Still, let’s not argue. My garden doesn’t care about our units of measurement and, taking its cue from the warmest year since recordings began, it’s been resplendent in full spring regalia a while now, and is not going to be told it’s wrong by anyone! With the sun rising before 7am from this week and setting after 6.30pm, the winter hibernation is well and truly over.

Out with the old…
Last Sunday saw the implosion of the Athlone towers. I remember growing up under their gaze, as well as the black soot that occasionally covered our windowsills and washing when the wind blew in our direction. The coal power station had not been used for a few years, but it was still highly symbolic for much of Cape Town to see them collapsing to the ground. It wasn’t long before a hoax rumour began that it’s being replaced by a wind power station, but sadly there is no Eskom spokesperson “Mark Schoon”.

While at least one coal power station is no more, solar power is seeing a huge increase in investment. Currently, Germany has the greatest capacity – almost 10 GigaWatts, followed by Spain (4GW) and Japan (2GW). It’s the country in 4th place where it’s all happening though. The US has just over 1GW currently installed, but 23GW in active development, enough to electrify about four and a half million US households, and investment is going through the roof. Almost half a billion dollars was invested in the last quarter, almost three times the amount invested in the same period in 2009. It’s good to see that the tide is turning from the huge amounts of money supporting the oil, coal and nuclear industries.

And South Africa? Eskom currently pays a “green levy” of 2c per kWH – a tidy R3.7 billion for the year. Unlike other countries, which ringfence their green taxes, the money may not actually go towards any green projects, but it does provide a R3.7 billion incentive to move to cleaner energy!

What’s new?
We’re continuing to add to our coffee range, all of course organic and African. This week you can try the Ethiopian Harrar, which claims a rich cherry aroma with winy to fruitlike acidity and thick body, and spicy chocolate and cinnamon flavours. Decide for yourself, and let us and others know what you think, here on our blog, or on our Facebook page.

To order, head on over to www.ethical.org.za.

Have a wonderful week,
Ian and the Ethical Co-op team

Arabica and robusta are the two main commercial varieties, with arabica considered far superior. Arabica beans contain around half the caffeine of robusta, and are generally seen as having a more aromatic, flavourful taste. However, the best is grown at an altitude of over 2500 feet, and only 10% meets speciality coffee standards. The best arabica conveys a unique “taste of place”, and Bean There’s goal is to allow coffee connoisseurs to know a country through its coffee.

The Ethiopian Sidamo is from the home of coffee (coffee was first drunk and cultivated in Ethiopia), and is produced in partnership with the Fero Co-Operative.

Our Malawi Arabica is out of stock at present, although we still have our two instant coffees.

Asparagus
Asparagus is back in season again, and we’re happy to be offering certified organic green asparagus. A component of many Ayurvedic remedies, it’s a great source of Vitamin K, Vitamin C and folic acid (particularly important for pregnant women) and contains inulin, loved by bifidobacteria and lactobacilli, the friendly bacteria in our digestive system.

Buckwheat
It’s rare that buckwheat makes the news. Commonly confused with wheat, buckwheat is unrelated. It’s the little gluten-free pyramid-shaped grains, and in its sprouted form is a staple of our luxury raw muesli. However, thanks to the Russian wildfires, the price is going through the roof, and it’s likely to be hard to come by.

To order, head on over to www.ethical.org.za. There’s only 1 day left to nominate entries for the SA blog awards, so if you like our blog, please nominate it at www.sablogawards.com.

Have a wonderful week,
Ian and the Ethical Co-op team

Aldicarb
Twenty-five years ago, more than 2000 people became ill after eating watermelons that had been contaminated with the pesticide aldicarb. An aldicarb-based rat poison is banned for household use in the US due to its toxicity, but for 25 years this has been sprayed on our foods, in particular citrus and potatoes. The good news is that the US Environmental Protection Agency is on the ball, and in only five years time (2015), this chemical will no longer be used as a crop pesticide.

“Aldicarb no longer meets our rigorous food safety standards and may pose unacceptable dietary risks” says the EPA, having realised that aldicarb levels reach 800% higher than the “level of concern” for infants.

