GLUT in Mt. Ranier, Maryland

Forty friendly years of cheap and funky
Mount Rainier neighbors love their Glut collective

By Amanda Abrams
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, November 4, 2009

There's something about Glut, Mount Rainier's long-standing natural foods grocery, that leaves first-time visitors astonished. It's a cluttered shop, the kind of old-school health food store that has largely been replaced by bigger and shinier varieties. But that's not the surprising part.

What newcomers inevitably marvel over is the diversity of Glut's customers. On a given afternoon, the line waiting to check out is a genuine reflection of the racially mixed, middle-class community surrounding the store. The clientele includes blacks, whites and Latinos of all ages who are as likely to be wearing a uniform with their name on the breast as high heels or dreadlocks, and who make it difficult to maintain offhand stereotypes about who's in the market for items such as organic greens and soy milk.

Glut Food Co-op has always been countercultural. Established in 1969 by a couple of conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War, it started out as a buying collective with the aim of providing unprocessed food at low prices. In the early 1970s, Glut moved into a former grocery in Mount Rainier -- still its home -- and gradually morphed into a retail operation.

Since then, little has changed. It's still a worker-run collective, the oldest in the area, according to employees. That means it is managed jointly by its employees and lacks the typical boss-worker hierarchy. Glut is open to anyone, no membership required, and volunteers can work for store credit.

Glut's mission is still to provide "food for people, not for profit," making it an anachronism that's unlikely to be confused with Whole Foods. A sign in the window proclaims that "war is not the answer"; inside, unpacked boxes of overstock share space with for-sale products, and customers are expected to bag their own groceries.

The beets and green beans don't gleam with bright perfection, as in bigger stores. But on closer inspection, it's obvious that everything is fresh: Much, though not all, of the produce and prepared food comes from within a few hours' drive of Washington. All of the staples are there, plus some unusual items requested by shoppers: incense, an expansive selection of medicinal herbs and an assortment of the ginger drinks beloved by Caribbean immigrants.

Customers say they like Glut's personal, idiosyncratic style. Without a boss looking over their shoulders, employees can linger in conversation with shoppers and are forced to directly answer requests or complaints that arise. They're free to get involved in the community, too: When neighborhood kids perform at the dance studio across the street, for example, workers might amble over to take in the show.

It isn't exactly a family relationship, but it's not just business, either. In a town whose residents have a particularly strong sense of social and neighborhood consciousness, Glut is a key community gathering place. This weekend, that gathering will be larger than usual, at a big neighborhood party to celebrate the collective's 40th anniversary.

The climate of familiarity is one of the things Theodore Boyd, an Amtrak conductor who was recently waiting in line to buy a bean pie, likes about the store. Gesturing at the bulletin board by the door and the scuffed wood floors, he said: "I like the 'nothing fancy' atmosphere here. It's like a store in the Midwest." Plus, he added, "I'm a tea guy, and this is one of the only places where I can get my teas."

Eileen Simmons, a frequent customer who lives in nearby Cheverly, said Glut reminds her of country stores in North Carolina, where her mother is from. "And I appreciate that they give the customer the discount."

Indeed, Glut is a not-for-profit business. That means its markup on bulk tamari, roasted almonds, organic apples and everything else is as low as it can be while still covering salaries and operating costs. But though some items, such as cheese and dried herbs, are particularly cheap, most of Glut's prices are on par with those at larger stores.

"We try and be competitive, but it's an economy of scale with natural foods," said Chris Doyle, at 62 the store's longest-serving employee. "You have to be a big store to make money."

A couple of years ago, Glut began to feel the impact of declining sales and increasing expenses. Rather than sharply raise prices and alienate customers, employees cut their own salaries and benefits. In April, finances stabilized and salaries went back up ("to the same level as they were in 1996," Doyle ruefully quipped). But the store isn't totally in the clear. "Oh, folks are absolutely spending less," Doyle said. "They're more careful about everything now."

Glut's commitment to the community isn't lost on shoppers. On her way out the door with a box of produce and grains to last the week, Ayo Ngozi mused about why she shops there. "I love the staff: that they listen when we ask for something, that they're part of the fabric of the neighborhood," she said. "When I was out of work, I volunteered here every week and fed myself and my family that way."

