IWFM Vendors & Local Businesses Contributing Raffle Prizes

Many thanks to the IWFM Vendors and Local Businesses that have contributed Raffle Prizes for our effort to raise a minimum of $5000 in April. These funds will go directly to the development, implementation and operations of programming that will make the good food available at the IWFM accessible to food insecure individuals in Indianapolis. For every $1 Raffle ticket you purchase this month at the IWFM, you increase your chances of winning one or more great prizes from our generous prize contributors! Plus, you'll be helping to ensure everyone has the opportunity to Grow well. Eat well. Live well. & Be well.

Watch for more each week!

Prizes from IWFM Vendors:

240 Sweet

3 Days in Paris - Market Fresh Crepes

Artisano's Oils & Spices

Bee Free Bakery

Dickinson Custom Kitchenware

KGAcres

Lena's Mediterranean Kitchen

Local Folks Foods

Natural Born Juicers

Raw Gourmet Delights

Rene's Bakery

Tracey Clean

Prizes from Local Businesses:

Best Chocolate in Town

Calvin Fletcher Coffee Shop

City Dogs

Cityoga

Edible Indy

Flat12 Bierwerks

Good Earth Natural Foods

H2O Sushi

INDYCOG

Indy's Kitchen

Invoke Studio

Mass Ave. Toys

Mass Ave. Wine Shoppe

Monon Coffee Shop

Pizzology

RBistro

Silver in the City/At Home in the City

SunKing Brewery

Tomlinson Tap Room

Have a prize to offer for next week's raffle? Contact info@indywinterfarmersmarket.org to make your raffle prize contribution. We'll add you to the e-newsletter announcement, and post your business' name at the IWFM.

Fundraising for Good Food for All!

Please read here about our new sponsorship from Wishard Health Services.

Each week in April you will have the opportunity to help us raise a minimum of $5,000 toward the goal of making the IWFM more accessible to individuals of all income levels in Indianapolis (programming to begin in November 2011). We believe that people have a right to decide what they eat, and yet it can be hard to eat well when the junk foods provide the cheapest calories. With your help, we can give more people the opportunity to both choose and afford good food.

IWFM T-shirt - The first ever IWFM t-shirt will be available for sale, $20 each. T-shirts are available in both men's and women's sizes, while supplies last.

Raffle Tickets - Each week you can enter to win from a great array of exciting Raffle Prizes. Tickets are $1 each, or eleven for $10. We will draw winners at the end of the market on April 2, 9, 16 and 23. Winners can pick up their prizes the following week at the IWFM.

Buttons - Be the first to sport the full series of four buttons for only $1 per button! Or pick your favorite and buy some for friends! Each represents one phrase in our motto: - Grow well. - Eat well. - Live well. - Be well.

Give - If t-shirts, buttons and raffle prizes aren't your thing, we still welcome you to express the Power of One individual to make a difference as part of a collective effort by contributing $1, or whatever amount you choose. * Each $1 will go toward our minimum goal of raising $5,000 in the month of April. All funds raised will directly contribute to the development, implementation and on-going operations of new programming that will make the IWFM accessible to more individuals in Indianapolis, regardless of income level.

* Please note, the IWFM is not a 501c3 organization, therefore donations are not tax deductible.

Adding a New Sponsor, Growing our Community

Grow well. Eat well. Live well. This is the motto of the Indy Winter Farmers Market (IWFM). We believe it represents a full-circle vision for food systems and community health. We must grow our food well, in ways that nurture farmland ecology and all who eat from it. We must eat well, choosing foods and eating habits that will nourish our bodies and minds, as well as inspire pleasure in the experience of eating healthy, whole foods. We must live well, enjoying quality of life and making lifestyle choices that respect each other, our communities, the environment, and ourselves.

We are pleased to announce a new partner in this vision, Wishard Health Services. Wishard believes that these three elements are critical contributors to helping people be well. When we have access to food that is grown well; when we have the information and resources to eat well; when we are empowered within our community to live well; then we greatly enhance our capacity to be well.

Wishard Health Services is partnering with the IWFM to sponsor a new food access program that will make the good food available at the IWFM accessible to a broader scope of the central Indianapolis population. Wishard is a core provider of service and care to our community’s most vulnerable, and it has long supported food access and community health. Providing healthful food options is an integral part of the community’s health and the Wishard model of care. Nutrition is a serious challenge for many in the urban population, and Wishard is proud to serve as an advocate and resource for advancing awareness and adoption of healthy lifestyles and food choices to support improved health outcomes.

We are deeply grateful to Wishard Health Services for their sponsorship, which provides the seed to make it happen. However, as we all know, it takes more than seeds to grow a successful garden.

