Feelgood Organic Hampers Shortlisted for CSR award

I'm delighted to announce that Feelgood Organic Hampers have been shortlisted for a Carlow Chamber of Commerce Business Award for their commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility.

The awards will be announced at the gala dinner taking place in Carlow on Friday 17th of April.

It may sound corny but it really is an honor to have been nominated, this blog and our readership was part of our submission so the nomination is also partly for all the people who read, comment and take action here.

We all have our fingers crossed and I'm off to find a posh frock to wear on the night.

Paper Diary

I've been rather sporadic with my paper diary for the last few weeks. It's hard to find something new to write about keeping paper out of my life. So please excuse the big gap...

Day 15
Wednesday 11th March
I was in training today, a course on PR and media which was great. The usual sheet of paper and pen greeted me when I got in the door but I pushed it out of temptations way. I am getting slightly behind with taking the notes from my iPod but it still beats finding wadges of paper in the bottom of bags and in cars weeks or months later.

In the evening I went to a Speed Networking event, like speed dating but without the kissing! I have been allowing myself business cards during this fast which is just as well because speed networking is all about business cards. I met some great people and managed not to pick up any extra bits of paper during the evening. Maybe one day there will be some sort of virtual business card that we can just send by Bluetooth to someones PDA or iPhone but for now we’re going to have to stick to the physical type.

Day 16
Thursday 12th March
Today I started to follow some paperless office people on Twitter, a quick search for the term ‘paperless office’ turned up several results. I’ve found some interesting articles too through Twitter all of which have me wanting to explore more technological solutions to working without paper. I need to find out more about electronic signatures and how to use them.

Follow Feelgood Organic Hampers on Twitter
Follow Hamperlady (that's me!) on Twitter

Day 30
Thursday 26th of March
Feelgood Organic Hampers has decided to enter the Carlow Chamber of Commerce Business Awards, a process that involves much filling of application forms. Thankfully the Chamber sent us out email copies without us even having to ask so we have been able to submit our application without the use of paper. This is especially pertinant in this case as we are going for the 'Corporate Social Responsibility' award and part of our submission mentiones our lenten paper fast. I have found using the white wipe boards invaluable in this process. They are a great brainstorming tool and not as easy to loose as scraps of paper. You will see in my picture the amount of scrawling that was done!

My desk still remains resonably empty. I can't stress how much this has helped my productivity I don't think you realise how much clutter slows you down until you get rid of it.

Day 36
Wednesday 1st April
I am going to London to the Natural & Organic Products trade show this weekend. It's the show where I pretty much decide o which products I'm going to buy for the next season. This could be one of the biggest challenge yet. Flying without a paper boarding card is impossible. I have two options, check in online and print my own ticket or check in at the airport and get a boarding card printed there. I can't work out which is best or worst for the environment. I suppose if I print it at home at least it will be printed on 100% post consumer waste paper.

I always seem to come home from this show with bags and bags of paper, wherever you go there are people virtually throwing the stuff at you and sometimes you just take it in order to escape an over zealous salesperson. It's good to be going in with the strong resolution not to accept it this time. If there is a product I'm interested in I will make a note on my iPod and ask them to email me their marketing material. This will of course mean that my inbox will be jammed in the weeks following the show but when I bring home a bag of paper, the truth is I rarely look through it.

The Garden Party

We had our first garden party this weekend. Not the sort with tea and cakes but the sort where your friends come over to help you in the garden in return for food and beer.

The big job this weekend was to clear all the branches from the trees we cut down last year. The foliage piled in our garden virtually covered the entire space. Our guests tackled this with a wood chipper hired from Diggers.ie reducing the pile into a somewhat smaller mountain of wood chips. Looking at the back of my garden from the front for the first time in ages, I had forgotten how vast the space was. It still looks unkempt but with the trees out of the way you can see the potential of the space.

On Sunday we started the digging, marking out an area of land that was to be our veggie patch. My final plan is to have half of the garden devoted to vegetables but to start with we dug one large bed. It's a great feeling to bury your hands in the soil for the first time. It's so full of life; worms, roots and organic matter just crumbling in your hands readying itself to release it's goodness into the food we grow. It didn't take too long to dig the patch, three of us with shovels and spades lifting the sods, leveling out the ground and turning the soil. Within 30 minutes we were all leaning on our spades looking at the brown square of land now ready to accept plants.

On Monday we planted our first seeds, filling improvised seed trays with a variety of vegetables and flowers: carrots, lettuce, beetroot, onions, squash courgettes and sunflowers. We also planted marigolds which, according to our guest gardening expert Laura keep the pests away.

I was dying to put something into the new bed straight away, so I took my wilting herbs from the kitchen windowsill and planted them out in the new patch. Apparently I don't have long to wait until I will see the first few shoots in my seed trays. Three to four days... at the moment I feel like checking them every few minutes like an impatient child I can't wait to see them grow.

A big thank-you to everyone who came and helped us out this weekend.
To Barry who loved the machinery and sawing.
To Graham for his energy.
To Laura for being an expert and giving me knowledge.
Thanks. I'm looking forward to seeing you again for our first feast from the homegrown veggies.

