart cherries killed. Just horrible.

Throughout the rest of our trip I was seeing many, many more signs for farmers markets and CSA’s all over Michigan and Ohio. It is one thing to read about the movement of organic food and locally grown produce, however, it is another thing completely to experience it firsthand. So let me tell you; We are in the midst of a greater movement then we understand. At every corner there are people starting to question what is in their food. People who are catching on that there is a dangerous price to pay for the convenience of fast, cheap, and mass produced food. It was a slow realization. As slow as the replacement of our real food with dangerous chemicals. I think the turning point may have been reached. I think that the seed of curiosity is blooming from the poison of the foods we have been eating for so long without even knowing. “But why would we worry about our food”, we said before. It’s just food. It’s the same food we have been eating forever. That’s the thing though. The food we used to eat, the food that we have been eating since humans discovered farming in the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia 11,000 years ago, that food was slowly replaced. Chemical by chemical over the last 80 years. It looks the same now and that is about it. Fortunately we are starting to wise-up. We are starting to realize, as they say in Michigan; Something aint quite right here. That realization is the blossom. That realization was the start of the organic and healthy food movement and those of you reading this are the pioneers, the leaders, the one’s that know better. It is all of our jobs to lift the wool from over our friends and families eye. We need to set a good example for future generations. How can you expect your children to be able to cook and eat healthy if all you did was feed them fast food their whole lives because you were tired when you got home from work. We are all tired when we get home from work but we are hard working proud Americans! We can do better.

Of course we live in the real world. Grabbing a lunch or dinner from a fast food restaurant a few times a year will not kill you. We do need to improve our eating and living habits though and that starts in the kitchen. ‘Everything in moderation’ is a cliché that I throw around often but think is completely relevant. The future will be beautiful and we will be the ones who mold it, if we choose to. The choice is yours..

Welcome back everyone! Jen and I had a great time at the Oakland Art & Soul Festival this weekend. It was a bit overcast on Saturday but Sunday was hot and sunny and there was quite the turnout with the good weather. I want to give a shout out to Forrest M. a customer who stopped by the booth to say hello. I gave him $5 off this week’s box for saying hi. I enjoy getting to meet my customers when I get the chance. I also want to say “hello and welcome” to Tramy N. and Jessica L. who joined GGO after their Plum District deal. Thanks for supporting local business and sustainable organic famers throughout California. Actually, I thank all of you who are customers and who take the time and effort to eat organic! You are all making a difference whether you realize it or not.

Jen working our booth late Saturday night.

I am not sure if many of you know but I just recently was Honorably Discharged from the Coast Guard in July after 10 years and 2 months of service. I decided that GGO is where my heart is and that I didn’t have enough time before to devote to all of our customers. So with my saved up vacation time I was able to start working at GGO fulltime back in May, two months before our one year anniversary, and we have come a long way already in just a few short months! I will be taking advantage of the Post 9/11 GI Bill and will be going to school in Berkeley starting in a couple weeks. This will not affect any of you as I will still be doing all the customer service and providing you only the best service and produce I know how but I wanted you all to know what I will be up to.

Important News:

I have noticed that for the last few weeks the organic bananas we have been receiving have not quite been stellar and this has been a concern of mine. Some of the bananas have had spots, some of them need to be eaten right away, and a couple of weeks ago I had to throw out an entire case because they were just nasty! I have had one or two people ask about this and I had to do some research but I was able to find out exactly what the deal is with the organic bananas.

It turns out that there are combinations of different factors that have affected this year’s banana crop. As many of you know, Wayne and I only purchase fair trade bananas and the primary source of these bananas is through Ecuador and Peru in South America. It turns out that just as the U.S. was hit with a very mild winter, which facilitated the extreme summer drought and negatively affected our corn crops; conversely, Central America was hit with an extremely harsh winter. The result: Ecuador’s banana exports alone have dropped 12% compared to last years yield. Additionally, a disease called Black Sigatoka has attacked the already weakened banana crop. The presence of the disease in Ecuador has reached heightened levels; so much so that in some places it has destroyed 30% of the crops. There are growers that lost their crops because they were unable to fertilize and fumigate their plantations. Other farmers have sold their farms to engage in other businesses like cocoa, which are more profitable. Three weeks ago a “Banana Emergency” was declared and announced by the Minister Javier Ponce. The emergency actions are expected to last eight weeks and allow growers to receive fungicides to control the disease.

Take into account that the organic fair trade bananas are most likely going to be hit even harder then the rest of the bananas since they have not been genetically modified to resist Black Sigatoka and will not be treated with synthetic chemicals. Even walking around the local grocery stores I notice the state of the organic and regular bananas and can relate that back to this crisis. With the demand not dropping and the supply in a choke hold the prices for bananas have been going up and the quality has been going down. We are all affected. I recommend subbing out bananas for the next few weeks unless you are ready to eat them right away. They may not look perfect but I assure you that they are fine to eat.