The EPA has not laid down the law, and banned the pesticide. Rather, the company manufacturing it, Bayer, and the EPA have “reached an agreement“, with Bayer kindly consenting to phase it out over the next five years.

It’s good to know the pesticides sprayed on our foods are so well-regulated!

I like it raw
Thanks largely to the efforts of Peter and Beryn and the team from Soaring Free Superfoods, the benefits of raw food are becoming more widely known, and more popular. It’s great then to see local enterprises popping up to fill the gap that mass-produced or imported supermarket food just doesn’t come close to filling. Last week, we added two new, locally-produced raw foods to our range.

Chocolate medicine
Euphoria Foiled might be categorised under chocolates, but maker Jane rightfully calls it a medicine. With ingredients such as maca powder, ginseng, barley life and FO TI it certainly is, not to mention raw cacao powder and raw cacao butter. It comes in two flavours, identically produced except for a dash of peppermint essential oil hidden in the green foiled one.

Raw muesli
Next up is a luxury raw muesli from Earthshine, who are also offering raw food preparation classes. Dates, soaked almonds (soaking nuts, especially dark nuts, vastly improves their nutritional profile), sunflower seeds, apricots, sprouted buckwheat, pomegranate, and more. I finished mine in a day, and the week looms long until the next batch arrives!

We hope to be offering more lovingly locally produced foods soon. To order, head on over to www.ethical.org.za.

Have a great week,
Ian and the Ethical Co-op team

How did they get there? It’s a complicated process, relying on heavy government involvement, and getting the regulatory environment right. But mostly it took vision, and persistence, and enduring the scorn of less visionary leaders, with Prime Minister José Sócrates remembering how Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi mockingly offered to build an electric Ferrari.

Groot Marico nickel mine?
Closer to home its land in demand. The pristine Groot Marico river is under threat after a nickel corporation applied to start prospecting on almost all the farms along the riverfront, including a number of permaculture farms. Open caste mining is highly destructive, and the lifeblood of the community, the Groot Marico river, would be devastated. Read more and take action.

40 Bornean rhino…
Further afield another land grab is underway, with a piece of Malaysian rainforest, home to the 40 last remaining Bornean rhinos, as well as endangered orangutans being under threat of turning into a coal power plant. Read more and take action.

Russian fires
A piece of land nobody wants is the contaminated land around Chernobyl. The Russian fires are on a truly unbelievable scale. Snowy Moscow experienced 28 consecutive days over 30 degrees celsius, and the extreme heat and dry weather fuelled the immense fires.

However, the fires have spread beyond Russia, into the Ukraine, and the highly contaminated fallout area around Chernobyl. 24 years after the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl melted down, if the fires remain unchecked, there’s the possibility of small doses of radioactive material being burnt and spreading through the air again, a mini-replay of the main disaster 24 years ago.

A reminder we cannot simply act without consideration for the future.

Gorgeous Gojis
Earlier this week we posted a video of Peter from our supplier Soaring Free Superfoods tasting some wild gojis from the Tibetan plateau. View it on our blog.

Crazy quinoa
It’s time for some spring cleaning on our shelves, and you’ll find a few crazy prices in our Featured & New section, with more to follow in the weeks ahead.

Have a great week,
Ian and the Ethical Co-op team

Russia, a land many of us picture as covered in snow and tundra, has been experiencing extreme heat and drought this year, and regular temperatures above 40 degrees. Four of the first five days of August saw record high temperatures. And now, in the culmination of a dry and hot summer, the country has experienced devastating fires.

Dry forest and peat, which cover much of Russia, are far more susceptible to destructive fires than the grasslands prevalent here, and some estimates have have seen fully one third of the entire country’s arable land burnt. Russia is the largest country in the world – South Africa can fit inside about 15 times – and with the loss of so much farmland, wheat prices in particular have soared, and the country has banned grain exports.

More hot air
Meanwhile, a short distance away, another giant country – the United States – has problems of its own. The release of 2 million gallons of toxic chemical dispersants into the Gulf perhaps? Its addiction to oil? The fact that it’s one of the most unequal societies in the world, or has the largest prison population? No, it’s bicycles.