Organic Product Review - Flourish Organics Hemp & Macadamia Face Cream

Flourish Organics is a small company based in Killarney Co. Kerry. I first encountered them at a trade fair last year and was impressed by their range of skincare products.

I have been suffering from dry skin recently, probably due to central heating over the winter months. I always find it pays to alternate between moisturisers so that the skin doesn't get too used to one. So I was delighted to try out the Hemp and Macadamia face cream. It has a mild scent which is great, no heavy perfume just the smell of it's constituent parts. It sinks into the skin quickly which means it doesn't leave that sticky greasy feeling. It seems rich enough to be used as either a night or a day cream. As a bonus, my skin seems to love it, the dry patches have almost been eliminated and my skin feels beautifully soft, it glows now and it is possible for me to go without make up without needing to hide behind my hair. On their website Flourish say that one of the ingredients is said to have anti ageing properties so I guess it must be good for 'mature' skin like mine.

You can buy Flourish online at their website. I'm going to have to check out the vanilla and white chocolate lip balm next.

The product range is not yet certified organic but they do contain a large quantity of organic ingredients, the ingredients that aren't certified organic are natural and safe.

Paper Diary Week Two

Day 6
Monday 2nd March

I’m sitting here staring at a PDF form that I am supposed to print out, fill in and sign. How on earth am I going to manage this??? I’ve attempted to copy and paste it into a word document but this just results in the formatting going mad and in no way solves how to sign it without printing it. I really can’t see a solution but it seems so early in my pledge to do this. I guess I shall just have to placate myself by thinking that if I had got the company to send me a hard copy it would be even worse, not only would there be the paper of the form its self but also two envelopes. With luck, they might take a scanned version of this form which would mean only using one sheet of paper and no envelope at all.

Day 7
Tuesday 3rd March

The post keeps coming in. Why is it some companies seem to spew out an endless amount of material. We are a Mac based office, we have never allowed a PC to darken our doors, yet I find myself on the Dell mailing list . How do you unsubscribe from the torrents of post that they and others send? It seems to be a lot harder than unsubscribing from an email list and infinitely more annoying, imagine the cost to the environment of all this unsolicited paper being sent out everyday.


Day 9
Thursday 5th March

I’ve signed up to the free trial of a programme called ‘Receipt Wallet’ and have been really enjoying playing with it this afternoon. The general gist of it is that you can scan receipts and invoices and also import others as PDF files, this should eliminate any need to print them. You then add information to each of the scanned documents such as the date, how much the invoice is for and what tax is due on it. The programme then files it for you. It’s just a very clever very straight forward way of ordering your receipts and should make the book keepers job a lot easier. The one disadvantage so far is that it doesn’t recognise word files or web archives so it can be a bit of a pain converting everything to PDF or… even worse for my PayPal receipts copying and pasting them into word and then converting to a PDF. I have to say though you do feel ultra organised when you can see each receipt in it’s place with all the information relevant easy to access. I was worried that once I had scanned the files they would be in some weird format that I wouldn’t be able to get at after the trial had ended but to my delight, they were all there in a nice folder partitioned by date. Surprisingly, to me at least, the software only costs 40 dollars so I am tempted to make the investment. I’ve another 15 days to think about it though.

Other than that it’s been quite uneventful, my desk still looks lovely and neat although a coffee pot, a mug and a digital camera are strewn across it now, it seems I have a need to clutter up the space one way or another. I also seem to have put the ‘In tray’ on the long finger as well as inputting info from the index cards… I guess I’ll just have to save them for another day that seems to be unremarkable in a paper sort of way.

Day 10
Friday 6th March
No post today so I managed a completely paper free day in every way. Tomorrow I am attending BizCamp Dublin, I have downloaded the schedule onto my iPod so I can avoid having to pick up a paper one when I arrive. I’m hoping that the slow typing speed on the iPod will be just quick enough to make good notes during the day.

Paper Diary Week One

Day 1 Wednesday 25th February (Ash Wednesday)

Today I walked into the office and looked at the piles of paper for the last time. For the next 47 days we shall be attempting to keep it paper free.

The first thing I did was break the fast. There was an article in the local paper about Feelgood Organic Hampers and our pledge and I wanted to scan it for the Facebook page so it had to be bought, but this with any luck will be my first and last slip on this journey.

We set about emptying our desks of paper, of ridding every nook and cranny of the office of the stuff. There was a lot more work involved in this than I had anticipated. The pile of paper to be dealt with swallowed the floor space before being laid to rest in the recycle bin, which began to grow beyond it's own structure. Eventually we were free of it, no loose receipt or post it note was left. The desks seemed empty and vast. Suddenly there was space and the space left room for clear thinking.

We have replaced post it notes with white boards and notepads with iPods but there is of course some paper we need to keep hold of for the time being. The index card file will need to be added to our computer address book but this will happen slowly over the next few weeks. The biggest challenge ahead is to not allow any new paper in and, more importantly, not to create any paperwork.

I think there may even be enough room for a plant on my desk now, tomorrow I may go and steal one from our hallway.

