Diamond Springs bottling facilities use protected springs in Virginia and North Carolina as the sources of their water. Underground water flows up through cracks in the earth and goes through a natural purification process as it runs through layer after layer of rock. This spring water is completely safe to drink. They test their sources regularly to verify that they are of extremely high quality.

For more information about this product visit DiamondSprings.com.

Kevin Gillespie, celebrity chef from the Woodfire Grill in Atlanta and sixth season Top Chef finalist, has been traveling around the country exploring farm fields and co-op grocery aisles as part of this year’s celebration of the United Nations International Year of Cooperatives. The 2012 International Year of Cooperatives presents a great opportunity for food co-ops nationwide to shine the spotlight on the role co-ops and delicious food play in bringing communities together. New videos from the thirteen-episode series, featuring co-ops from Vermont to California, will be released online every other Monday from February 6th through mid-June at www.strongertogether.coop.

When you hear the word “co-op,” what springs to mind? For some people, “co-op” may be their local grocery store; for others it may be a housing community. Whatever your initial association, you may be surprised by the many types of co-ops around you.

More than 800 million people around the world belong to cooperatives, and at least 100 million people are employed by co-ops. And more often than you might realize, co-ops play a vital part of your everyday life. Grocery stores, credit unions, housing co-ops, utility co-ops, health care cooperatives and food producer co-ops are just a few types of co-ops you have likely encountered, knowingly or unknowingly.

Declared by a United Nations resolution, 2012 is being recognized worldwide as the “International Year of Cooperatives.” The International Year of Cooperatives aims to share and celebrate the social and economic contributions of cooperative businesses, in which users can become owners. National Cooperative Grocers Association (NCGA) and its 122 retail food co-ops are marking the year with a variety of initiatives to help showcase the many benefits of cooperatives.

Consider the cup of coffee and cranberry muffin you recently enjoyed at your breakfast table. That coffee was likely purchased from a grower co-op in Indonesia, Sumatra or Peru. The flour in the muffin may have started as wheat from a farmer-owned grain milling co-op, and those cranberries could be from Ocean Spray, a producer-owned co-op. Those colorful walls? Perhaps they were painted with supplies purchased at Ace Hardware, a co-op owned by individual store operators. Maybe you’re wearing clothes bought at REI, a customer-owned co-op, or standing under a light fixture with electricity powered by an electricity co-op owned by residents in your community.

“From grocery stores and New York City apartments to credit unions and coffee producers, co-ops are all around us,” said Robynn Shrader, chief executive officer of NCGA. “Whether the co-op is operating on behalf of producers, workers or consumers, their general purpose is the same: to serve the needs of owners.”

Types of co-ops you may encounter everyday include:
Grocers. For nearly 80 years in communities across the country, retail food cooperatives have been leaders in providing consumers with high-quality local, organic, and sustainably produced food. Food co-ops take pride in building relationships with area growers and suppliers, and supported the concept of “local” long before local was cool. Food co-ops continue to lead and innovate to nurture and promote the growth of the local sustainable food systems – something that benefits both producers and consumers.

Financial services. Cooperative lending institutions often go where many investor-held banks won’t, which means they’re pumping billions of dollars into urban neighborhood stores and small-town businesses – and everything in between. Credit unions’ rich history begins in the early 1900s, when poor and working classes were denied credit from established banks and were forced to borrow from pawnbrokers and other unscrupulous moneylenders. They came together and took action, forming “people’s banks.” In 1934, President Roosevelt signed into law the Federal Credit Union Act in support of their community-minded stance. Today, the Act regulates approximately 12,000 credit unions, serving more than 76 million consumers around the country.

Food brands. Did you know that nearly 30 percent of all farmers’ products in the U.S. are marketed through more than 3,000 producer-owned cooperatives? Co-op food brands offer high-quality local, organic, and sustainably produced food. And of course, you can find many of these popular co-op food brands – such as Organic Valley Family of Farms, Frontier Natural Products, Equal Exchange, Florida’s Natural, and Cabot Creamery – in retail food co-ops.

Health care. Health care premiums and prescription medication costs are at an all-time high. But health care co-ops can help provide relief to both consumers and local business owners. Co-ops – such as HealthPartners – advocate for affordable premiums for members and small businesses, and they help community-owned nonprofit hospitals and independent pharmacists remain autonomous and affordable.

Housing. More than 1.2 million Americans, including upwards of 10,000 students, enjoy the affordability and community support of a housing co-op — from townhomes and high-rise apartments to senior citizen residences, mobile home parks and student housing. Members own a share in the cooperative, which manages the property where they live, and they pay a monthly fee to cover expenses like mortgage and maintenance.

Utilities. Electric cooperatives are owned by those who buy power and other services from the co-op. Their formation began in the 1930s when private, investor-owned utility companies refused to serve rural areas that were considered insufficiently profitable, with only a handful of customers per mile of line. The local farmers and residents banded together to found rural electric cooperatives. Today, electric co-ops own and maintain more than half of the nation’s power lines and provide service to communities large and small across the United States.