We get so caught up sometimes with what our produce looks like that we forget to ask, “Why does it look this way? How is it that this banana is perfect in the middle of a catastrophic disease?” You can always go buy Dole or Chiquita bananas that look perfect, are bright yellow and huge. However, you will taste the difference. You will be supporting corporations that pay farmers only a few cents a pound for their crop, far below the cost of production. You will be supporting corporations that violate human rights and employ children as young as eight to work on banana plantations. You will be buying genetically modified food. The choice is yours and I will respect that. I just want you to make an informed decision.

Please reach out to me anytime at either 510-982-3026 or hello@goldengateorganics.com for anything. Bad bananas? Items too ripe? Missing something? Let me know and I will fix it! Seriously! I am nice and don’t play games. I know sometimes things happen and that’s ok. It is apart of life.

• Please leave your boxes out for your driver to pickup so we can reuse or recycle them.

• Remember you can add or skip weeks anytime you want for the next three months right from your Account Settings.

That’s all. I hope you enjoy this weeks box!

Your organic ambassador,

Corey

The Great Drought of 2012

Drought,

Noun:              A prolonged period of abnormally low precipitation; a shortage of water                                    resulting from this.

California is very fortunate when it comes to, as I am calling it, “The Great Drought of 2012”. Fortunate in the fact those farmers here in California are mostly unaffected to the degree that those in the Midwest are. One reason for this is that farmers who use irrigation are less affected, and most farmers in the Central California Valley use irrigation to keep their crops watered.

So, Corey, what the heck is causing this drought? Good question! There are several factors that have contributed to this drought. The first, and perhaps most obvious to scientists, is that there is a La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean that has caused lower than normal water temperatures. This has lead to drier weather conditions here in North America. This is the opposite of the La Nino weather event, which creates warmer than normal ocean temperatures. Causes mudslides, floods, and Sea Monsters to flee the sea. Both the weather patterns are just that; patterns. They are just extremes of the average and are cyclical in nature. Due to the La Nina this year there was below average snowfall and precipitation this winter. This caused the grown to dry out faster in the spring and summer, which only compounded the issue of record high-heat and drought because the ground dried up faster than normal. The first six months of this year were the hottest on record. Which seems weird to me because I thought scientists said the same thing last year, and the year before that, and so on. It just goes to show that the atmosphere of Gaia is heating up, year after year, record after record. Regardless of what “Climate Change Skeptics” think, the proof is in the organic pudding.

So we have colder than normal ocean temperatures, little-to-no precipitation, and extreme heat. All three are playing a role in this drought. However, the heat is still affecting areas that do receive precipitation. Corn is the crop that is worst hit, followed closely by Soy Beans. This year farmers planted the most corn since 1937. That is a lot of Corn! This led many to forecast the largest crop yield ever and for good reason. As of today only 26% of that record crop is in “Good or Better” condition, as quoted from USDA’s July 24 weekly weather and crop bulletin. While the Soy Bean crop is at 31%, ouch!

“Hot, dry conditions result in higher rates of photosynthesis, leading to higher concentrations of fruit sugars,” Jim Nienhuis, a horticulturalist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison told Associated Press. So this means flavors will be unusually concentrated in some crops. For instance, the hot peppers will be hotter and the melons will be sweeter! So, I suppose, it isn’t all-bad….

Another effect of the low corn yield is that there is a massive slaughter of pigs and cows right now because there isn’t enough corn-feed for all of them. Which I do want to remind everyone is not their natural diet, grass is. Unless, of course, they are Corporate Pigs and Cows, then, unfortunately, that is their natural diet nowadays. See the movie Food Inc. This means that in the short term, meat prices are going to plummet due to the over supply in the grocery stores. In the long-term though, the price will ultimately go up because there won’t be as much meat when the normal yield is harvested. I am unsure how this will affect the grass-fed cows, free-range chickens, and pigs that most of us already buy for our families and ourselves. I would imagine that in the short term with the abundance of conventional meat that the price for the healthy stuff will go down a tiny bit but probably not enough to make a huge difference in our wallets.

I am already starting to think that most of the organic/free-range/alternative & healthy foods are over priced. When I see what we sell our produce for and compare to the corporate and local “health food stores” I can’t help but pick my jaw up off the floor. It is outrageous the prices they charge! I honestly think that many of these businesses are gouging customers and it isn’t fair. The best way to gauge the potential health of you and your family nowadays seems to be the size of your bank account. Which, I think, is wrong. We can and should do better as a civilization. We should make it our culture to do the right thing and not just do the thing that will make the most money.