Day 2
Thursday 26th Feb

I’m beginning to wonder how I managed this last year without my iPod. Software solutions certainly seem to be a big part of living with out paper. Mix this with some more traditional tools such as whiteboards, blackboards and chalk and almost all bases are covered. I guess it could work out quite expensive if you threw yourself into software entirely. My computer, only 2 years old already creaks and grinds when it has to cope with the many programmes I keep open in order to deal with our Lenten pledge.

What I would love at the moment is a pocket sized wetwipe board. I am really missing my little moleskin notebook and there are times when I just want to scribble something down and using the iPod can seem like a chore. If anyone has one or wants to invent one you’ve got a customer here!

I have managed to use no paper at all today, although there is still some in my in tray to dispense with. I’m about to outsource my book keeping and I’m wondering how they will react to me insisting on either emailing them everything or submitting it on CD. I’m a bit torn over the idea of burning stuff to CD which could potentially be far worse from the environment than the paper alternative.

Day 3
Friday 27th of Feb
My first challenge of the day arrived in the post. A price list and brochure of new products from one of our suppliers. We do need this piece of paper but there must be an alternative. The solution was to set up a standard email response so that in future we can respond immediately, asking suppliers to send information by email. Of course the trick is to nip it in the bud before they send it, so I shall have to put it on my to do list to contact all my suppliers regarding this.

We also received a paper invoice today. We are new customers to the company involved so we will ensure that all future invoices come by email. We already pay all our suppliers by bank transfer or Direct Debit to avoid the unnecessary use of cheques, envelopes and stamps.

One question that still needs to be addressed is how we are to deal with our Farmers Market pricelist. This document not only allows us to keep tabs on stock but is also a tool to help calculate how much VAT we have collected at the different rates.

This week we are simply using last weeks pricelist, marking up our sales in a different colour. A better solution does need to be found however, the one pricelist can only last so long!

Farmer Gobshite?

This may seem like old news but I've been waiting for an update, waiting to hear that the corporation that owns the patent on the seeds that this farmer used was going to sue him. After all we know the biotech companies are very litigious and are happy to sue even those using their seeds through accidental contamination.

But I'm still waiting. For those of you who don't know what on earth I am talking about, I am referring to the recent case of the Welsh farmer Jonathan Harrington who took it upon himself to procure and then plant GM strains of maize on his farm in Wales. Even more worryingly he claims to have fed livestock with the maize and passed on seeds to other farmers. This means that GMO's are in the food chain and not labeled correctly as required by law. Also, as he has refused to name the farmers he has passed his seed onto it is impossible to trace where some of the crop could have ended up. All this means that Harrington can and should be prosecuted by the British government for what he has done.

Wales, like Ireland is a GM free zone. That means that no GM crops can be planted within it's borders. Unfortunately although this is a strict farming policy they are unable to uphold it by law.

There are two main issues here as I see it:

Firstly, Wales is now contaminated with GMOs, even if Harrington declared to whom he had distributed the seed it is impossible in unsupervised sites to guarantee that there is no contamination into neighboring land. There is no going back from this point, it is doubtful that Wales will ever be able to declare itself GM free again. This exact problem has surfaced across Northern and Southern America causing the integrity of organic produce there to constantly be undermined.

Secondly, corporations such as Monsanto have a history of suing farmers for breaching the patent on their seeds. Monsanto explain the reasoning behind this on their website. As director of a small business I would see what Harrington has done as be detrimental to the reputation of the product. It is for this reason that I would expect to see him being sued by the company involved.

It is sad to see Wales loose it's GM free status due to the irresponsible actions of this one individual. As GMOs are not allowed in organic farming I can only hope that farmers in the vicinity will not have their livelihoods threatened by the potential loss of their organic status.

Whatever your view on GM food Farmer Harrington's actions have to be seen as damaging. Not only does he undermine the arguments of the pro GMO campaigners but he heightens the fears and reservations that the public already have about Genetically modified foods.

UPDATE: There's a postcard campaign, just a bit of fun aimed at this farmer to join in here:

Further reading
Jonathon Harrington:
Check Biotech
BBC
The Guardian - Harrington's reasoning

GM Contamination:
The CS Monitor
Organic Processing Magazine
Reuters

Giving up paper for Lent again.

For the second year running the staff at Feelgood Organic Hampers are going to be giving up paper for lent. So come Ash Wednesday we are going to be once again clearing our desk of paper and striving to keep it that way until Easter Sunday.

Although I have seen some important improvements since we first attempted to run a paperless office last year there still seems to be a large amount of unnecessary paper that builds up over time. Every task and every meeting adds to the piles that congregate on desks or get pinned to walls.

Feelgood Organic Hampers by its very nature has a commitment to the environment and by giving up paper I believe we are taking one step further to becoming a truly sustainable business. Although we recycle, our long term aim is to significantly reduce the amount we use. It’s not until you attempt an experiment like this that you realise how much we rely on paper.

In the past year we have implemented several changes. Including eliminating cheques by paying suppliers online, making use of wipe clean customisable calendars and using software solutions for managing our diary. We have even started to use virtual sticky notes.

This year I hope to take things one step further. We may have changed the way we think about paper but we are still surrounded by it every day. Our biggest challenge is our accounting and over Lent I will be investigating several solutions to make this a paperless process.

So we're getting geared up for our challenge starting on the 25th of February. I'm going to be keeping a paper diary, posting updates here.