Together Wishard Health Services and the IWFM are issuing a challenge to the community to help raise the funds to make this program a success. Our goal is to raise a minimum of $5,000 in the month of April to contribute to the development, implementation and on-going operations of this new program. If each person who visits the market gave only $1 per visit, we could easily exceed this minimum goal in one month. We will have t-shirts, buttons and fantastic raffle prizes each week in April, to make giving more fun! Be the first to sport our fantastically updated logo. Read more below.

We hope you will help us meet this goal. It takes the commitment of a community to ensure everyone has the opportunity to: Grow well. Eat well. Live well. & Be well.

Raw Mediterranean Kale Salad - Audrey Barron

Yield: 3 Cups (2 -3 Servings)

• ½ bunch kale, de-stemmed (about 1 cup packed) and cut into thin ribbons (chiffonade)
• 1/8 head cabbage, shredded (1 ¼ cups)
• 2 tablespoon red onion, finely julienned
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon light miso
• ½ tablespoon lemon juice, fresh squeezed
• ½ tablespoon orange juice, fresh squeezed
• 1 tomato, diced
• ½ tablespoon raw honey
• ½ red jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced (or substitute a dash cayenne pepper)
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• ½ teaspoon powdered mustard
• ½ teaspoon crushed garlic
• 1/8 teaspoon sea salt
• ¼ cup pine nuts
• 2 tablespoon oil-packed capers, optional
• ¼ cup kalamata olives, pitted and chopped, optional
• 2 tablespoons dulse flakes, optional

1. For the dressing: Combine the oils, miso, lemon juice, orange juice, honey, onion powder, mustard powder, and crushed garlic in a bowl and use a whisk to combine. In a large bowl, massage the kale well for a couple of minutes to soften.

2. Add the cabbage, tomato, jalapeno, pine nuts and red onion to the bowl of softened kale. Pour the dressing over the mixture, toss, and season with salt to taste. Garnish with the optional capers, dulse and olives and serve

3. This salad is best served immediately, but it can also be stored in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours.

Audrey Barron is a Certified Raw Food Chef that offers lectures, classes and retreats on preparation of delicious living food dishes, healthy eating, wellness and benefits of raw/living foods.

Learn more about Audrey at http://www.beofbliss.com/ and http://foodblissworkshops.blogspot.com/

Retaining the Power of Choice

What if we lost the option to choose chemical-free and organic produce, grass fed beef and dairy, humanely raised meats or an exclusively vegan diet? What if we lost our right to choose locally or sustainably grown foods? What if we lost the option to purchase those foods directly from farmers? What if direct from a farmer was the only way to ensure choice?

What if we lost the right to grow our own gardens and save our own seeds? What if we did not have the option to choose to eat foods that have not been genetically altered? What if all we had were groceries filled with chemically treated produce, meat and dairy laced with synthetic hormone, antibiotic, steroid and other residual chemical products, and aisle after aisle of highly processed boxed, bagged and bottled calories labeled and sold as food?

If you had all the choices in the world, you could eat anything and everything you want, what would you choose? Would you choose to eat foods that contribute to the destruction of the environment? How about foods grown and produced using inhumane labor practices? Does it sounds appetizing to eat foods produced in a system in which a food industry conglomerate owns or otherwise controls a farmer’s access to and selection of seeds, or animal breeds, or farming practices? How about food from a farm that has created air and water pollution to the point that farmers, fisherman, neighbors have become chronically ill or experienced neurological damage? Would you choose to eat primarily foods that will increase your chances of diabetes, obesity, cancer, heart disease, high cholesterol, asthma and other chronic diseases? If you faced any of these health problems, would you select foods that decrease your ability to heal and recover?

The reality is that probably each and every one of us would answer NO! to the questions above. And the reality is that probably each and every one of us eats these foods every day. Most people ONLY eat these foods and do not have the knowledge, access or financial means to choose from other options. Perhaps most ironically, this includes many American farmers and farmers worldwide who do no longer have the necessary local systems and community networks available to afford the choice to farm or eat outside the agribusiness system.

How do you want to feed your children? How do you want to feed to the world’s most vulnerable, most disadvantaged, most diseased, most hungry people? Would you choose whatever is most convenient, fast, cheap, and easy? Are fast, cheap, easy, empty calories the long-term solution? Do we care enough to commit to a better future by actively working to create a sustainable supply of real, whole, nutritious, health promoting food to break the cycle of poverty and hunger? Or is that idealistic, unrealistic? Or is it more than we are willing to invest for a certain low to loss financial return?

