Winter Markets in the Madison Area

The Dane County and South Madison Farmer’s Markets may be less visible indoors, but they are still a great source of local ingredients and foods. Stop by the Madison Senior Center on Saturday mornings for the Dane County Farmer’s Market through April 9th, or the Novation Campus on Rimrock on Sunday afternoons for the South Madison Farmer’s Market.

Community Supported Agriculture

You can still receive produce from farms in the region through CSA baskets. These baskets are a great way to support local farmers, get fresh produce, and try vegetables, fruits, meats, and cheeses that you might not otherwise be exposed to. Many CSA operations offer week by week or long term purchasing options.  Growing Power has a Market Basket Program that runs year round that you can sign up for through Growing Power or through Slow Food UW’s Market Basket partnership. Other CSA options in the Madison area include the Madison Area CSA Coalition and Harmony Valley Farm. If you think Winter CSA baskets will be boring, then you haven’t tried winter spinach yet!

Courtesy of www.mofga.org

Local, Sustainable Food Events

Slow Food UW and Slow Food Madison are two organizations that focus on promoting “good, clean, fair food” in the Madison area. For five dollars, families and individuals can stop by 1127 University Avenue on Monday nights for Family Dinner Nights, a delicious, locally sourced meal hosted by Slow Food UW and prepared by a guest chef. Slow Food UW also hosts a Wednesday Cafe during the lunch hour with a menu of local and creative entrees to choose from.

January 22nd though the 27th is Madison Magazine Resturant Week. Area resturants put together special three course menus for this six day event and resturant goers can choose a combination of courses for a set price of either $25 or $15. This is a great opportunity to try a new Madison resturant or revisit an old favorite. For a list of participating resturants and menus, click here.

~Sustainability Intern

Joe Shook

Last year, 6 Dane County families took on a yearlong commitment to reduce their eco-footprint by 40%. These families have completed the challenge, greatly changing their impact on the environment and creating an example for their communities. The search is on to find 5-10 individuals or families to take on the ultimate eco-test this coming year.

• How much energy can you save?—the average WI household consumes 10,000 kWh/yr
• How much less can you drive?—the average WI car owner drives 13,000 miles/yr
• How much local and organic food can you eat?— food typically travels 1,500 miles
• How much waste can you recycle?—the average person throws away 1,600 lbs of garbage/yr
• How much water can you conserve?—the average WI household consumes 67,806 gallons/yr
• How much money can you save?—the answer is up to you! (The average EnAct participant saves $400/yr)

The goal is a 41% reduction (compared to the WI averages above) to celebrate the 41^st anniversary of Earth Day. The challenge will start in January 2012 and end in December 2012.

What We Need from You

• A commitment to make significant changes, and to keep up the effort for a full year
• Permission to share your story and picture online and with the media
• Permission to periodically review your utility bills, odometer readings, and food bills
• Willingness to blog or be interviewed for blogs or media stories

What We’ll Provide You

• One-on-one consultations to help you make changes and save money
• Free resources and more than 1,000 tips to reduce your ecological footprint
• Recognition for your hard work
• GREAT PRIZES for all participants! Last year’s prizes included a free bike from Dream Bikes, a year’s worth of Organic Valley milk, a free home energy audit from MG&E, a Water Sense low flow toilet, and more. This adds up to more than $1,500 in rewards! Look forward to similar great prizes for next year.

To Nominate Yourself
Email a 250-word essay explaining why you should be a Greener, Faster Challenge participant. Include your name, address, phone and email address, and the number of people in your household. Tell us about your current lifestyle, and why you are ready to make big changes. Participants will be selected from all nominations received.

Deadline for nominations is December 31st. Visit www.enactwi.org or call (608) 204-2888 for more details. Send your nomination to: enact@madisonenvironmental.com.  Entries will be reviewed by Madison Environmental Group, Inc. and EnAct sponsors.

Fear not! If one of your resolutions is to save money, live more sustainably or make real changes in the household, we have all the tools you need. EnAct teams can be a great way to meet new people, build community in your workplace, faith group, or neighborhood.

If you are really looking to dig in, consider joining the Greener Faster Challenge. This year long challenge will push you to go as low as you can go. You will get hands on help, guidance, resources, and goodies to help you along the way. Don’t forget the people you will meet that will be there to provide support and let you know you are not alone in the changes.

If there is anything we at EnAct can do to get your new year started right, let us know! We are here for you as a free resource to all things green.

Happy New Year!

Holiday eating have you feeling weighed down?

1. Choose the ‘lesser of two evils’:

When left with no control over the choice of food and drink at a party, go in prepared. Some common brands are much more healthy and sustainable than others.  Know ahead of time which brands or ingredients are less harmful can help you make responsible choices. Small actions like choosing dark chocolate over milk chocolate, or avoiding artificial coloring can add up.  Greenopia has a rating system for corporations with descriptions of their efforts, including   Beverage options , coffee and tea, candy, Fast Food, and many others.

Remember the dirty dozen and the clean fifteen when eating non organic vegetables. You can use this easy site to calculate the green house gas emissions averages for different foods as well.

Knowing the Aggregate Nutritional Density Index of various foods might help choose which dishes you dive into. The top 30 rated foods can be found here.

2. Cut down on waste:

It is estimated that we throw away 3 times more food waste over the holidays than normal.  Bring reusable containers with you to parties to help out with leftovers and limit the use of paper consumables or even Styrofoam.  If you compost, volunteer to take the food waste home with you and give your compost pile a boost. (Your worms will enjoy the holiday feast!) Love Food Hate Waste has a fun and easy Portion Planner that helps calculate how much of each common ingredient you will need based on the amount of adults and kids attending. You will find other helpful hints on the website to cut down on waste year round.