My night in a haunted house.

Headless Santa in attic


Me and my organic biscuits
Spooky K2 device

So many people have been in touch wanting to know what happened on Friday night in Old Carlow Gaol that I figured I better blog about it.

16 of us met at the cafe in the Carlow shopping centre at 7pm. The 'Old Gaol' and the 'Governor's House' are still pretty much intact and serve as the shell within which the shopping centre is housed. The last two people to be hanged at Carlow Gaol were killed on March the 30th 1835. Lucinda Sly aged 60 and her 21 year old lover John Dempsey were executed for the murder of Lucinda's husband. A massive crowd assembled to watch their last moments, some accounts describe Lucinda pulling up her skirt and shouting abuse at the heckling crowd. Some people believe that it is the ghost of Lucinda that haunts the old Gaol now. But if it was her roaming the Carlow shopping centre on Friday night she was playing tricks on us.

Our party consisted of 13 amateur ghost hunters, a producer from KCLR and two paranormal experts; Danny and Cormac from Leinster Paranormal. Our experts were armed with recording devices and a 'K2' which picks up EMF signals emitted by the supernatural. It was this K2 which provided the majority of the entertainment for the night. Danny and Cormac had investigated the Carlow Shopping Centre on several other occasions and had even succeeded in recording some strange chilling whispers. You can hear some of Leinster Paranormals recordings on their website.

We split into groups and investigated some of the paranormal hotspots within the centre. The holding cells were an obvious choice. Now populated by whirring computer equipment and office furniture they no longer seem sinister but are perfectly preserved. It was easy to imagine what they would have been like when in use. The holding cell itself was very oppressive, only one tiny window allowed natural light in and a metal door that fitted tightly to the frame kept the airflow to a minimum. The room itself had no sharp corners and this, according to Danny, was designed to keep detainees in a state of distress after interrogation.

The basement of the Governor's House with it's low ceilings and strange well is another centre of paranormal activity, many people have felt there shoulders and arms being touched whilst staking out the area. Upstairs the attic also has a history of unexplained incidents. On our return to the gym area where we were to sleep that night we found Stephen, one of the staff from KCLR in the changing room area looking quite uncomfortable. He had felt a bad vibe in the room, particularly the sauna. Whilst we had been out investigating other areas he and another member of the station had heard the sound of a metal door slam. I sat alone in the sauna for a few minutes and soaked up the unnerving atmosphere that remained there. It was agreed that we would take a break and then return to this room with the K2 device.

Just to explain what the K2 looks like. It is a small handheld electronic device, it has a trigger mechanism which we kept held down by a coin. At the top there are a series of lights which light when EMF (electro magnetic force) is detected. All power to the gym area had been cut and we had to find our way around with flashlights. The only power in the room came from the sprinkler system so interference from electrical impulses was unlikely, this made this set of rooms perfect for detecting EMF emitted by... and it seems strange to be typing this... ghosts.

Our entire group went to the sauna / changing rooms with the K2 device, which was placed on a bench in the centre of the room. We each introduced ourselves, it was also the first time we had formally introduced ourselves to each other which made it an even more surreal experience. The idea was that we should direct questions at the ghost and if the ghost wished to answer it would light the lights on the K2. If the lights began flicker the person that asked the question would persist. The first few questions met with no change in the device, four or five questions in we started to get a response. At first just 2 green lights lit but as we continued the signal got stronger. Being nervous, and many of us slightly cynical the questioning inevitably became light hearted, one of my colleagues from the Carlow Business Club, remembering that she had forgotten to bring any milk to go with the flasks of tea and coffee asked would the ghost mind popping downstairs and getting a pint of milk. To our surprise the lights on the meter bounced up and down from one to four lights. We then asked was the presence a servant? again the lights flickered all the way to the top, next 'are you a child?' a positive response again... then with the only 16 people in the shopping centre in this room we heard the sound of a metal door slam and echo around the building. The lights died down and we got very little response to our questioning in the next couple of minutes. Cormac from Leinster paranormal went down into the shopping centre and slammed every door he could find but there was none but the condemned prisoners cell that made a sound like the one we had all heard.

We rambled around the shopping centre, my group took a digital recording device with us as we tested each area for atmosphere or experience. I spent 10 minutes or so holed up in the condemned prisoners cell with no result, it seemed that all action tonight was to happen in the Gym. When we got back from our wandering we found Stephen in an even more distressed state, his group had remained in the changing room area with the K2 and he had heard a whisper, felt something touch him and seen something move out of the corner of his eye. When he followed the path of the apparition he had seen an outline of something in the sauna. He was visibly unnerved by this experience. The K2 had been 'lighting up like a Christmas tree' during this experience. As Stephen's group left we decided to sit in the sauna for a while. We started the digital recorder and sat in the dark and waited. Nothing obvious happened but after sitting there for just a few minutes I got a very strong urge to leave as did the others.