According to Republican candidate Dan Maes, a rollout of a bicycle rental scheme in Denver is all part of an insidious plot to take away “our personal freedoms” and sell Denver out to the “United Nations”. The bicycle rentals could even be “against the constitution”. Perhaps its the fact that the bicycles are red that’s stirring up the bullish Republican candidate, but it seems Russia is not alone in experiencing waves of hot air.

Chocolates and peanuts
We have mange tout and sugar-snap peas available again after a long break, as well as chocolate bars and peanut butter. We’re also running out fast of the Whole Earth line, including the carbonated drinks. Our supplier has indicated they won’t have available for a number of months.

To order, head on over to www.ethical.org.za.

Have a great week,
Ian and the Ethical Co-op team

So many of us unthinkingly view cities are naturally dirty, smoggy, and see the country as the only alternative. It doesn’t have to be like that. Small garden plots can produce a remarkable amount of food, with enough to share for the wildlife. I wonder why huge rural farms don’t manage to share anything, and any visiting insect finds itself dead rather than fed.

Space in cities is a challenge, but there are wonderful designs for urban farms, skyscrapers of greenery rather than office drudgery. But there’s still much to do. The Johannesburg CBD is threatened by rising acid mine water. The kind produced when someone, somewhere, saw the poisonous runoff and blocked out any thoughts of where it would go, where it would end up. “Not part of my job”, perhaps they thought.

Except there were many “someones”, and now it’s a crisis in the Johannesburg CBD.

Tigers and Cheetahs
Even out of the city it’s been quite a week. First there really were tigers in Africa after a “pet” tiger jumped off a bakkie (near the Wimpy in Delmas, of all places to choose) and had a few hours of freedom before being recaptured. Next, there’ll be cheetahs in India. Well, there soon will be, after a plan to reintroduce cheetahs to India 63 years after the last one was shot, purportedly by the Maharajah of Surguja. The cheetahs will be transferred from South Africa, Namibia and Iran. India hardly has space for the tigers, I wonder where the cheetahs will go.

Sick of…
Someone today said they were “sick of guavas”. Guavas have been widely available for a while now, and perhaps they’ve been overdoing it. Someone else told me they appreciated the warm, sunny day today more coming as it does after the cold weather.

Change is such an important part of our lives. After the winter where variety is limited, we appreciate the first taste of the spring and summer fruits. But supermarket homogeneity robs us of that. We have the same fruit all year round, and rarely experience the thrill of food coming back into season, and that first taste.

Right now it’s clearly winter, with my fruit bowl loaded with oranges, lemons, naartjies and grapefruit. Not to mention shaddock, which I’m tasting for the very first time today. It really does taste like a sweet grapefruit.

We have quite a few new and returning products this week, too many to highlight in Featured and New. There are a number of new certified organic herbs and spices, including cayenne pepper and tarragon, as well as two new superfoods from Soaring Free Superfoods.

Remember, while you’re reading, others are ordering, and we’re probably almost out of milk and eggs already! Head on over to www.ethical.org.za to see what’s left.

Have a great week,
Ian and the Ethical Co-op team.

All of these were undoubtedly, and will continue to be, a factor.

However, another important factor has now been in the spotlight recently. Speculation by financial institutions. In particular, an investment type even more removed from reality than most. Derivatives. A derivative is not based on an exchange of goods or money, but is a contract with a value linked to the expected future price of an asset. While initially contracts were aimed at offering farmers a guaranteed price for their goods, providing them with some security, things soon became murkier as speculators disconnected from growing or selling wheat got involved. The US government in the 1930′s introduced regulation to control this, but this was repealed in the early 1990′s under intense pressure from the banking industry. In 2008, at the height of the food price increases, 80% of wheat contracts were held by those with nothing to do with wheat beyond trying to profit from it. Farmers were suffering from the volatility, and the poor were hardest hit by increased food prices.

Speculation came under the spotlight again recently when a single trader, a hedge fund, bought 240,000 tonnes of cocoa, 7% of the total annual global production, sending prices surging. That’s enough cocoa for 15 billion chocolate bars. Not even I can eat that much.

While growing as much of our own crops locally is a good response, if we want to continue to eat foods like rice and chocolate that aren’t available locally, we’ll have to buy them on the world market – one that’s hopefully regulated for the benefit of all, not just speculators who trade at our expense.