Glut Food Co-op

4005 34th St., Mount Rainier
301-779-1978
http://www.glutfood.org

Glut will celebrate its 40th anniversary Saturday, rain or shine, with a block party from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in front of the store, at Bunker Hill Road and 34th Street. The event will include a potluck picnic at noon; attendees are encouraged to bring a vegetarian or vegan dish to share.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/03/AR2009110300570.html

Antibiotics In Fish

Ala.: Unapproved substance found in fish imports

The Associated Press
Thursday, November 5, 2009 8:14 AM

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Alabama Agriculture and Industries Commissioner Ron Sparks on Wednesday extended a two-year-old order banning the sale of untested fish from Vietnam and China in Alabama.

Sparks said Wednesday the new order comes after catfish from China and basa from Vietnam tested positive for fluoroquinolones, an antibiotic used in humans, but not approved for fish. Basa is a fish that tastes similar to catfish and is found in southeast Asia.

Sparks said his department's labs found the substance after testing fish from China and Vietnam that were marked as having already been tested. He said fish from the two countries can still be sold in Alabama, but only if they have been tested. Even then, Sparks said Alabama officials are allowed to order their own tests.

"We're going to stop it and it will never make it to dinner plates in Alabama," Sparks said of fish that tests positive for the antibiotics. "Personally I would not eat it. I would not recommend it."

Department of Agriculture chemist Joe Basile said the danger to humans eating fish containing the substance is that people might build up an amount of fluoroquinolones in their systems and allow bacteria to build up a tolerance to the antibiotic.

The antibiotic was also found in a small amount of fish imported from Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand. The order banning sales was not immediately extended to those countries.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/05/AR2009110501460.html

Mmmmm Good - Roti on Georgia Ave

Some of my favorite roti........ channa and potato at Rita's on Georgia Ave, NW, Washington, DC. Trinidadian roti is different from Indian roti - one Indian friend of mine can't relate at all to a roti as a sandwich, as in the first photo. She says she never saw anything like it. Clearly something was adapted in Trinidad which has a large Indian population - brought to the Caribbean as indentured servants. Another example of glocal or lobal - thinking globally and eating locally. Don't forget the hot sauce!

Bengies Drive-In Theatre In Baltimore County

Not organic, not completely cheap but a very good deal........ and my friend Rich's favorite theater!

Bengies Drive-In Theatre has been owned by the same family since it opened in 1956.

Drive-in theater a throwback to the '50s

• Story Highlights
• Bengies Drive-In Theatre hasn't changed much in its 53-year history
• Owner says he's often surprised by children's fascination with drive-in
• Each night features a double feature; admission is $8 a person
• Onslaught of light pollution has been challenge to theater owner, moviegoers

By Bethany Swain
CNN

BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) -- You know you've arrived at Bengies Drive-In Theatre when you first see the giant movie marquee, announcing the features showing that weekend. Each letter has to be placed and adjusted by hand, as it did when the theater first opened.

"As far as the operation of the drive-in goes, I'm kind of a die-hard. I try to make it run the way it did, to bring a little bit back of the '50s. ... the integrity and the innocence of that age," says Bengies owner D. Edward Vogel, who claims to have the largest outdoor movie screen in the country at 52 feet by 120 feet.

Vogel has spent most of his life trying to maintain the feel and charm of the Baltimore, Maryland, drive-in movie theater that his family opened in 1956. Vogel wants moviegoers to have the same experience as he did when he went to his family's outdoor theater as a child, although he knows that people today have many more entertainment options.

"Sometimes I'm actually taken aback with the amount of children that are fascinated with this," says Vogel. "Thinking of what their options are, with modern devices and videos and all that, that they are so taken aback . with what happens here."

Vogel started learning, at age 9, the secrets of running a movie theater from his father, Jack Vogel. He has worked tirelessly since to maintain the theater as it was in its glory days. Vogel even operates the same machines that he did as a child; the projection room is filled with the original projectors, which Vogel cleans and cares for each night.

And for each movie, threading the film is a complex process far removed from the simplicity of inserting a DVD into the player that we know today. Once threaded, the film spins around as each frame follows an intricate path from the tray, to the projector, until it is shown on the gigantic screen. Watch the drive-in come to life »

The scene immediately invokes a feeling of nostalgia, reminding us why they were called "motion pictures" way back when. Yet, Vogel is quick to tell you that keeping the 53-year-old business alive hasn't always been easy.