We took another break before returning with the whole group. I was given a mic and sent to the sauna to record what I felt inside, but sitting inside there by myself I no longer felt anything. Outside in the changing rooms the K2 was responding again so I joined the group there. By now we had established that the entity was a female child servant, Danny was persuading the ghost to light up as many lights on the K2 as she could, it was at this point that Kim one of my fellow ghost hunters felt a cold touch to the side of her body and a whispering. She felt a wave of empathy for the entity and asked Danny to stop pushing the child so hard. She moved position and felt the cold touch again. We resumed our questioning, the lights on the K2 continued to flicker up and down, at times remaining lit on 3 strong lights for 3 or 4 seconds at a time. At one point, although I can't remember quite when, we heard the metal door slam again.

Finally I asked 'Do you want us to go away?... if you want us to go away light up the lights and we will leave you alone.' 3 lights on the meter lit up and stayed lit for a number of seconds. Everyone looked around, no one wanted to leave, we were all intrigued by what was happening but if it was the ghosts wish we had to. Danny asked the ghost to confirm that it wanted us to leave... nothing. He asked again... nothing.

That was the end of our experience. We did a bit more wandering around but nothing else was reported so we finally sank into our sleeping bags and waited for the security guard to let us out.

So has my experience changed my mind? do I now believe in ghosts and the paranormal? Sadly I have to say no, I feel that I need more than the unexplained banging of a metal door and flashing lights on a electronic device to persuade me that ghosts exist. I am disappointed, I almost wanted to believe but nothing I experienced that night pushed my belief far enough. Would I spend another night in a haunted house? I'd love to, if anyone has one that they want me to check out feel free to get in touch!!!

Feelgood Organic Hampers goes ghosthunting.

I am representing Feelgood Organic Hampers on a ghost hunt tonight Friday 13th of February at Carlow Old Gaol which is apparently 'officially haunted'. The Gaol which now forms part of the Carlow shopping centre is said to be haunted by Lucy Slye, the last person to be hung in the Gaol.

I am a cynic and certainly don't believe in ghosts but am willing to be proven wrong. I'm going to bring in some of my favorite organic treats, that way if Lucy does show up I'll be able to keep her happy with an organic biscuit and a cup of tea, maybe she'll even let me into the secrets of the Gaol!! I'm also going to bring in my wind up torch if I can find it, the whirr it makes when I charge it could be enough to put the fear into my ghost hunting colleagues.

I'm going in with 12 other volunteers consisting of other local business people and staff and listeners from KCLR radio. KCLR will be broadcasting live at 9pm with updates every hour after that. You can listen on line here.

If I survive the night it's business as usual at the Naas Farmers Market tomorrow.

My Challenge 2009 - Grow my own veg.

The last year or so seems to have seen a massive interest in growing your own. Gazing out of the window at my snow covered mess of a back garden I wonder when my proposed vegetable garden is going to become a reality. Over the last few years I have gathered many books on the subject and just need to take the first step towards growing my own food.

Our garden has been overgrown for a long time. When we moved in it had been lying farrell for many years, since then we have cleared and trimmed the evergreen trees which were robbing our land of natural light which has seemed to encourage weeds at an alarming rate.

This year, I have decided is going to be the year. I've earmarked a corner of the garden that is to become my first bed and intend to build a raised bed there. I won some gardening tools in a raffle recently and I must have some offcuts of wood that can help me create my bed. I also received a gift of some seeds pre-planted in propagating trays so I'm ready to go if only this snow would lift.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to record the progress of the garden here and blog guilt will add to my gardening guilt and the vegetable bed will finally become a reality.

What I really need is encouragement and help so if any of you have suggestions of blogs or websites that can help me along my way. Or even if you have your own tips on how to grow best organically I would be delighted to follow them and publish them here.

Here's to happy gardening!

Organic Product Review - Green Bay Manuka Honeysuckers

Manuka honey is a product that you can not have missed hearing about over the last few years.

Native to New Zealand and produced by bees who feed on the Manuka bush, this honey has been found to have excellent healing properties. It helps to fight infection both when taken orally and when applied directly to wounds. The results are so well proven that even the NHS in the UK uses it on dressings. Many people already use Manuka daily, either by taking a spoonful raw every morning or by stirring it into porridge.

I tried these honeysuckers last weekend for a sore throat and was delighted with the results, within 10 minutes my throat had significantly improved. The best thing about these little lozenges is that they take the hassle out of using Manuka honey. No more sticky honey jars in the morning, you can simply pop the pack in your pocket and take them as you need them. They come in two varieties, one flavoured with blackcurrant juice which takes the edge of the honey for those who aren't mad about the flavour, and the other pure honey.

Green Bay Manuka Honeysuckers are UMF 15+ and certified organic by the soil association.

If you would like to know where in Ireland you can buy Green Bay Honeysuckers leave a comment stating in which area you live and I'll give you a list.

Why Organic Pork?

In the current economic climate we are all trying to cut back on luxuries in life and it may seem easy to save a few pence by cutting back on the quality of the food we eat.

The withdrawal of Pork products from our supermarket shelves after the Dioxin contamination back in December serves as a stark reminder of why we should continue to support quality organic and local foods. At the time of the withdrawal the Organic Trust issued a statement reaffirming the safety of the Organic meat system.

Consumers are reassured that under the organic system no recycled food waste whatsoever is permitted for use in the organic feed system. All feedstuffs used on Organic Trust certified farms are fully verified by our organisation. In addition, every single aspect of the production process for organic meat is fully audited by highly qualified Organic Inspectors from field to fork – organic is the only food system which has this level of regulatory control, traceability and transparency.

