Homegrown tomatoes should be considered a gateway drug. The first taste is ecstasy and afterward life without them seems intolerably bland. Soon you’re trying anything that can be grown in a backyard or sold at a Farmers Market. Backyard real estate once occupied by flowers or grass is tilled under and put into production. Your habit may be expensive, but you’ll do anything to feed it.

So I’d found myself in this advanced state of addiction to local, fresh food when I looked in our frig and wondered, “What about milk?”

More than two years ago, I read this article in The New York Times about the growing market for raw milk, as opposed to the pasteurized variety available in stores.

Pasteurization involves heating and quickly cooling milk to kill pathogens such as E. coli and salmonella.

Raw milk drinkers, however, argue that the process also destroys beneficial bacteria, proteins and enzymes that contribute to a stronger immune system and better digestive health.

Interstate sales of raw milk were banned 20 years ago by the Food and Drug Administration, but regulation is up to the states.

In Colorado, the sale of raw milk is illegal but the “work around” is to buy a share of a cow. In compensation for paying the bovine’s room and board, shareholders receive milk.

I was drawn to the idea for several reasons. I keep learning about more and more people my age suffering from nebulous immune disorders, which, it is theorized, can result from growing up in an overly sanitized environment. Because the body doesn’t know benign bugs from bad ones, it can’t respond appropriately. See this entry on The New York Times’ Well blog for more about that. So there’s certainly a parsimony of logic to me in the raw-milk-equals-good-bacteria-equals-better-health argument.

Then there’s the environmental argument. Even when I buy organic milk, it still comes from cows that reside who knows where. It has to be put in plastic jugs and driven hundreds of miles to my store. I recycle the jugs but that still consumes resources in transportation and processing.

Finally, there’s keeping it local. I want my consumer dollar going to someone I’ve met, in the community where I live.

So with this impetus, I started to investigate. According to realmilk.com, there are two raw milk providers in the Durango area, Nativo Farms and James Ranch. I called both and had all my questions answered with utmost friendliness and helpfulness. James Ranch’s cow share program is a little more costly and closes down in the winter. Nativo Farms is operating for the first time through the winter this year. So two weeks ago I signed the contract and made my first pick-up at Nativo Farms, located a couple miles south of Elmore’s Corner. (Nativo Farms now has a waiting list, according to the Web site).

This is how the economics broke down: for a one-time payment of $5, a $5 bottle fee and a $39 monthly fee for a share and half, we get a gallon and a half of raw milk a week. After start-up, it breaks down to not much more than I was paying for the organic stuff at the grocery store.

Raw milk enthusiasts have described the taste as richer, creamier and more complex. Personally, since we already were drinking whole milk, I didn’t find it much different in thickness or richness. But there is an extra dimension that is difficult to describe. It’s like milk, but more vividly, more intensely so. My 3-year-old seems oblivious to any nuanced flavor differences and chugs it with the same happy abandon as the store-bought stuff.

I won’t argue that pasteurization hasn’t played a valuable public safety role, but I think it comes down to the farm and the farmer. I’d rather trust a person I can meet and a place I can see than a faceless industry. But maybe that’s just the addict in me speaking.

Kudos to local mom Audrey Crane and her co-conspirators for their hard work bringing this together. Now take the family out for a sub on Saturday to support their efforts …

Beware the Carrotmob

Stonehouse Subs in Durango chosen for environmentally friendly mass benefit

by Dale Rodebaugh
Herald Staff Writer

It could be called a buy-cott – the opposite of a boycott – and it’s happening Saturday in Durango.

Stonehouse Subs, the business designated as a Carrotmob target for Saturday, will offer its usual selection of sandwiches and soft drinks at regular prices inside. Outside, 4-inch pre-made subs at $4 each will be available in four varieties – ham and cheese, turkey and cheese, Italian and vegan. Credit card purchases must be made inside. Stonehouse Subs, 140 E. 12th St., will be open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The event is Carrotmob Durango, the local version of an off-the-wall happening in San Francisco last year that has gone international – Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Helsinki, Finland; Basel, Switzerland. It coincides with the international Day of Climate Action.

How it works: Consumers reward with mass patronage a business that pledges to invest a certain amount of its gross receipts for a day in energy-saving improvements to its building.

A Web search reveals that Carrotmob was the brainstorm of Brent Schulkin, a San Francisco electronic-games developer and social-causes activist, who in March 2008 persuaded liquor stores in the Mission District to invest in the environment. K&D Market, the high bidder at 23 percent, made $9,000 worth of sales, compared to its usual $2,000 day.

