Soil Association - follow our bloggers

Wake up call to health, mine and the planet’s.

Lynda Brown — Fri, 10 May 2013 11:46:36 GMT

Two weeks ago, out of the blue, I woke up in the middle of the night with a throbbing foot, swollen and painful around the big toe area. I won’t bore you with the details, but my GP – who took one look – reckons it’s probably gout. Moi? !!!! ( My diet is A1, mainly organic, don’t do processed food , hardly drink, am pretty skinny, and exercise regularly.)

GM betrayal....

Lynda Brown — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 08:26:23 GMT

M&S, the Co-op, Tesco, and Sainsbury's have announced that they no longer require their producers to use non GM feed for farm animals. The excuse is that there isn't sufficient non GM feed to go around and anyway, it's not detectable in things like eggs, milk or chicken, i.e. there's no need to worry, it's all perfectly safe sort of thing. So, forget all that you're worth it rubbish - we're clearly not.

The old problem and the new "terrorism"

Lynda Brown — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 13:09:16 GMT

The week has started with a headline story about the Chief Medical Officer’s chilling warning that antibiotic usage and bug resistance to them was now so serious that in 10-20 years time, we could be back to the stone age: due to the risk of infection every visit to a hospital could potentially be fatal, and simple and complex operations, including those for organic transplants and cancer could be futile.

A dream come true...

Lynda Brown — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 11:53:49 GMT

Most people dream of holidays in exotic places staying in a luxurious hotel overlooking a sun drenched ocean; I dream of visiting Ode Café in Shaldon, Devon situated in Ness car park overlooking Teignmouth (which looks a lot more exotic by night than day). Last week my dream came true - burgers on the menu, yes, but not some dubious squashed greasy affairs with a seasoning of horse DNA, but a choice of either prime Riverford organic beef burger or extremely tasty home made local wild venison burger, both well under a tenner (£8 in fact) – and they come with French fries and delicious organic salad leaves, too.

Horsegate and all that...

Lynda Brown — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 09:42:14 GMT

Well, three weeks into the biggest meat food scandal arguably since BSE, and it all feels like deja vu to me – same old defensive response from ministers and the Food Standards Authority; same old solution (spend millions testing after the horse has bolted to prove what we already know); same old denial that there’s anything wrong with our wonderful global industrialised food system (it’s the criminals that are to blame, not the system); same old insistence this is just an isolated case, it’s all perfectly safe (err, nearly…) and so on.

Frankenfish - yuk!

Lynda Brown — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 14:35:31 GMT

When it comes to social media, I’m a real laggard (OK, so un-cool, but honestly I’d much rather go for a walk or dance tango any day than whitter and twitter my life away). But even I admit, it can be awesomely powerful, especially when it galvanises public opinion into a nice juicy petition with thousands of names on it; so much so, it’s fast becoming the peaceful and effective way to voice your concerns over a particular issue. And it doesn’t get more disgusting than the thought of salmon, genetically engineered to be obese (life is full of ironies, isn’t it?). The story so far is that the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved (on paper), GE salmon that will grow twice as fast as normal Atlantic salmon.

The stuff we have to put up with....

Lynda Brown — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 16:31:59 GMT

My brother rang last week to alert me to a feature on Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show about how because of last year’s atrocious rainy weather, veg hadn’t got any nutrients, and how it was worse for organic veg. What actually happened was that ‘leading scientist’, Professor Mike Gooding, Head of Agricultural Policy and Development at University of Reading was putting it about that fruit and veg and cereals maybe less nutritious and tasty (eg rain leaching out nitrogen means less protein – he was referring mainly to cereals here, less sunshine means less sugars etc). And that though organic growers were more resilient because they grew a more diverse range of crops, organic veg were potentially worse off because they hadn’t got recourse to quick fix artificials.

New generation, new ideas...

Lynda Brown — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:01:22 GMT

Like Ben Raskin, I kicked off the New Year with a bang by spending yesterday day at the Oxford Real Farming Conference, the new ‘hub’ for sustainable-cum-agro-ecological food and farming. This is the Brave New World of food and farming, and I love it. (PS It gets my vote for another reason: it’s cheap; that means anyone can afford to go. If you’re up for a heady dose of can do culture, I thoroughly recommend it.)

Brussels and Nero

Lynda Brown — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 15:19:52 GMT

Last night found me at a great Christmas gig given by The Sustainable Food Trust. Great because it gave me a rare chance to meet and chat to a bunch of people who all share a common vision, namely making the world a more sustainable place (spent ages engrossed in discussing Joanna Blythman’s counter in the Daily Mail, to this week’s green light on GM foods by the Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, who not only seems to want to endorse GM foods and wants them grown and sold in Britain, but doesn’t see the necessity of labeling them, thereby robbing us of any choice).

Have you cottoned on yet? organiccotton.biz is the biz!

Lynda Brown — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 10:02:18 GMT

As we know, thanks to pioneering fashion companies like People Tree, ethical fashion is now an everyday reality, and awareness of the supreme importance of supporting organic cotton farmers and industry is finally getting through (for why, look no further than the Soil Association's latest blockbuster campaign). But - and it's a big one, though we can now buy organic clothes and towels on the high street, that's not the case with organic fabrics generally, which once again means turning a blind eye.