More here.

The issue of organic meat came to my attention again recently when I came across this article in The Guardian. As a vegetarian it may seem odd that I would want to discuss the benefits of organic pork but I understand that vegetarianism isn't for everyone and hopefully I can make you understand why organic meat is a better choice.

The Guardian article deals mostly with the welfare of intensively reared pigs and although the most shocking conditions sited are of animals raised in the Netherlands Irish pork production isn't a million miles away from their system.

Before looking at the conditions of intensively reared pigs we should first understand the natural behavior of a pig. There is a beautiful description in Peter Singer and Jim Mason's book 'Eating' which describes a pig collecting materials and constructing a nest:

This particular sow is ambling about in the brush along the tree line, biting off twigs and leaves and carrying them back deeper into the woods where she is building a nest. It looks like a large bird's nest on the ground, about five or six feet in diameter, a ring of tangled small branches, leaves, and detritus from the forest floor . The sow carries a leafy branch into it and tucks it in among the others.

This is of course the description of a pregnant free range pig. So what conditions would you expect to find an intensively raised pig reared in in Ireland?

Compassion in World Farming's Irish Website states that most of the 158,000 breeding sows in Ireland are kept in intensive pig farms. At the very best this means many pigs are kept together in a large barn with little or no natural light and no access to the outdoors. At the very worst, similar to the ones sited in the Guardian article, pregnant sows are still confined to narrow pig stalls which barely allow them enough space to lie down or move around, on concrete and slatted floors when they are able to rest the pigs often have to lie on the waste which has failed to drain away. EU regulations mean that pig stalls are being phased out but the total ban does not come into effect until 2013.

Sadly this isn't the end of the suffering for a sow. As she comes close to giving birth she is often moved to and even smaller enclosure called a 'farrowing crate' these are so small she is unable to turn around or lie down, even standing up can be challenging. The intensive pig industry claims that these conditions are necessary so that the Sow doesn't roll over and crush her young but surely this problem only arises from there not being enough space in the first place!

When her young reach approximately 6 weeks old they are taken from their mother to be fattened up for meat. These piglets are again kept in crowded conditions on slatted floors. 95% of these 'fattening pigs' have their tails docked.

One of the founding principles of the Organic movement has been animal welfare. It therefore follows that pigs raised for organic meat have to have access to the outside world and are able to participate in their natural behaviors such as nesting. It is also required that they are fed on a diet consisting of 90% organic feed and as stated in the quote from the Organic Trust this never consists of recycled feeds. These principles mean that, as the Organic Trust ultimately states, orgnaically farmed pork is, as with all organically produced food, 'good for nature, good for animal welfare, good for the economy and ultimately good and safe to eat for the consumer'.

Update
As part of 'The Great British Food Fight' season on Ch4 Jamie Oliver will be looking at the pig farming industry. Don't miss it! Find out more from the Ch4 website.

Recipe - Trifle Sponge

After a break for Christmas Organic Yum-Yum is back with our promised trifle sponge recipe. Happy trifling!

Ingredients

140g Softened Butter or Margarine
140g Sugar
1tbsp Golden Syrup
3 large eggs lightly beaten
175g Self Raising Flour
Raspberry Jam

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180c / 350f or Gas mark 4
• Grease and line two 7inch Sandwich Tins.
• Beat the softened butter and sugar into a mixing bowl, beat until smooth. Add the golden syrup and beat in until well mixed.
• Add the eggs and the flour and mix together well until mixture is fluffy.
• Divide between the two sandwich pans and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes.
• Allow to cool in the tins for ten minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.
• Cover the top of one of both cakes with jam, sandwich together and cut into chunks for use in your trifle.

Recipe: Real homemade custard

I haven't been able to post for a while. The Christmas rush means I haven't been able to blog as often as I would have liked. So here is a recipe to thank you all for tuning in.

My recipe of the month this month which will go out to subscribers tomorrow is a special one from my Mum. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without her famous Sherry Trifle, (well it's famous in our house anyway), and as I'm spending Christmas in Ireland this year and she's over in Scotland I will have to make it myself. Because of this I've been playing with custard recipes and have decided that this is the one that will become part of the trifle this year.

Ingredients
6 egg yolks
2tbsp Corn Flour
1 dsp Sugar
1 pint of cream
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method
Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla essence and corn flour together.
Bring the cream to the boil and stir into the egg and sugar mixture.
Return to the pan and bring back to the boil stirring constantly until you have a good consistency.

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Exposure to pesticides is bad for your health!

You may have thought that it was generally acknowledged that continual exposure to pesticides is bad for you. It seems obvious doesn't it, a chemical that is designed to kill couldn't possibly safe, a chemical that bears a hazardous poison symbol couldn't but have an effect on the lives of those who live near treated areas. Yet this is what the British government have been claiming.

This week UK campaigner Georgina Downs won her legal challenge against DEFRA (Department for Environment and Rural Affairs) over pesticides. From the age of 11 Downs had been suffering from ill health and as an adult she started to investigate the effects pesticides could be having on her. Living in a rural area, surrounded by farmland she would have been repeatedly exposed to pesticides from a very early age. The flaw in the governments case was that their data on the effects of pesticides only assessed the risk posed to Human beings by short term exposure to chemicals. It did not consider the continual exposure that country residents could experience or the effect that a cocktail of chemicals sprayed throughout the year could have on the human body.