At Bengies, each night is a double feature, so guests can see at least two movies for $8 a person. Vogel estimates that Bengies makes 40 percent of its revenue from ticket sales, and the rest comes from concession purchases. There's a strict "no outside food" policy, and he's open about the fact that the food sales help keep the business open.

The waterfront property would be more profitable as condos, he says, and his father planned to build them before Vogel took over the theater in the 1980s. He was only able to avoid closing by cutting costs and staff.

"My parents had a union operator in the booth, they had a manager, they had a concessionaire. I am all of those things, so that has changed," Vogel says.

Vogel even acts as the host. Known only as "the voice" to his audiences, he starts each night by using the theater's speaker system to welcome everyone to his venue.

"When you see the sun setting, and the shadow being cast on that screen, no matter what has happened during that day, good, bad or indifferent, I become a different person when I turn the microphone on."

Besides the challenges of being a small business owner, Vogel's efforts to maintain the integrity of the movie-going experience is challenged by another intrusion of this modern world -- light pollution.

Between car headlights and brightly lit businesses nearby, a once-dark sky is now polluted with obtrusive light. Bengies asks that drivers turn their headlights off when entering the grounds of the theater. But over the years, it has been the outside light from other businesses that bleeds into the surrounding sky, making the giant screen hard to see.

For solutions to such predicaments, Vogel turns to the owners of other drive-in theaters that have managed to survive since the 1930s. He is an active member of a drive-in theater owners association and is working with other owners across the country to support each other.

"They would all have easier lives if they opened Laundromats in the right location, but they don't. They endeavor; there is a passion about it," Vogel says.

It is a passion that his audience seems to appreciate.

As the sun lowers in the sky and eventually sets behind the screen, the ticket booth is opened on a Sunday night in autumn. People make the trip to the last drive-in theater in the Baltimore area. They set up their chairs, and some sit in their classic cars to enjoy the show.

It's an experience Vogel hopes to keep around for generations to come.

Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/05/aif.bengies.drive.in/index.html Bengies' web site - http://www.bengies.com/

Know Your Farmer In The Global Organic Food Market

From IndianExpress.com -

Coming soon, system to trace all Indian organic food to source farms

Surbhi Khyati Posted online: Monday , Oct 05, 2009 at 0437 hrs

Lucknow : In a few months, a consumer in the European Union should be able to trace an item of organic food on his table to the specific bit of farmland in India that produced it.

The Agriculture and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), which works under the central Ministry of Commerce and Industry, is set to launch, in January 2010, a nationwide system of traceability for organic food items.

“It is next to impossible to physically monitor all farmers in the country. Hence, the need for a system-based approach was felt. With the traceability system, which will actually be a massive online database containing real time information on production and export, we expect to make our system a lot more credible,” S Dave, Director, APEDA, told The Indian Express.

“We received some complaints about the certifying bodies of organic products who were accredited by us. On investigation, we found some of the land certified as organic farms were never visited before certifying. With this system in place, farmers will not only put their farming details and practices online, the certifying body too will need to put in the latitude and longitude of the farmland, which will be verifiable on Google Earth.”

The system was tested successfully in grapes in 2005-06, Dave said. “After this, the price of grapes shot up in the international market from 8.5 euros per case to 11 euros, and exports grew five times. We were also able to trace one out of 35,000 farmers who was dubious.”

“Now we will be introducing this system for around 4 lakh organic farmers, and will closely monitor not only the farmers and exporters, but also the certifying bodies.”

India, Dave said, will be the first country in the world to implement the traceability system at a national level. “We are planning to showcase the system at Biofach 2010 in Germany. Biofach, the world’s largest organic trade fair, is the gateway to the global market for organic products,” he added.

To prepare the stakeholders for the launch of the traceability system, APEDA is conducting capacity-building training programmes at 30 centres across the country. “We will also establish a call centre once the system is launched to assist the farmers,” said Sudhanshu, Assistant General Manager and in charge of IT and the traceability system.