About National Cooperative Grocers Association
National Cooperative Grocers Association (NCGA), founded in 1999, is a business services cooperative for retail food co-ops located throughout the United States. NCGA helps unify food co-ops in order to optimize operational and marketing resources, strengthen purchasing power, and ultimately offer more value to natural food co-op owners and shoppers everywhere. The 122 NCGA members and associate co-ops operate nearly 160 storefronts in 34 states with combined annual sales over $1.3 billion. NCGA is a winner of the dotCoop Global Awards for Cooperative Excellence in recognition of the application of cooperative values and principles to drive cooperative and business success. For a map of NCGA member and associate co-ops, visit www.ncga.coop. To learn more about food co-ops, visit www.strongertogether.coop or www.go.coop.

By Kirsten Lovan

September 11, 2011

Composting is something everyone can do, no matter your living space; there is a way to compost! All you have to do is type composting into your preferred search engine and you can immediately find 20 ways to compost everything from kitchen scraps and yard waste to cardboard and you can do it on any scale.  Composting is an age old tradition used by farmers and home gardeners as a way to improve the soil’s structure, texture and fertility and increase its ability to retain water, all while decreasing their impact on overflowing landfills. Public awareness is increasing about what we, as individuals, need to do to conserve existing landfill space while reducing what we put in it. It is amazing to think that 1/3 of our landfills are taken up by organic waste, including kitchen scraps and yard clippings, and some larger cities are no longer collecting yard waste. All of that black gold is just sitting there, wasting away, literally. More and more people are re-discovering and turning more towards the traditional ways of life to reduce and re-use their scraps. Composting takes minimal planning and start up costs vary from little to none.

If you think that you have to grow food to compost, think again. You can use this in place of commercial fertilizers in any type of garden, flower or food.

Finding the right composting container is something of a personal preference. There are mountains of tools and containers and charts available online and locally to help you determine which method of composting is for you.

Check out Progressive Gardens on Oleander Drive for friendly advice about how to get started.

Tips about composting:

Layering and finding the balance between the green and brown matter help keeps the compost going and keep any strong smells from developing. Keeping the compost with the correct amount of moisture is important.

Don’t throw away kitchen scraps; add them to the compost pile. Egg shells, coffee grounds, fruit and vegetable scraps and grass clippings are all considered green matter.

Pine straw, fallen leaves, wood chips and even brown paper and cardboard (minimal inks and dyes please) are all considered brown matter.

Keeping the compost aerated. Turning the compost insures that enough oxygen is getting in and effectively breaking down the matter evenly.

What are you waiting for? Waste no more!

Plastic-Free Strawberry & Apple Fruit Leather

Yesterday, as I danced around my kitchen… I once again realized one of the many rewards of striving to reduce our families plastic footprint.  The reward, of course, is the victory of figuring out how to make something that has been so commercialized that we think that we need special equipment to make it OR the only way to get it is to buy it.

But, what I learned yesterday as I turned apples and strawberries into fruit leather is that I don’t need fancy equipment and my kids don’t have to go without BECAUSE it’s one of the easiest (and best tasting) things I’ve ever made.  Seriously, no joke.

Excited with my creation… I carried the fruit leather to my daughter’s dance last night.  Of course, I shared.  The reaction was, “You should sell these.”  But… why sell something when you can share a recipe and people can make their own??  Everyone deserves to dance around their kitchen in sweet victory!!!

Cut to how you like… eat in strips… roll them up… however you eat them… trust me… you’ll be dancing

*Any berry would work to replace the strawberries.  Make this with seasonal berries

*Make sure to use parchment or a Silpat liner.  Always one to experiment whether or not lining the pans is actually needed… I lightly oiled a pan and tried it out.  Sure it works fine… but it takes (a lot) more effort to get the fruit leather off of the pan.  Save yourself the time and line the pans!!

*I was asked if a food processor could be used in place of a food mill.  My thought is “why not?”… as long as the mixture is thoroughly puréed, it should work fine.  If you try it with a food processor… let me know

Our Daily Ocean: Day 52

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you may know that I only decided to create this blog after a nudge from my friend Tracy.  She’s awesome like that… always giving me inspiration and encouraging me to do more.  On Tuesday, Tracy and her two kids joined me and my three kids at Access 36.

As always, our kids played A LOT while Tracy and I picked up litter for 20 minutes… BUT… it never fails that even while they’re playing they take the time to run to us with handfuls of litter.  It’s engrained in them…  when they see a piece of litter… they pick it up.  They understand that everything and everyone is connected…

My friend Julie and her family have been doing 20-30 minute clean ups at Wrightsville Beach throughout the winter.  Of course, they’re counting the cigarette butts they find.  On Sunday, Julie and her family went to Access 36 and removed LOTS of litter… and 412 cigarette butts!!!

For some reason, I was actually surprised by that number.  The last two times we had been to Access 36, the cigarette counts were 92 (Feb.) and 101 (Jan.). In fact, the last time we picked up over 400 was on New Years Day at Access 16. As we picked up over 300– on World Water Day– I began to contemplate what the difference is…. I’ve come to two conclusions.

2.  Spring is here…. but it’s been so gorgeous that it almost feels like summer.  80? temperatures mean lots of people heading to the beach.  (… and I’m one of them!!)  I’m loving the warm weather… not loving how some people are trashing our beach.  (ummm…..by “our”… I mean.. my… your… his… her… their… EVERYONE’s… including the animals we share it with )

Footprints.  Bird footprints.  And they’re everywhere…. in a mess they didn’t create.