Eating locally isn't about being some hippie who only eats organic apples. Instead, the local food movement is all about community and sustainability. Produce in the big supermarkets is sometime shipped from halfway around the world (which means burning lots of fuel), so it's not as fresh or nutritious as the stuff that comes from your local farmer or your own backyard.

While this is a week of turkey, allow me just a few minutes to draw your attention to duck.  Lame duck, that is.  While the new kids on the block have already arrived at Capitol Hill for their orientation, the 111th Congress has some unfinished business to take care of before saying “adios” in December.  The lame duck session, which began Monday, November 15th and is expected to last until mid-December, contains high-profile legislation, some of which has been in the works for over a decade. However, there has been a public push from the Right to refuse passage for any legislation in the session.

A few years back I was researching the latest numbers available regarding livestock concentration.  Problem was, the best report (done by the University of Missouri) to track the continued consolidation of the packer industry was nowhere to be found.  So naturally some calls of concern were made, and what I learned was quite alarming.  The livestock sector had become so concentrated that it was now impossible to collect accurate data showing how much consolidation was actually occurring!

As of the last University of Missouri report by Mary Hendrickson and Bill Heffernan, released in April 2007, four beef packers controlled 83.5% of the market.  They are Tyson, Cargill, Swift & Co. and National Beef Packing Co.  The pork industry tells a similar story with an estimated 66% concentration ratio split between Smithfield Foods, Tyson, Swift & Co. and Cargill.

There's been a lot of buzz (particularly from conservatives) that the stimulus has created no jobs. We obviously beg to differ and set out to find an entrepreneur who might agree.

Thus, we met Marv Fritz from Garden Fresh Vegetables in O'Neill, Nebraska.

Nebraska is number one in the country for production of commercial red meat and number two when it comes to commercial cattle slaughter.  This and the following information was gathered from various agriculture resources and noted in a major meatpacking safety report by Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest.  The report was entitled The Speed Kills You: The Voice of Nebraska's Meatpacking Workers and was the result of a survey of 455 meatpacking workers across the state of Nebraska.  The report established that:

• Nebraska produces one of every five steaks and hamburgers in the country
• Meat is Nebraska's largest export, generating $1.1 billion
• In 2007, Nebraska slaughtered 7.1 million cattle and 7.4 million hogs

The size of government is a hot topic these days. Whether you think government should be big or small, we can all agree government has a role in ensuring the safety of our food and keeping producers and processors accountable.

As a mom, I don’t want to worry that when I open a bag of spinach or lettuce or put alfalfa sprouts on a salad that my kids might get sick. However, the food-safety laws at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have not been updated since the Great Depression, and without significant improvements, the healthy foods I want to feed my children will continue to be at greater risk for contamination.