Two for Christmas...

Lynda Brown — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 09:26:31 GMT

I've just received an email from Slow Food UK about their eminently worthwhile Eat it or Lose it initiative, part of their Forgotten Foods campaign which is trying to encourage everyone to support our traditional foods and breeds. Good timing because It gives me the perfect opportunity to do two things I almost never do: praise supermarkets, or in this case, Waitrose; and wax lyrical about non-organic veg.

National Town Centre Independence Day – yes please!

Lynda Brown — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 13:36:33 GMT

Don’t you just love it when you go to an event and it fires you up? That’s what happened to me last Saturday when I went to Frome’s first Town Centre Independence Day, and I’ve been buzzing ever since. Like many small towns, Frome (next best thing to a Hovis ad) has been battling against proposals for yet another giant town centre supermarket. The local pressure group, Keep Frome Local, organized the day to bring together 200 like minded campaigners from all over the UK to share their experiences, learn from each other, and discuss the bigger picture.

Having your cake...

Lynda Brown — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 08:04:33 GMT

I've not being having a good time of it of late. My blog on badgers got rejected, and a Living Earth reader took me to task for encouraging people to eat meat. May as well make it a hat trick. You see, I loathe baking cakes. I so totally know I'll never go to heaven, and Mary Berry and Nigella would think I'm the pits, but I really cannot understand why our ability to love depends on making heart-stopping bakes.

That preserving itch....

Lynda Brown — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 08:48:27 GMT

Sitting in one of my favourite places (Sophie's in Minchinhampton), thinking I must get back to blogging, and have just caught the magic word 'damsons' wafting across from the next table. Yes, it's that time of year again - when every walk means scouring the locality for brambles, crab apples, wild damsons, elderberries, and, if you're lucky (or brave enough), mushrooms.

The GMO timebomb: time for homework

Lynda Brown — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 09:52:32 GMT

I've been holed up in bed watching the rain and fighting off a bug. Now, I wouldn't actually choose GMOs as a bedfellow (to tell the truth, I'm bored with having to hear the same old arguments) but when it makes Radio 3 morning news, then you know it's serious.

Why do we bother?

Lynda Brown — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 12:53:56 GMT

I do sometimes wonder, don't you? Last week the Soil Association president and presenter of Gardeners' World, Monty Don, found himself at odds with the BBC, who, without it seems asking him, had re-assured pesticide manufacturers that he would be "more even handed in his discussion of organic and non-organic techniques". I see it's run over to this week, too - by the way, Geoff Hamilton (see below) did not die of organic food, as one anti commentator implied but from a heart attack whilst on a charity bike ride.

The GM nightmare... again

Lynda Brown — Fri, 25 May 2012 06:27:54 GMT

One of the many reasons I'm committed to organic food and farming is its stance on GM: it forbids the use of GM crops and ingredients in organic farming systems and food. It's always seemed to me to be an incredibly noble and brave stance. A dozen or so years after the first furore over 'Frankenstein Foods' engaged the nation, nothing has happened to make me change my mind. Newsnight this week and the Independent yesterday morning gives you the flavour of this well worn debate going nowhere. So, what have we learnt in the intervening years?

Urgent: do you love decent meat?

Lynda Brown — Thu, 03 May 2012 17:10:25 GMT

Like most people, I'm passionate about supporting smaller family farms: they're the living backbone of our landscape, rural life and food culture. If only, then, it were as simple as supporting them with your purse power. But it isn't. Tuesday's online Guardian ran with a story about Vion (no, I'd never heard of them, either) that illustrates the sort of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that we generally never hear about, but which could affect the future of small farmers much more than you think.

Organic dairy heaven

Lynda Brown — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:30:34 GMT

Me and my keffir have finally moved - yes it was utterly cathartic; yes, I ate a lot of organic chocolate (if only I had known about the latest award winning raw choc superfood, Pulsin Beyond Organic Bars); no, I'm never, ever, ever, moving again; and yes, of course I've moved to Stroud, or rather Box, a tiny village nearby. Which is why yesterday finally caught me having a milkmaid moment walking to my local organic dairy, Woefuldane Dairy in the centre of Minchinhampton, swinging my very own mini milk churn to fill up with their delicious full fat organic milk straight from their Shorthorn cows. Cost? 90p a litre (try finding that in your supermarket). Plus I can buy their own butter, cheeses, cream, yoghurt and eggs. Needless to say I'm in organic dairy heaven.

The new love of my life

Lynda Brown — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 09:35:29 GMT

Good News – I have a new love affair: kefir, that strange but miraculous sponge-like substance, which ferments milk and transforms it into a super- dooper 100% natural probiotic yoghurt- like miracle cure. A friend gave me some fresh kefir grains and I've been besotted ever since. It's been around for over 2000 years, originating from the Caucasus Mountains; traditionally, the grains, considered a source of family and tribal wealth, were passed down from one generation to the next. The word originates from the Turkish 'keif' meaning good /long life/state of feeling good, and I can quite understand why.