Audrey Crane, a software developer at Interaction Designer in Durango, was intrigued. By networking, Crane and co-enthusiasts found four businesses to bid to be the target of mob action. The winner was Stonehouse Subs, a sandwich shop at 140 E. 12th St., which pledged 35 percent of the day’s gross take to green improvements.

“Carrotmob is a practical way to help the environment,” Crane said. “It’s not like asking people to stop driving their car.” Read more.

Maybe it’s the economic times, maybe it’s a desire to “green” my kitchen or maybe it’s the locavore movement, but this year I got a bug to try canning. Like many of the offspring of the first generation of women to enter the workforce en masse, I never learned this age-old preservation technique at my mother’s knee. Of course there’s the Internet, but I really wanted to watch it done firsthand before endeavoring to try it on my family (that whole botulism thing is a little scary). Happily, local mom Audrey Crane agreed to provide a tutorial for myself and another mom, Tara Frazer. Fortunately for us, Audrey is a veritable font of knowledge when it comes to canning (most of it self-taught, I was impressed to learn). After a couple of hours of low intensity work, and lots of chatting, we each had three beautiful jars of canned tomatoes. Inspired and feeling brave, I went home and later that night cooked up and canned a batch of peach jam. Though it came out a little dark (there are ways to counteract this but I didn’t bother with them), it tasted delicious and was really easy. It felt surprisingly empowering to have erased the factory hundreds of miles away from the eating equation. And what a great way to illustrate for my children where food really comes from. Now that the door has been opened, I find myself giddily pondering, ”What next?”

If you’re interested in learning more about home food preservation, the La Plata County Extension Office tomorrow (Sept. 2) is starting a three-day class in the mornings. See “Going Green with Food Preservation“ on the extension office’s Web site for information on signing up.

What a cool project! Read on …

Solar Education: Students to get dose of math with greenhouse vegetables

by Dale Rodebaugh
Herald Staff Writer

Credit: Jerry McBride/Herald Staff

A photovoltaic system installed at Escalante Middle School will make a campus greenhouse operational and allow students in Sharon Orr’s elective “greenworks” class to do more than grow vegetables.

The project is a collaboration of Durango School District 9-R, La Plata Electric Association, BP and Four Corners Solar. A similar photovoltaic system was installed at Bayfield Middle School last year.

Electricity generated by the Escalante photovoltaic system to power lights and fans in the greenhouse will offset the power the school ordinarily would have to buy. But beyond the immediate benefit, the system will open to students a panorama of educational disciplines, including mathematics, science and geography, Orr said.

It will work this way: A wireless link on the roof of the school will connect the Escalante photovoltaic system to the Fat Spaniel Technologies telemetry network. Fat Spaniel allows renewable-energy producers to display their energy production data and environmental credentials on the Internet.

There, Escalante students can see characteristics of their system and what it’s doing in real time or on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis. Information available in graphic form includes the amount of power being generated, ambient temperature, temperature of the photovoltaic cells and how much carbon dioxide the system is offsetting.

They also can compare their campus system with others connected to the Fat Spaniel network wherever they are. The comparisons they make would put to the test their ability and knowledge of mathematics and geography.

“Our greenhouse has been here for a couple of years,” Orr said. “But the photovoltaic system will get us up and going and allow us to grow vegetables year round.”

In preparation for planting, Orr’s students on Wednesday were weeding an outdoor plot next to the greenhouse for the arrival of topsoil and additives.

Eighth-grader Sheldon Wy-man, 13, wants to pick up pointers to apply to the care of strawberries and watermelons he’s growing at home.

Sheldon isn’t a stranger to agriculture because he’s familiar with the ranch in Craig where his great-grandfather and grandfather raised hay, potatoes and corn.

Reiley Waldo, 12, a seventh-grader, weeds and waters tomatoes and flowers at her house in Rafter J subdivision, southwest of Durango. She was enjoying the garden work Wednesday, which she said was more enjoyable than her physical education class.

Orr, who is scheduled to receive her master gardener certificate at the end of the month, would like to make the “greenworks” elective available to all Escalante students.

The class of 24 students will be doing a lot more than greenhouse work, Orr said. She plans to introduce vermiculture, composting, pollination, plant identification and food preparation before the year is over. In inclement weather, the students can investigate what’s happening on the Fat Spaniel network.

Mark Schwantes, manager of corporate services at LPEA, said the cooperative wants to place photovoltaic systems at the three middle schools in its service area that don’t have them – Miller in Durango and Ignacio and Pagosa Springs.