Retaining the power to choose what and how we eat and grow food is already an effectively become a privilege, and one that we must actually work very hard to maintain. We must care enough to educate ourselves and take action to protect the power of choice. It is no longer sufficient to vote with our forks alone. We must make time to be educated on the issues. We must know the issues facing the farmers, the producers, the food entrepreneurs, the restaurateurs, the school cafeterias, the local distributors, the doctors and teachers and the city and state planners. We must demand these issues be part of social and political conversation. We must empower or friends, and we must vote with our votes. Otherwise we will quickly, quietly and potentially entirely loose the power of choice.

Right now we still have the power of choice! Right here in Indianapolis organizations, farmers, locally based food businesses and individuals are working hard to create the path to a future in which choice could again be a right, not just a privilege. We must care enough to educate ourselves and take action to protect the power of choice. We must make time to be educated on the issues. We must know the issues facing the farmers, the producers, the food entrepreneurs, the restaurateurs, the school cafeterias, the local distributors, the doctors and teachers and the city and state planners. We must demand these issues be part of social and political conversation. We must empower our friends, and we must vote with our votes, as well as our forks.

Know enough to know that just because we want utopia, doesn’t make it so. We must recognize that the steps toward progress can only walk the path that exists, in the process of building a new one. Know enough not to be fooled by a wolf in sheep’s clothing – AND - Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Talk to those you disagree with, it’s one of the best ways to learn. Don’t give up or resign because it is hard or you don’t know enough yet. Stay involved.

This is a lifelong journey, but it’s one to which we must commit, whether we get to enjoy the future we’re working for ourselves, or whether our children or grandchildren enjoy a future of choice because of the work we do now.

The Genetically Modified Foods Choice

What is the problem with genetically modified/engineered/altered (GMO or GE) foods? We’re told there is no evidence that GMO corn, soy, alfalfa and sugar beets are unsafe, and we don’t eat biotech corn for ethanol production anyway?

No one will tell you. There will be no warning or differentiating labels, whether it’s a simple cut of grass fed meat, or a lovely cake, or a bottle of juice, or a can of tomato sauce. You won’t know what contains GMO ingredients and what does not. This is not a concern of the future. It is the current reality.

GMO foods will not be organic, as these GMOs are engineered to require proprietary chemical application to grow.

GMOs cannot be isolated to specific fields, certain farms, or select countries. GMOs will affect the entire food chain.

The farmers you trust to offer you choice will find it harder and harder and eventually impossible to source GMO free grain or hay, or to protect their own fields from cross-pollination and thus genetic contamination. Following on the transition of grains and commodities, GMO technology will spread for use in vegetables, and the same potential for cross-pollination will occur. Vegetable farmers will face the fate of commodity farmers – denied the right or ability to save their own seed and sued by patent-holding corporations when acts of nature bring patented GMO seeds onto their property.

No one predicted that the transition to a faster, more efficient, cheaper way of producing food would lead to the health, environmental and economic crises now directly linked to the transitions brought about by agribusiness and food science. Are you willing to wager our collective future on what the interests promoting GMOs are NOT publically predicting?

In the past month, the USDA has approved three new biotech crops for use in the US: Roundup Ready GMO alfalfa, Roundup Ready GMO sugar beets and a new biotech corn for ethanol production. These crops could go into fields as early as this spring. It is widely acknowledged that these crops will contaminate the genetic make-up of both conventional and organic farmers’ non-GMO crops.

This decision will do more to eliminate our power of choice in what we eat than potentially anything has thus far. If left standing, this decision will further erode the ability of farmers to choose what and how they want to grow on their land. If left standing, this decision will make it increasingly more difficult as a consumer to access organic or sustainably grown food, even as more and more people are demanding improved access to choice.

You can take action to make your voice heard and support the effort to stop our loss of the power to choose. Sign the petition at Food Democracy Now.

In Indiana we must Stop GMOs on our farmland!

We encourage you to take action. In the state of Indiana, our farmland will be used to grow these crops. It will hurt our farmland, farmers, our farmers markets and our inherent right to eat foods we can trust. This alfalfa will contaminate our grassfed animals, this biotech corn will take over more valuable acres in our state while cross-pollinating and thus contaminating non GMO corn, and these sugar beets will be in your food - unlabeled as GMO. You will not be able to control or even know whether or not you are eating GMO contaminated foods, and the chances will be better than not that you will be eating them all the time if these three crops are allowed into our fields.

Re-posted From Food Democracy Now:
Unbelievably, in the past 3 weeks, the Obama administration has approved 3 GMO crops. First it was Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa, then Monsanto’s GMO sugar beets and just last Friday, as Egypt celebrated it’s freedom, the Obama U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the go ahead to a GMO variety of industrial corn to be used to produce ethanol.1

That’s right, 3 GMO crops got the Obama Rubber Stamp in the past 3 weeks.