3. Be the example

Remember that many of your family and friends might not be aware of the issues or steps they can take to lie more sustainably. Take this time of year to share your knowledge and passion with them. Setting an example and educating others is the most rewarding gift you can pass along.

We hope you all have a safe and joyful holiday season!

Kayla Baake

EnAct Program Manager

Nathan Clarke

He’s a home-brewer.  He’s a bread maker.  He’s a science fiction reader. Nathan Clarke is an avid bee keeper and the founder of Madison Urban Bees LLC.  There’s no better way to say it than how Nathan said it himself. “I’m a busy bee.”  With a passion for honeybees and a drive to share his honey with the greater Madison community, Nathan Clarke has kindly shared a bit of information about his project.

As a resident of Madison since 1998, Nathan became involved with beekeeping through his wife’s uncle who convinced him to start a hive.  Though his first year as a beekeeper resulted in a failure, Nathan notes that he has “caught the buzz” in the last five years. Though it may come as a bit of a shock, Nathan is in fact allergic to bees.  To deal with this, Nathan has received allergy shots once every five weeks for the past three years.  Fortunately, Nathan has only had to use his EpiPen just twice in his life. He happily notes that the allergy is lessening through eating his honey while the anaphylactic reaction to the bees is lessening due to the medial allergy shots.

When asked to describe Mad Urban Bees LLC, a newly launched food project as of July 2011, Nathan spoke of it as a new type of urban agriculture.  The idea behind Mad Urban Bees LLC is to spread hives throughout the Madison community in the backyards, back lots, and rooftops of willing bee advocates. Completely voluntary, the hosts involved in the project share Nathan’s interest in promoting the benefit bees bring to our ecosystem in an urban food landscape. When asked about the benefits, Nathan highlighted three: honey to sell, food for the community, and pollination for the community.

Mad Urban Bees LLC

As with any project, Nathan has determinately confronted a range of challenges including organizing a plan project as well as learning the local laws surrounding beekeeping.  With just two beehives in his backyard, Nathan has called on the Madison community for help in establishing one of the first urban apiaries in the country. Through Mad Urban Bees LLC, Nathan looks to expand from the two hives in his backyard to 40-50 in the Madison metropolitan area next spring.  To make this goal a reality, Nathan is using Kickstarter to raise money to buy hives, bees, queens, and equipment. For Nathan, it is more than producing honey and selling it.  It is about community. The bees will be pollinating the city’s gardens and flowers.

Similarly, Nathan has made brief contact with the  Dane County Beekeepers Association to learn the laws of beekeeping.  He is pleased to be included in their discussions of new proposals. When asked about the future of Mad Urban Bees LLC, Nathan simply replied, “I see a lot of work.”  In addition to working through the challenges stated above, Nathan hopes to  develop an education component.  With this, Nathan would like to see kids in school have the opportunity to learn about bees and honey.  In the interview, Nathan stressed the importance of people needing to understand the differences between wasps, which are omnivorous (the ones highly interested in your hotdog and soda) whereas bees, are vegetarians and have no interest in your afternoon picnic.

To learn more about the bees themselves, I asked Nathan to expand on a statement he made in an article from the Wisconsin State Journal wherein he noted, “Bees are in trouble.”  To start, Nathan explained that bees are under stress from disease, parasites and large-scale agriculture.  As an example, he talked about a monoculture crop of almonds in California.  In this specific example, bees are used as a topical spray to crops.  Because the crop of almonds is a monoculture, bees only have one kind of food.  Likewise, bees are starved of protein when they are fed corn syrup. Nathan went on to explain that bees need a variety in their diet.  “When they don’t get it, they become nutritionally deficient–bees get sick.”  To conclude, he spoke further on the creation of new pesticides as an obstacle to bee survival.  Bees feed and take in neurotoxins.  The bees then bring it back and concentrate it in their hives.  Nathan remarked, “There is no magic bullet for bees.  So many factors, no single cure.” A grim conclusion concluded the discussion.  No bees equals the collapse of agriculture. For more information on the colony collapse, Nathan recommended the documentary,”Vanishing of the Bees.”

Nathan also highlighted the fact that 75% of honey in grocery stores isn’t pure honey.  This means that it has been cut with corn/rice syrup. Nathan briefly described the illegal smuggling of honey which is nothing more than a bit of natural honey added to the so-called “honey” at a cheap cost.  He went on to say, “honey laundering is very, very high tech. The groups that are doing this use very scientific methods of nano partial removal to rid the honey of any pollen grains to mask the country or origin. This filtering process does not filter out heavy metals like mercury, pesticides or antibiotics.”  This means that the mercury, antibiotics, and pesticides remain in the honey. Nathan concluded, The FDA doesn’t define honey, allowing big food companies to buy cheap foreign honey. Local beekeepers can’t compete.”

A busy bee hard at work!

A few last notes from Nathan:

Q: Why should people buy your honey?

A: 1) “It tastes great.”

2) You’re supporting local business, you’re supporting local agriculture.”

3) “My honey is raw unfiltered honey.

Q: What is the most important thing you want people to know about Mad Urban Bees LLC?

A: “Without the community, I can’t exist.”

Q: What tips do you have for aspiring beekeepers?

A: “Take the plunge. Get bees in early spring. Talk to people. Visit another beekeeper.”

A special thanks to Nathan for his time in the interview and his enthusiasm for beekeeping! Feel free to contact Nathan at nathan@madurbanbees.com or make a donation to his Kickstart internet fundraising project here.