Rice
We have quite a few items back in stock this week, mostly herbs and spices. And, if the array of white basmati, brown basmati, white jasmine, brown jasmine, brown health, brown long-grain, thai red, white round and wild rice isn’t enough, we have black rice back in stock as well. Although most rice shares a similar nutritional profile, black rice is very high in iron.

Wild rice is a different species, native to the US. According to an Ojibwe legend (a Native American people living near Minnesota in the US), Nanaboozhoo was out hunting. He returned, having failed to find any game. As he came back to his pot of boiling water, he saw a duck sitting on the edge. It flew off as he approached, but Nanaboozhoo saw some grass floating in the water. He made soup from his water, and it was the best he’d ever tasted. He followed the direction the duck had taken, and saw geese, ducks, mud hens and all sorts of other birds feasting on the grain which grew in the waters.

As a result, Nanaboozhoo gave up killing deer, and manoomin, the wild rice, became an important cultural symbol (and gastronomic delight) for his people.

Shaddock
We also have something new in the fresh line this week. Coming from Kleinjongenskraal farm in the Cederburg is a crop of shaddock – a pale green to yellow citrus fruit, with a sweet flesh and very thick rind. It is usually pale green to yellow when ripe, and apparently tastes like a sweet, mild grapefruit, though often larger in size.

I look forward to trying it out this week!

To order, go to www.ethical.org.za.

Have a great week,
Ian and the Ethical Co-op team

There’s a marked difference in the way men and women handle fat. On average, fats make up around 22% of a woman’s bodyweight, and only 15% of a man’s. Female hormones protect women from the cardiovascular effects of excess fat to a much greater degree than men, and women, at least until menopause, suffer one-third as many heart-attacks and strokes.

So, while women need to be eating more fat by body weight, and are better protected against excess, it’s women who are often targetted by the “low-fat” food industry.

However, while fats are vital to health, not all fats are equal. Two of the healthiest fats are hemp oil, which we’re offering new this week, and flax oil. Hemp oil has an almost perfect balance between omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids, and is ideal for long-term use. Flax oil does not have this same ideal ratio, but is very high in LNA fatty acids. Most of us who eat a diet high in processed foods will have far too little of this essential fatty acid, and flax can help restore the deficit.

The problem is most of us have a diet far too high in unhealthy fats. Hydrogenised and trans-fatty acids are associated with higher rates of heart disease and cancer, and these fats are readily available. Present in most margarines, they’re commonly found in shortenings and most processed, “convenience” foods.

Most of these start with a low-quality, highly-processed oil, but healthy fats too, when heated, become harmful. Hemp, flax and olive oil shouldn’t be heated much, if at all. For cooking, coconut oil is the best choice.

To top up your fat needs, we offer hemp seed oil, flax oil, a balanced omega 3-6-9 oil, 2 varieties of olive oil and 2 varieties of coconut oil. And if that’s enough fat, and it’s time for a protein boost, there’s hemp powder too.

Vondis
Paul from Vondis will be on Cape Talk and 702 this Saturday at 8am to answer all your questions about pet nutrition. So if you’ve got concerns about vegan food for dogs, or wonder just what goes into most “healthy” pet foods, this is your chance to ask him.

To order, head on over to www.ethical.org.za

Have a great week,
Ian and the Ethical Co-op team

Baboons and rhinos being killed for sport, for aphrodisiacs, or to ‘keep the peace’. Members of an environmental group protesting a new golf course near George assaulted. Record low ice levels in the Arctic. Rising threats and instances of another outbreak of xenophobic violence.

But the strange thing is that when I get my news from people, not print, the picture changes. We are surrounded by people doing what they love, passionate, and making a difference to all they encounter.

If we are doing what we love, with love, we find that loving is not limited – the more we practice it, and circulate it around, the more we have to offer and the more returns to us.

Eating the best food for our body, for the people producing it, and for the planet is then not a matter of racking up a score on some imaginary green checklist – it becomes an expression of who we are.

Have a loving week full of lovely food!
Ian and the Ethical Co-op team

To order, head on over to www.ethical.org.za