Explaining the mechanism of the traceability system, Sudhanshu said: “Small farmers will come together to form an Internal Control System (ICS) which will get a unique identity and password in our system. The ICS and the certifying body will be responsible for putting all information about the product online, including the farmer’s name, farm size, production mechanism and practices followed, along with the longitude and latitude of the farm. This will enable importers worldwide to verify on Google Earth the location from where the product has originated, and get all details of the product.”

The same will be applicable to exporters and traders, so that any faulty product can be immediately traced to its origin, he added.

“Globally, the market for organic food is $40 billion, of which India’s share is a mere $123 million. The traceability mechanism will get farmers a better deal and build trust in European markets, where 70 per cent of our products are exported,” Dave said.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/coming-soon-system-to-trace-all-indian-organic-food-to-source-farms/525106/

Fish Farming Limitations

Farm-Fresh Fish -- With a Catch
Aquaculture Boom Raises Concerns

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 20, 2009

By the end of this year, the world is projected to reach an unheralded but historic milestone: Half of the fish and shellfish we consume will be raised by humans, rather than caught in the wild.

Reaching this tipping point is reshaping everything from our oceans to the livelihoods and diets of people across the globe. It has also prompted a new round of scientific and political scrutiny, as researchers and public officials examine how aquaculture is affecting the world's environment and seafood supply.

"Hunting and gathering has reached its maximum," said Ronald W. Hardy, who directs the University of Idaho's Aquaculture Research Institute and co-authored a study on the subject in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We've got to grow more."

The drive to bring fish "from egg to plate," as Hardy puts it, has the potential to answer a growing demand for seafood worldwide, as well as reduce some of the imports that compose more than 80 percent of the fish and shellfish Americans eat each year. But without technological advances to improve efficiency, it could threaten to wipe out the forage fish that lie at the bottom of the ocean's food chain and potentially contaminate parts of the sea.

And consumers will have to accept that they are eating a different kind of fish than the ones that swim wild: ones that might have eaten unused poultry trimmings, been vaccinated, consumed antibiotics or been selected for certain genetic traits.

Although there is still debate about farming's share of the world fish supply -- the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization estimates it stood at 44.3 percent in 2007, whereas the PNAS study says it will reach over half in a matter of months -- no one questions that aquaculture has grown exponentially as the world's wild catch has flattened out. In 1970, farmed fish accounted for 6.3 percent of global seafood supply.

This trend reflects global urbanization -- studies show that as more people move to cities, they are consuming more seafood -- but it is changing the world's seascape as well. Vessels now venture to the Antarctic Ocean to catch the tiny krill that have sustained penguins and seals there for millennia, and slender poles strung with farmed oysters and seaweed jut out of Japan's once-pristine Matsushima Bay.

Chinese freshwater fish farms are replacing traditional agricultural plots there, according to Karen Seto of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Nature Conservancy senior scientist Mike Beck said some Chinese bays are so crammed with net pens that they are no longer navigable.

Moreover, fishermen such as Shannon Moore, who catches salmon in Washington state's Puget Sound, worries about how farmed fish's parasites are affecting wild stocks. "These young wild critters are pretty small, and they can ill afford to have these hitchhikers on them," Moore said, referring to parasites that plague juveniles migrating near Canadian fish farms.

But aquaculture's proponents suggest that farming represents the best chance of giving people a chance to make a living off the sea. Sebastian Belle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association, noted that three-quarters of his group's members are either current or former commercial fishermen, and although the average age of Mainers with a fishing lease permit is 57, the average for those with a fish-farm permit is 33. "It's really the next generation of watermen," Belle said.

Jane Lubchenco, who used to write about aquaculture's environmental impacts as an academic before taking the helm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, announced this month that her agency will come up with a national policy to address fish farming. "It's important that aquaculture be done in a way that's sustainable," she said in an interview.

America now ranks as a minor player in global aquaculture: It accounts for 5 percent of the nation's seafood supply, but the $1.2 billion in annual production is 1.5 percent of the world's total. In 2006, China supplied 62 percent of the world's farmed fish and shellfish, according to FAO.

But farms are expanding in traditional U.S. fishing strongholds, such as New England, the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Northwest, and freshwater fish farms continue to operate in states such as Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi. Freshwater species such as catfish, trout and tilapia still dominate the nation's farmed fish production, but such niche products as oysters with regional appellations and sustainably raised shrimp and caviar now fetch a premium in the United States.