Anyway, getting back to the drought. We, as California Organic Consumers, I believe will be largely unaffected by the Midwest corn-belt drought. Almost all of the items we sell at Golden Gate Organics are local to California, Corn and Soy Beans included. If you look at the drought map you can see that California is largely spared of the extreme temperatures and dryness of the Midwest. This is just another reason of many that California is awesome, and has the opportunity to lead the nation in organic farming and progressive thinking. We are fortunate. I am fortunate. I know this and I don’t let a single day go by without realizing that and giving thanks for this opportunity to be alive, if even for just a short time. Thanks for reading! Share what you think in the blog comments section of our website. I will be posting a copy of our weekly letter there for everyone to see and I would love to hear other points of view and have a chance to discuss this with everyone!

Now, on to this weeks box!

This week we have a ton of subs and tons of produce for sale. Wayne did the best he could on all the requests and all but a few made it in. Thank you to everyone for chipping on that via our Facebook page. With it being the end of July we have a very sweet summer box this week!

We have Sweet Grapes for $1.99, Cherry Tomatoes for $2.99, and lots of Apricots, Pluots, Plums, and Peaches.

Things Corey thinks are important:

1. Last week we had a few bunches of bad bananas. I think I have already talked to everyone about it that were affected but I wanted to apologize again. It was out of our control and I did the best I could to sub in other items or talk to those people about me hooking them up in a future box. Thank you everyone for your patience!

2. Also, a couple weeks ago now we started delivering around 11:30 am instead of 7:30am in the hopes that the produce wouldn’t have to sit out as long each day before you arrived home from work, or whatever. The reception has been great so far and I just wanted to let everyone know that.

3. If you do not want a box please skip your delivery from your Account Settings> My Schedule. This helps us to only order what we need, keep cost low, and ensure that no food goes to waste! I SINCERELY appreciate your help on this one, as I would never charge anyone for a box they didn’t want and I will ALWAYS cancel your order even if the request is after the deadline, but it does affect our prices and our ability to bring you good value.

4. As always, please leave your box out when you are expecting a delivery so we can reuse or recycle them .

Special Thanks to Cheese and Squishy who helped me write todays Email/Blog!

That’s it! Thanks for supporting GGO, enjoy your box this week, and have a great weekend!

Corey 🙂

Another week is in the books as we get ready to start a new one. Today we had requests via Facebook for Watermelons and Grapes, and we’re excited to have them on our menu this week! They are available for purchase and on a few of the menus this week. Thanks to Christina C. and Marina R. B. for their suggestions!

I also found a nice recipe for Rainbow Swiss Charge (Pic below) from the Facebook group “Mom! What’s for dinner?” we have a few friends who are members of that group and more often than not they have some fantastic recipes and story’s.

Swiss Chard Burek

Because of the great Chard recipe I asked Wayne about getting some and he said that it is available from Cal-O farm in Bakersfield. Check them out on our farm page! They are at the bottom of the page. The Watermelon and Cauliflower this week is from Cal-O farms too. You can find the Swiss Chard recipe on our recipe page.

Also among the items on the menu this week are Radishes, Romaine lettuce, Beets, Corn,Honeydew Melon’s, and my favorite; Heirloom tomatoes!!! Get your kitchens ready this week! If you are curious about what comes in our other size boxes then be curious no more. There is a link for that too!

NEWS FLASH!!

As I was writing this week’s email I received an email from my friend Kasper at the East Bay Express. This week is their “Best of the East Bay” issue. Which is their biggest issue of the year. We had arranged with Kasper to have an ad in this issue. We gave him some pictures and some facts about what we do and they created an ad from scratch. It is funny and awesome! Check it out in this weeks issue and let us know what you think on our Facebook page. At the same time we also had an article posted by Luke Tsai on the EBX website. I’m not sure if it will be in the Best Of The East Bay issue though. Check it out here: “Organic Produce from the Farm to Your Doorstep, by Way of Alameda” Like it and Retweet it for us, Pretty Please! 😉

This is Wayne and my’s reaction to seeing the article on their website.

After I searched the East Bay Express website for ‘Golden Gate Organics’ I came across their ‘Categories We Didn’t Think Of: Goods and Services’ which is from their Best Of The East Bay feature. I found out that our longtime customer, Florence W., who is actually our VERY FIRST CUSTOMER, wrote us in for Best CSA (Consumer Supported Agriculture) for her patronage and loyalty to GGO Wayne and I decided that her box this week will be on us. It is the least we could do for one of our most devoted friends! Thank You Florence! 🙂

That is all for this week. I hope you all enjoy this week’s box.

I want to thank all of you for supporting Wayne and I here at Golden Gate Organics. Together we are making a choice to eat healthy and make a difference.

Cheers!

Corey