What's happenin

This week I went to QFC and catalogued and compared various produces with the full circle farm produce.  By next week I really hope to go to Trader Joes and Madison Market and Whole foods to compare them as well. I also need to start looking into foods other than produce, such as meat and maybe even more processed foods. However I don't know how accomplishable these goals are because this week is tech week for American Clock. BUT I'm setting these goals in good hope that I may get at least one of them done. I still need to figure out how to present my research. I do have iweb, but it's a bit confusing. I'm going to work with it a little more today. If I am still at a complete loss I may be able to use photoshop or powerpoint instead, I'm also going to start carting my computer around with me in hopes of maybe doing some work during lunch and dinner breaks. I really feel that I will be able to kick it into gear once the show is over (Nov. 15th here I come!) But I will not let the show be an excuse to not get any work done. Gotta just keep on truckin!

The QFC

Organic Green Peppers 93120
Siri and Son
$2.19 each
187 mi


Green Peppers 4065
Pam Pak
1.69 each
924 mi


Ocean Mist Spinach 4090
1.79/ bunch
893 mi


Kroger Baby Carrots
3.29/ pound
Distibuted from Cincinnati, OH 2,327 mi


Organic Carrot Bunch 94094
Cal Organic
2.49/bunch
1,045 mi


Organic Green pears 94416
Ranier Org


2.49/lb
Distributed from Selah, WA 140 mi





D'Anjou Pears 
usapears.org
1.99/lb
128 mi
120 mi
152 mi
166 mi


Red Seedless Grapes 4499
2.99/pound
Fowler Packing Co
932 mi


Melissa's Dutch Yellow Potatoes
6.99/3 lbs
1,144 mi


Red Onion 4082
Hartley's Best
1.99/lb
815 mi


Walla Walla Sweet Onion
1.99/lbs
Peru

Full Circle Farm

This week I'm going to focus on comparisons. Full circle farm to the farmer's market to QFC to Trader Joe's. Tonight I will start with Full Circle.

Fuji Apples, Earth Conscious Organics, Brewster, WA - 206 mi.
Bunched Carrots, Lakeside Organic Gardens, Watsonville, CA - 741 mi.
D'anjou Pears, Nicholson's Orchard Fresh, Peshastin, WA - 128 mi.
Green Bell Peppers Siri and Sons, Clackamas, WA- 183 mi.
Dapple Dandy Pluots, Okanogan Producers, Okanogon, WA - 232 mi.
Red Flame Grapes, Delano Farms, Delano, CA - 833 mi.
Romaine Lettuce, Lakeside Organic Gardens, Watsonville, CA - 741 mi.
Spinach, Full Circle Farm, Carnation, WA - 29.5 mi.

I'd like to calculate price as well but it's a little difficult because I buy it by the box. But other sources will be easier to compare.
For all of this plus celery, red onions, delicata squash and Yukon gold potatoes I pay $32. If I were to divide it up evenly per piece of produce (I know all produce is not priced equally) it would be about $1.17 per piece of produce.

Sunday Afternoon

I failed at making it to the farmer's market this morning. SO that means that I mustmustmust call Charley's Produce this week. I also would like to go down to Pike's Place Market and see if their produce goes through just as many miles to get here as the produce at QFC...I have a hunch it might.
I made a pumpkin soup last night. I thought I'd explore where it came from.
My pumpkin, a pamper'd pie pumpkin, was grown at Van Groningen and Sons farm in Ripon, CA. At least the main farm is located there. They spread around CA and into AZ as well. I bought this pumpkin at Trader Joe's meaning that it traveled from Ripon to Fontana, CA. Then it went to Everette and then Seattle.  

Last night I calculated, roughly, how many miles the food had to travel to get to the grocery store:
Pamper'd Pumpkin - 1,604 mi.
Wilcox Eggs - 56.6 mi.
Oceanmist Artichoke - 1,522 mi.
Butternut Squash - 1,201 mi.
Cara Cara Australian Orange - 12,968 mi.
Washington Apple - 148 mi.