The ruling comes as the British government stands to oppose the EU directive on pesticides which calls for:

the prohibition of pesticide use in substantial no spray zones around residential areas, parks, public gardens, sports grounds, school grounds, playgrounds, amongst other places, especially to protect sensitive groups, such as, babies, children, pregnant women, the elderly, those with pre-existing medical conditions and who may be taking medication, along with all other vulnerable groups.

A directive, which seems to support the court ruling and which will hopefully, hand in hand with this judgement encourage the British government to review the way they asses the harmful effects of pesticides. Sadly, even if the new directive is passed, it won't come into effect until 2010.

Further reading:
UK Pesticides Campaign
PAN UK on pesticide exposure

Announcing our new product range.

The Midnight Feast

The Jacob Marley

This week has seen the launch of the new range of organic Christmas hampers, occasion gifts, new baby gifts, and corporate gifts from Feelgood Organic Hampers. It seems like we have been working on this new collection for ever and it is great to finally see the new products online.

Some of the most exciting additions to our range this year are the products by 'Bambu'. Created on fair trade projects around the world the bowls and servers are made from certified organic, sustainably grown bamboo. Bambu is a stunningly good example of a company founded on corporate social responsibility (CSR), looking through their website it is clear that no stone has been left unturned in creating the guiding principles of the company. The products themselves are beautiful and we are delighted to welcome them to the Feelgood Organic Hampers family.

Another welcome addition to this years hampers are the Natural House certified organic household cleaning products. Produced from fully biodegradable organic ingredients the 'dish spa' and 'surface spa' are guaranteed to have the least environmental impact possible. As well as being certified organic by the Soil Association they are also Vegan Society approved. We have included them in this years 'New Pad' hamper.

We've only been online with the new range for a couple of days and already the Christmas Hampers are selling well. We are once again stocking the ever popular puddings and cakes by Village Bakery and as we speak several cases of the best brandy butter I've ever tasted are on their way to us.  

If you are interested in ordering a gift, be it for Christmas or any occasion have a look at our website. I'd be happy to talk to any of you about your gift requirements. 

Remember to order your Christmas gifts early to avoid disappointment.

Why Organic Eggs?

At the beginning of the year Hugh Fernley Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver put across a pretty convincing case on the merits of free range chicken and eggs. Thanks to their campaign most people seem to understand the benefits of choosing free range. But why should we choose organic eggs?

I usually buy 'Crocker's Organic Eggs' which I get from the farmers market. I used to have a stall next to Gary Crocker at the farmers market in Monkstown. Gary is passionate about his organic farming and is proud that his customers find his eggs to be the best they've tasted. His farm is certified organic by IOGFA and the yokes are a beautiful deep orange colour. Recently I was baking a cake and I discovered that I didn't have enough eggs for the recipe, so I picked up some organic eggs in Tesco. When I broke them into the bowl I was shocked at the difference in colour between the Tesco eggs and Crockers eggs. This got me wondering about what exactly makes an egg organic, what are the rules and how can there be such a difference in quality?

Back in 2005 the London Independent published an article on the validity of organic eggs. It revealed that in order for eggs to be labled organic they merely needed to be fed a diet of 80% organic feed for 6 weeks. Thankfully the standards were soon to be tightened. On the first of January 2006 organic standards in the UK were changed requiring organic chickens to be fed organic food from hatching. 

According to The Organic Trust here in Ireland,  standards require that:

...producers use certified organic grain based feeds that are free from specific additives.

It does seem however that a small amount of non organic feed is permitted with only 80% needing to be sourced from organic raw materials.

But there are more reasons to choose organic eggs than what the chickens are fed on. Buying organic guarantees standards of animal welfare. Whereas battery, barn reared and free range chickens can be subject to the cruel practice of beak clipping or 'debeaking' The Soil Association and The Organic Trust standards prohibit this. Debeaking has become common practice amongst poultry farmers and is practiced in order to stop birds from pecking each other. It is thought that this aggresive behavior is due to bordem and stress. Organic chickens have to have access to the outside and as with many of the organic standards the Soil Association in the UK go far beyond this simple requirement. 

Conventional chickens and free range chickens are generally drip fed antibiotics as part of their feed. This practice is also banned in organic production, it is a misconception that if a Chicken gets ill that it under organic standard it is not allowed to be treated. The organic movements commitment to animal welfare would not sit well with this. If a bird is ill antibiotics and other medications may be administered as prescribed by a vetrenarian. Before a bird that has been treated with drugs is allowed to produce food there is a 'withdrawl period' which should ensure that the drugs have passed through the system and don't make it into our food.

So why the difference in yolk colour? Yolk colour is dependent on the feed that the hen consumes and to some extent on the breed of hen, it is thought that a free range hen has a more varied diet which contributes to the colour. Gary Crocker, as I have mentioned is passionate about his eggs and his farming practices so I would imagine that his hens would have a lot of ground to roam on. The Tesco eggs also had orange yolks, they just weren't as vibrant as Gary's eggs. Maybe the quality of the feed wasn't as good, maybe they were just a different breed or maybe the hens spent less time roaming free.

