Strawberries

In Sweden strawberries are the biggest sign that summer has finally arrived. Ask any Swede and he/she will tell you that there is absolutely no strawberries anywhere in the world as good as the Swedish ones. We eat them for breakfast, lunch and dessert and we put them in salads for dinner together with grilled meat. We eat them as snacks, as appetizers together with feta-cheese, or in smoothies. The best thing ever is to go to your local farmer and pick them yourself. You spend hours in the fields eating as many as you're picking and leave sunburnt with red fingertips and many, many liters of bright red berries. Those get in the freezer to enjoy wintertime or they are turned into jam or cordials.

Pesticides used when growing strawberries in Sweden are Betanal SC/Kemifam SC. The company that sells these products in Sweden (Bayer CropScience) writes on their own website that whatever is left of the pesticide after spraying the fields shall be kept away from children and animals and separated from food. I really don't see how that goes together since we serve those sprayed strawberries to our children later....

In a test carried out in 2009, 94% of the conventionally grown strawberries (Swedish and others) contained traces of pesticides. Several of the pesticides discovered are suspected to cause cancer.

The good news is that the industry is working to find solutions that allow less harmful farming, so I hope it will soon be easier to find organic ones. Strawberries grown organically will meet challenges like weed, fungus and different pests, so you need to grow tough species and to put in more work to keep your plants free. It's definitely worth doing so though since studies have shown that organic strawberries can actually prevent cancer. Makes the choice quite easy... You can read more about this at krav.se. 

According to a recent study made at Lunds University in Sweden, bees really like organic strawberries. They pollinated 45% of the strawberry-flowers on the organic farms and only 17% on the conventional farms. So you can basically turn one wrong into two rights and have bee-hives next to your strawberry-farm.

Buzz about Burt

Burt Shavitz used to work as a photographer in New York but wanted do something different with his life. He moved to Maine and started to sell honey made from his hives up in the hills outside of Dexter. A woman named Roxanne approached him at a local flea market and they decided to join forces and started to produce and sell candles made from Burts stored beeswax.

What started out as selling honey and candles of beeswax is now the largest company for organic skincare in North America and it finally arrived in Sweden in 2011.

Burt's Bees products contain no sulfate, parabens, perfumes or phtalate and the ingredients are 99 percent natural. They belive action speaks louder than words and applies this approach in every part of the company. From recycling the packaging and not testing on animals to educating consumers and taking good care of their employees. They also have a strong local committment and are involved in several different projects working for a more sustainable community.

I use the lip-balm with acai-berries; smells great! I've also tried the Naturally Ageless facial moisturizer with pomegranate and the Radiance Body Lotion.

Check ot Burt's story here.

Sweet as honey

Bees play a very important role in making sure we all have food to eat. Bees can be found on every continent except Antarctica, and in Sweden alone there are 300 different species.

The bee mortality is a growing problem and it's considered to be a serious threat towards the biodiversity. There are several reasons for the megadeath of bees. From parasites, different illnesses and lack of nutrition to the pesticides used in farming. Pesticides is believed to play a very crucial role in the recent high rates of bee mortality.

Luxemburg, Italy and the UK have had between 30 and 50 procent bee mortality in the past years. In the winter of 2010 Sweden had a rate of 25 procent.
When the bees die and the numbers of beekeepers continue to decline it's going to have huge consequences. As much as 76 procent! of the food production and 84 procent of the plant species within the EU depends on pollination of bees.

The agrucultural comittee of the EU-parlament is working on a new suggestion for the agricultural policy for  2014–2020. That suggestion includes more money for the reasearch on environmentally friendly agriculture including how pesticides affects bees. They also want to give economic support to beekeepers.

The nature needs an omnivore like the bee. If  40 procent of the bee colonies would die, the financial consequenses for Sweden alone will be 300 million SEK (45million USD).

Just another reason to eat organically produced food.

More information about beekeeping kan be found here. And scary information about megadeath of bees can be found here (Swedish only) or here here (English).