I am the Egg-man

Wilcox grade AA brown eggs. Wilcox family farms is located in Roy, Washington. Surprisingly their website http://www.wilcoxfarms.com/consumer/index.html shows chickens walking around outside! That is basically unheard of...at least that's what I thought after the reading I've done. So far I'm impressed. They do have some chickens in cages, but they are working on becoming completely cage free. So these eggs started in Roy, went to Everette and then they were delivered to the Trader Joe's on Capital Hill where I purchased them. Now, these seem pretty sustainable. You can even have your wedding on the egg farm! That seems a bit weird. To each his own.

But, I feel like I should compare a different brand to these. Just your regular white eggs. Coming soon!

This week I hope to make some phone calls to Charley's produce and find out if they get their produce from a bigger distributor.

I also want to explore the differences between organic and non organic products.
I feel like I need to start investigating a few more processed foods. I just don't usually buy them.

Tomorrow I'm going to go to the Broadway farmer's market and hopefully find out where the farmers get their seeds...hopefully.

So...about the website.
I do have iWeb. I just opened it and it's a little over whelming. I'll play around with it for a couple days, but I have a feeling I'm going to need some help. I've been taking my own pictures of the produce so I'm going to need to go into photoshop and crop them. I'm wondering how much time that will take. Eeeep! I need an effective way to show my research. Maybe I should start kinda low-tech...just get a really big map and mark out the food's course with different colored strings. I like that. Or maybe I could calculate the mileage. Hmmm.

Trader Joe's Squash and Artichoke.

Uggh I've been sick all week and haven't achieved much. But this morning I managed to drag myself out of the apartment and hike up to Trader Joe's. As soon as I walked into the door an artichoke called to me. Only 99 cents! It doesn't matter that I have no idea how to cook an artichoke. It was too good of a deal to pass up. Also the artichoke was in the box from the farm it came from. Ocean Mist farms. And just like that I had my first clue. Upon inspection of their website http://www.oceanmist.com/ I found that Ocean Mist is a farm that specializes in artichokes (they even have a recipe on how to cook an artichoke. Brilliant!) and they are head quartered in Castroville, CA. But in the off-season they also grow throughout California (Castroville, Huron, Oxnard, Coachella and Imperial Valley), in Arizona (Yuma) and in Mexico. This particular artichoke came from one of the California farms because they are currently in season in California. I'm also pretty sure that this particular artichoke is their "Hybrid Annual". It looks much skinnier than their other varieties. It is not an Organic artichoke. But according to their website they "are able to provide products that are free of microbial, chemical and physical contaminants." I think that means they are not GMOs. But I'm not entirely sure. Are farms required to state if their vegetables have GMOs?

Now on to the Butternut Squash! On the label of my squash it states that this squash came from Quality packing and shipping. That doesn't really sound like a farm... I tried to find a website for it. But there doesn't seem to be one and the google maps picture just looks like someones house. So I went on to the Trader Joe's website to see if I could find out a little bit more about my butternut squash. Not much there either. However the Trader Joe's website http://www.traderjoes.com/pdf/trader-joes-timeline.pdf does state that they do not use any GMOs in their privately produced products. Also, after talking to one of the employees, I found that Trader Joe's buys straight from the farmer and then all of the produce goes to their warehouse in Monrovia, Ca. Then a truck picks it up and takes it to the warehouse in Everette and then another truck brings it to Seattle. Most of their products come from California and they have a few WA local products. (She said they were working on getting more local products soon) The warehouse is as far back as I can go. I know the squash is probably from CA, they're in season there anyway and the label does say it is a product of the USA, but as for the farm it came from I have no idea. I tried looking up the PLU. But everything just leads me back to the packing company. I guess that kinda says something.

Where did you come from!?

Well since that squash was so disappointing. Let's do another squash.

 

This is a delicata squash which I received in my Full Circle farms box this week. This squash was grown on the Alverez family farm in Yakima Valley, WA. Then it went to Full Circle Farm in Snowqualmie Valley to be put into a box. And then it was brought to my house to be made into squash soup. Hurrah!

Aha!