But beware of judging an egg by it's yolk colour, there are additives in some feeds which when given to the chickens can cause the yolk colour to change, if you want to be sure of a good quality egg, always look for the organic certification.

Further reading: International Journal of Poultry Science

Recipe - Flour Tortillas

This week I made a big pot of veggie chilli, I got most of the ingredients from the farmers market and the local health food shop but whilst in the supermarket I found myself staring at a pack of flour tortillas. I started wondering how hard could it be to make these myself? So the pack went back on the shelf and I went home assuming that I would find all the ingredients I needed at home.

Luckily I wasn't wrong. I scoured the Internet and found a Texan cook book that had been given to me earlier this year. I combined a couple of the recipes that I found (some of them called for Lard and as a vegetarian I needed to find an alternative) and cooked up my first batch last night.

They were simple to make and much tastier than the shop bought ones. Like pancakes the last few I produced were far better than the first batch, probably because the pan had heated properly. 

You will need a bit of time if you want to make these because as with all bread making the dough needs to prove for a while but the wait will be worth it.

Ingredients

250g Plain Flour

1/2 tbsp Baking Powder

1 tsp sea salt ground

2 tsp vegetable oil

180ml warm milk

Combine the flour and baking soda in a bowl

Whisk the milk, vegetable oil and salt together.

Add a small amount of the milk mixture at a time into the flour to form a sticky dough.

Flour a flat surface and turn the dough onto it. 

Knead with the heal of your hands for a few minutes. You will find that the dough is more sticky than regular bread dough but this will improve with kneading.

Return to the bowl, cover and allow to prove at room temperature for approx. 20 minutes.

Cut your dough in half, and divide each half again and again until you have 8 equally sized portions. Roll each into a ball and cover them allowing them to prove for a further 20 minutes.

Heat a dry, large, heavy based frying pan on the hob.

Start to roll out the first flat bread. Roll in one direction, turn the dough 90 degrees then roll again. The dough will still be quite sticky so be sure to keep both the work surface and your rolling pin well floured.

Keep rolling until the dough is so thin you can see through it, don't worry too much about getting a perfect circle, I came nowhere close! 

Cook on the hot frying pan for about a minute each side or until the bread starts to bubble and colour on the underside.

Whilst the first one is cooking roll out the next and so on until all 8 are cooked.

Just like regular bread these taste best freshly cooked. If you have some left they can be reheated the next day in the microwave or even frozen.

If your looking for something to put inside the flat breads sign up for my recipe of the month, I'm in the middle of creating something quite interesting... I hope it works out.

Coca-Cola, The Environment and Mark Thomas

I was lucky enough to be invited to a book launch last week. The book in question, 'Belching Out The Devil' written by British political comedian and activist Mark Thomas is an investigation into the behaviour of Coca-Cola.

I first became concerned about the environmental impact of drinking Coca-Cola and other carbonated drinks after watching 'A World Without Water' broadcast on Channel 4 back in 1996. One particular segment of the documentary stuck in my mind. It showed Indian farmers who due to the amount of water being pumped away by the nearby Coca-Cola plant were finding their wells were drying up. Some dug as deep as 450 feet without finding any water. The documentary also suggested that it took three litres of water to produce one litre of Coca-Cola. I stopped drinking Coke after that figuring that it was unfair of me to drink it if it was depriving other people of the water they needed to live.

It seems that the Indian situation is not unique. In his book Mark Thomas tells us of his visit to Nejapa a small community in El Salvador and home to a Coca-Cola bottling plant. When Coke moved in the locals welcomed them with just a few conditions, one of these was that they would respect the environment. As the author travels to a community who rely on the water which flows down steam from the Coca-Cola plant he discovers that far from protecting the environment Coke are polluting the water. Children who used to swim and bath in the stream before Coca-Cola moved in were now developing allergies attributed to the water. Fish were dying and this impoverished community, which once had the asset of clean drinking water, were now being forced to pay for safe water pumped from wells and distributed from water tanks.

I find it hard to believe that I ever drank Coca-Cola, it seems natural to me now that I would reject it but there are bigger issues with the company than the environmental impact that it is having. I would recommend the book, Mark Thomas seems to be able to infuse the horror of the places he visits and the things he finds out with such humor that I find myself chuckling through even the most horrendous stories. Unusually this doesn't distract from the message but means that you won't feel too depressed when you read it. There's even a chapter on Ireland!

The bigger issue is that we really need to consider the impact of our consumerism. It isn't just Coca-Cola that is destroying our environment, our reliance on all fizzy drinks and even bottled water is plundering the worlds resources. These products seem to have gone from being a treat to being a part of our everyday lives. I am as much of an offender as anyone else, a quick look in my recycling bin is testament to that but if we all just cut down a bit at a time there is the possibility of making a real difference.

You can buy 'Belching Out The Devil' on Amazon.

Also check out the Mark Thomas Website for tour dates, there's one promised but not yet listed for Dublin.

Further reading on the world water crisis here

The documentary 'A World Without Water' can be viewed here.

Just found an Irish site where you can buy the book also.