Most important to choose organic

Food is the main source of human exposure to environmental toxins. You can't find everything in an organic version (yet), but if you just change the below things towards organic ones, both you and the environment will benefit hugely from that. The largest amount of pesticides are used on;

Coffee
I've written about this before and it's easy to find organic coffee in most shops.

Bananas
40-50 tons of pesticides are used in every 10.000 square kilometers (around 4000 square miles) each year. One of the pesticides used is chloropyrifos. Chloropyrifos is a neurotoxin used in the plastic bags that surrounds the banana stem. Because of this, the people harvesting our bananas may suffer from loss of apetite, insomnia, concentration difficulties, higher risks of lungcancer and even be suicidal. Getting close to this chemical is especially dangerous to the nervous system of children up to the age of 6 and there has been studies made that suggests a link between exposure to this kind of pesticide (and other organophosphates) and ADHD. Scientists even take it as far as to compare to the exposure to lead which 40 years ago proved to be very harmful. In Sweden it's easy to find organic bananas. Almost every food store has them.

Grapes
Grapes is the most commonly grown fruit in the world (about 45 percent). Grapes are sensitive to pests, a lot of times they are sprayed with pesticides even before any breakouts have been noticed, and grapes shows traces of pesticides more often than any other food. There are also several different chemicals used and how those chemicals interact is still not known. Even though each chemical in itself may not be harmful in a very small dose, they may cause damage together. Don't forget that the pesticides used on grapes also affects raisins, wine and champagne. About 85 procent of all grapes are used in producing wine. Organic grapes can be hard to find in Sweden, but organic raisins and organic wines are easy.

Potatoes
In Sweden this is the crop where the most pesticides are being used, and among those the King Edward and Bintje are the most sprayed ones. A Swedish potato is on average sprayed with pesticides 7 (some as much as 13!) times before they're harvested. If all Swedes would choose only Swedish, organic potatoes we would stop 95 tons of chemicals each year from harming ourselves and our environment. The most common pesticides used are Shirlan and Ranman. They are highly toxic towards aquatic organisms and also harmful to pollinating insects like bees.

Dairy products
Organic dairy means that the cows are fed organic food only, and most of it has to be grown on the farmers own farm. The animals should be allowed to move freely and to eat grass outside for at least eight hours a day during the warm season. The calves are allowed to suckle and to stay with their mothers for a longer period. Antibiotics are not allowed as a precaution. Happy, healthy animals, less chemicals and less antibiotics in our food. Luckily it's very easy in Sweden to find organic dairy. Milk, cream, butter, cheese, yoghurt etc can all be found in organic versions at the local supermarket.

Read more at Naturskyddsforeningen

Rooftop farming New York

In USA the art of rooftop farming is picking up. It sounds simple enough to start gardening on your own roof to get fresh vegetables and fruits, but you have to consider the impact of wind, sun and rain and plan accordingly. The rooftop farms are carefully planned to protect it's harvest and produce as much as possible on the limited space.

There are a lot of different reasons why people want to start a rooftop farm. Some value the marketing potential of a rooftop farm, some are interested in managing stormwater, and others want to supplement their commercial kitchens with locally grown food.  

Gotham Greens is situated in Brooklyn and sells their produce to local chefs, markets and retailers. They started in 2008 and their goal is to produce over 80 tons of fresh greens annually. They care about keeping the entire chain sustainable. From fair treatment of workers to biodiversity and preserving water. Their main goal is to produce tasty, safe and nutritious greens. The greenhouses are powered by solar-panels and they have an advanced computer systems to manage heating, cooling and plant nutrition.

Brooklyn Grange is another rooftop-farm. They sell their produce directly to the local people and businesses. Everybody is welcome to visit and to participate. They visit different markets to sell their produce, and in the sping of 2012 they will start an apiary project which will include 25 bee hives and produce over 1000 pounds of honey.

Follow up on their projects and read about the driving spirits behind them on Brooklyngrangefarm and Gothamgreens