“Middle school is the best level to engage students,” Schwantes said.

Libraries and elementary schools are potential recipients of similar projects, he said. Photovoltaic systems would fit into educational programs at either schools or libraries as well as serve a utilitarian purpose.

Grants from LPEA and BP paid the cost of design, hardware and installation of the photovoltaic at Escalante by Four Corners Solar. LPEA, which owns and will maintain the system, contributed $12,445 and Orr received $10,000 from BP for the photovoltaic portion of the project. She received $10,000 from the Durango Foundation Educational Excellence for garden fencing and irrigation.

The Escalante photovoltaic system is connected to the LPEA grid, which means that whatever electricity is produced but not used by the greenhouse will be available to other customers. The 3,200 kilowatt hours of power the system should generate annually is about 38 percent of what the average home uses, Schwantes said.

Hooray for Durango Natural Foods! Read on …

Recycling No. 5: Durango store offers chance to bring in plastic tubs

by Dale Rodebaugh, Herald Staff Writer

The Gimme 5 campaign of Preserve Products isn’t a high five but still it’s a celebration — that of reducing energy consumption by recycling the No. 5 plastic (polypropylene) it uses to manufacture a variety of household and personal-care products. The “5″ refers to the number in the triangular recycling symbol on tubs in which many products are packaged.

Durango Natural Foods, located at the corner of East Eighth Avenue and east College Drive, accepts clean and dry No. 5 plastic containers – but only No. 5 tubs – for recycling. They can be left at the check stand from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. There’s a charge of 5 cents per container to help defray the cost of shipping the plastic to Preserve Products, which recycles the plastic.

Durango Natural Foods joined the effort this month and is the only place in La Plata County to accept No. 5 plastic tubs for recycling. Clean, dry containers can be left with the cashier, who will record the transaction by punching a Gimme 5 icon on the cash register.

“It’s catching on slowly, but going very well,” cashier Laura Rockwell said Tuesday.

But the cooperative at East Eighth Avenue and east College Drive doesn’t stand to collect enough No. 5 tubs to qualify for Preserve-paid shipment as does industry giant Whole Foods Market. So DNF has added its own twist to the number 5 — the nickel per container it charges to help defray the cost of shipping plastic for recycling to Preserve in Cortland, N.Y.

No one has complained so far, Rockwell said.

Sally McDermott, who was making her way to the cashier’s stand with a quart of yogurt, said the nickel is no big deal.

“I didn’t know about No. 5 recycling,” McDermott said. “But I’ll return this tub and other old ones that I’ve resisted throwing away.”

Yogurt, cottage cheese, humus, ketchup, sour cream and baby wipes are consumer products commonly packaged in polypropylene. Polypropylene is lighter than No. 1 plastic (polyethylene terephthalate) used to make soda or water bottles or No. 2 plastic (polyethylene) used to package cleaning products or some dairy products.

Jules Masterjohn, the cooperative’s community outreach coordinator, said the decision to recycle No. 5 tubs is the second major move the store has made to reduce the use of plastic. In May 2008, the store stopped bagging purchases in plastic and began charging 20 cents for each paper bag. Customers now bring their own bags or buy a reusable one, she said.

“We doing our best to clean up after ourselves,” Masterjohn said. “A lot of people think they’re recycling but the plastic they put out ends up in a landfill, gets shipped to China to be burned to produce power or ends up in the Pacific Ocean.”

The mention of the Pacific Ocean was a reference to the North Pacific gyre, a vortex created by wind and currents in the ocean between San Francisco and Hawaii where a patch of largely plastic debris twice the size of Texas swirls endlessly.

“I started researching the issue of No. 5 plastic earlier this summer after Kelli Reese, our general manager, learned that a cooperative where she worked in Hendersonville, N.C., had started to recycle No. 5,” Masterjohn said. “No one else around here is doing it as far as I know.”

“I think it’s great,” Jill Quam, the recycling program assistant for the city of Durango, said of the effort. “When the city gets its new recycling center, we want to accept clip board (cereal box material) as well as a wider range of plastics.”

The city currently accepts only bottle-shaped receptacles made of No. 1 and No. 2 plastic.

Preserve manufactures plastic toiletry items (tooth brushes and disposal razors), tableware (plates and glasses) and kitchen items (bowls and food storage units) — all from recycled plastic. The company has found that recycling polypropylene instead of using virgin polypropylene uses 54 percent less water, 75 percent less oil, 48 percent less coal, 77 percent less natural gas and 46 percent less electricity. The process also reduces greenhouse gases by 64 percent.

daler@durangoherald.com