At a time when the Obama administration should be forging ahead to make agriculture more sustainable, encouraging more farmers to convert to organic farming practices, they’ve decided to double down on an unproven and untested technology over the objections of millions of Americans and a growing chorus of food manufacturers, both organic and conventional, who find these lab engineered food products to be worrisome for a variety of reasons.

Already more than 75,000 American citizens and two dozen farm, food and agricultural organizations have signed a letter to President Obama asking him to retract his recent decisions on GMO alfalfa and sugar beets.

Clearly the President and his staff have not gotten the message!

If you’ve already signed this letter, thank you, but ask that you forward this message to 3 of your friends so that they can have the opportunity to sign it as well. If everyone who has signed it had 1 friend sign as well, more than 150,000 people will have signed this letter.

If you haven't signed, please click on the link below and then forward this to 3 friends you know who care about this critical issue — Help us get more than 100,000 signatures — we need to keep the pressure on!

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/347?akid=298.65136.XqXv6Q&t=7

Here's a brief recap of the Obama administration's appalling cave to Monsanto and the biotech industry in just the last 3 weeks.

1. Monsanto’s Roundup Ready GMO alfalfa - Jan. 27th, 2011 - Over the objections of hundreds of thousands of American citizens, the White House approved this unnecessary crop - despite the fact that 93% of alfalfa hay grown in the U.S. does not use herbicides and that genetic contamination with conventional, non-GMO and organic alfalfa threatens the livelihoods of tens of thousands of family farmers and the food choices of more than 50 million organic consumers.2

2. Monsanto’s Roundup Ready GMO sugar beets - Feb. 4, 2011 - Defying a court order to complete a proper Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) the USDA announced that it is granting a “partial” approval of Monsanto’s GMO sugar beets, giving farmers and seed dealers the clear signal that final approval is right around the corner. By the time the EIS is expected to be complete, sometime in May, farmers will have already started planting their crop for the next year since the USDA says it gave the green light to avert a “sugar shortage” in the U.S. Sugar beets comprise some 54% of U.S. sugar found in everything from soda, other beverages, candy bars3

3. Syngenta’s Enogen Alpha-Amylase Corn for Ethanol - Feb 11, 2011 - This new GMO amylase corn product contains an enzyme that allegedly allows an increase in ethanol production with a reduction of natural gas and water usage, thus saving ethanol plants money. While caving to the biotech and ethanol industries, the Obama administration basically ignored the concerns of leading food manufacturers who fear that if this new industrial corn cross-pollinates with or is accidentally mixed with corn used to make food products, it could lead to crumbly corn chips, soggy cereal and a host of other food processing disasters.4

Despite being comprised of more than 43 powerful companies such as General Mills, ConAgra Mills, ADM Milling and Quaker Oats, the Obama administration completely dismissed the concerns of the North American Miller’s Association, comprised of some of the largest food manufacturers in U.S. in order to favor the biotech and ethanol corporate agenda, both industries with checkered pasts and products of dubious benefit.

Please take a moment to tell President Obama that you’re outraged over his decision to approve a crop technology that has not lived up to its marketing promises, increasingly harms farmer profitability and has potential negative human health and environmental consequences.

Click on the link below to tell President Obama that you're outraged by these recent decisions and care about how your food is produced and what it’s in it and that it’s time to put the health and safety of farmers and America’s 50 million organic consumers over corporate profits.

http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/347?akid=298.65136.XqXv6Q&t=9

Thanks for taking action — your support is greatly appreciated! We need your help to keep the pressure on! If you can, please consider chipping in as little as $10 to help us continue this fight.

http://fdn.actionkit.com/go/donate/133?akid=298.65136.XqXv6Q&t=12

We rely on folks like you to keep us going. Thanks again for your support.

Thank you for participating in food democracy — your action today may help save the organic industry.

Dave, Lisa and the Food Democracy Now! Team

Sources:

1. “Vilsack Clears Industrial Biotech Corn”, Des Moines Register, February 11, 2011.
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/343?akid=298.65136.XqXv6Q&t=14

2. “U.S. Approves Gene-Altered Alfalfa, Fails to Protect Organic Farms”, Rodale News, January 27, 2011.
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/344?akid=298.65136.XqXv6Q&t=16

3. “USDA Approves Genetically Engineered Sugar Beets Without Ample Review”, Rodale News, February 4, 2011
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/345?akid=298.65136.XqXv6Q&t=18

4. “How Ethanol Production Could Make for Crumbly Corn Chips”, The Christian Science Monitor, February 15, 2011.
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/go/346?akid=298.65136.XqXv6Q&t=20