This is very interesting!
http://www.oppyproduce.com/citrus_vars.cfm?page=citrus_var_navel
The cara red orange is usually grown in California but during August, September, and through mid October the orange is grown in Australia
http://www.oppyproduce.com/offices_businessdev.cfm#a  The Oppenheimer group carries my orange's specific PLU and it has an office in Washington. Could it be Charlie's provider? Or is it just another delivery service for Washington? It does seem like a much bigger company than Charlie's it delivers through most of the United States.

The Cara Red Navel Orange

Aha! I found a website for the Australian Orange! http://oranges.com.au/the-orange/product-information/
The website says that most of their oranges are grown in Riverina. This is probably where my orange came from. But they're not very specific...So I can't be 100% sure. Hopefully I'll be able to trace the code (3110) somehow.
http://www.citrusaustralia.com.au/aspdev/projects/documents/NationalPlantingsDatabaseReportSummary.pdf This is a graph that shows what kind of Oranges are grown where.


"Horticulture Australia Limited (HAL) in conjunction with Australian Citrus Growers (Citrus Australia) has finalised a review of the current commercial importer arrangements and are pleased to announce that DNE World Fruit Sales (DNE) has been selected as the sole importer of Australian citrus to the US." http://www.citrusaustralia.com.au/aspdev/marketing/export/usa_req.asp This is the website for Australian Orange export.


This is the Website for DNE World fruit sales http://www.dneworld.com/FreshCitrus/ByRegion/Australian/tabid/231/Default.aspx
They ship from Long Beach, CA. They have navel oranges from Australia. But they don't have the specific PLU that mine has. I wonder if it changes in transit.


I found my orange's PLU here http://www.ceceliapack.com/caracara.html
But these oranges say they are from California. Not Australia. The sticker on my orange clearly states that it is from Australia and the California company does not say that they export any of their growing. I'm not sure who to believe!

The QFC Adventure Part I

Alright. This morning I ventured into QFC in search of an apple (Gala, Washington, 4135) and an orange (Red Navel, Australia, 3110) . Upon making my choice I gazed at the labels to try and find a clue as to where my produce came from. I found that my apple is from Washington and my orange traveled all the way from Australia. In  fact, all of the oranges are from Australia. That's quite a ways for my orange friend to travel. I sought out a man that was organizing the grapes and asked him who distributes the produce for QFC. He stated that everything comes in on a Charley's Produce truck. I've seen these truck around City Market and Seattle U so I feel as if they are probably one of Seattle's main produce distributors. http://www.charliesproduce.com/ here's their website. They deliver both organic and regular produce to Washington, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Alaska. They are also attached to another company called Rogge (but I think Rogge mostly distributes in Alaska.
I just googled Australian oranges and Orange farm Australia, but there wasn't a list of any farms like there is for Washington Apples. Charley's does have a contact number so I may call them tomorrow. I feel like there are many more links to be found in between Charley's and Australia.
In the Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan creates a meal from only things he has hunted or gathered. As I walked home from QFC I wondered, "Is this even possible in Seattle?" There is a little garden next to an apartment building (The Heights) that provides a few options. Eggplant, tomatoes and some sorry looking lettuce. I noticed that someone had taken it upon themselves to trample half of the garden. Lovely. There's also the neighbor's apple tree and I could capture some yeast and make bread. Ultimately it's not a very feasible option.
I find that the most challenging feat of this project will be calling people. Because I loathe using the telephone. Ugh. We shall see what tomorrow brings.

The Noble Washington Apple

http://www.bestapples.com/growers/index.aspx
This is the website for Washington Apples. The chart above shows the apples' growing season. Which is surprisingly a year long. Is that natural?
You can actually go and visit the orchard. Which would most certainly be a lovely fall activity. I'd like to ask them where they buy their seeds and what kind of process the apples go through after they are actually picked. I also wonder if the farm is as quaint as it seems on the website.
The apple is a Washington local. And it's even apple season. (I've been eating apples off the neighbor's tree). I wonder how close to home the Washington apple actually is. My boyfriend says that when he was in China the apples that were sold there were actually Washington apples. That's kinda funny seeing as the apple plant originally came from Asia...must not have been in season when the boyfriend was there. I wonder what other places in the world the Washington apple manages to creep into.