Michael Rubino, who directs NOAA's aquaculture program, said he envisions a future in which the country is "producing seafood from a range of technologies, with wild catch on one side, aquaculture on another, and a whole range in-between."

This prospect has set off a flurry of activity and experiments, as scientists and entrepreneurs try to resolve the environmental challenges fish farming poses. The biggest one involves a fundamental quandary: one needs to feed many small fish to bigger fish to produce ones consumers crave.

One-fourth to one-third of the world's fish catch is landed just to produce the fish oil and fish meal that fish, poultry and pig-farming operations demand, depleting stocks of forage fish such as anchovies, sardines and menhaden. Aquaculture has become more efficient. In 1995, it took an average of 1.04 kilograms of wild fish to produce 1 kilogram of farmed fish, according to the PNAS study, and in 2007 it took 0.63 kilograms to achieve the same result. The sector's share of global fish-oil and fish- meal supplies has doubled in the last decade, as the industry has boomed.

Patricia Majluf, who directs the Center for Environmental Sustainability at Cayetano Herida University in Lima, Peru, watched fleets decimate Peruvian anchovetta stocks in the 1970s and again in the 1990s, setting off an environmental chain reaction in which the area's seabird populations crashed.

"There was no supervision, no control whatsoever," said Majluf, adding that it took a change in government in 2006 to institute a more restrained fishing policy that guarantees at least 5 million tons of anchovies remain in the sea to sustain the ecosystem. "Since then, you're seeing this amazing recovery."

"We've got to solve the feed problem," said Stanford University professor Rosamond L. Naylor, the PNAS study's lead author. "We've got to come up with an alternative that breaks the connection between aquaculture and wild fishing of forage fish."

Hardy experiments with everything from pulling out corn protein right before the corn is fermented into ethanol to stringing together algae to form the omega-3 fatty acids people expect from their fish.

Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.), who sits on the House Natural Resources Committee and plans to introduce legislation in the near future to help establish a national aquaculture policy, said the current situation "requires a comprehensive response" from the federal government.

"There are commercial demands; we can't ignore that," Capps said. But she added: "Doing it at all means doing it carefully."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/19/AR2009091900928.html

Organic Is Mainstream Now!!!!!

I was at a conference in the mid 1990's sponsored by Americans For Safe Food which was a project of the Center For Science In The Public Interest. There was a speaker from Whole Foods who declared in her talk that "We are the mainstream!". Now it is official - the government says so too! As Bob Marley has said, "Babylon paper say so......". Glad to know that time is catching up to me! Now if we can get through all the green wash....... http://earth911.com/blog/2009/09/23/usda-reports-organic-food-now-mainstream/ published on September 23rd, 2009 USDA Reports Organic Food Now Mainstream by Lori Brown In a recently updated Organic Market Overview, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports the market for organic foods is now "mainstream," with organic sales accounting for more than 3 percent of total U.S. food sales. Three percent may seem like a small piece of the pie, but that small piece resulted in $21.1 billion of sales in 2008 alone and is estimated to reach $23 billion in 2009, according to the Nutrition Business Journal. Organic food is sold to consumers via three main venues in the U.S.: To receive the USDA stamp of approval, the National Organic Program requires three years without the application of prohibited pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. Photo: Amanda Wills, Earth911.com Conventional grocery stores- Nearly three of every four conventional grocery stores offer organic food products for sale. Natural food stores- Approximately 20,000 natural food stores offer organic products for sale in the U.S. Direct-to-consumer markets- This includes farmers' markets, foodservice and marketing channels other than retail stores. The Organic Trade Association (OTA) estimates 93 percent of all organic food sales occur through conventional and natural food supermarkets and chains. A few common themes have occurred in various studies conducted by researchers in the public and private sectors regarding the buying habits and demographics of consumers of organic foods. Consumers often prefer organic food products because of concerns regarding health, the environment and animal welfare and are willing to pay the price premiums associated with the products. As stated in the overview, "organic products have shifted from being a lifestyle choice for a small share of consumers to being consumed at least occasionally by a majority of Americans." American food producers struggle to meet the demand of an increasing consumer base. Though certified organic acreage has doubled in the U.S. since 1997, organic food sales have grown much faster, increasing from 3.6 billion to 21.1 in the same period.