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Red Deer Advocate MONDAY, OCT. 20, 2014
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Natural selections
ZOMBIE RUN
RETHINK RED DEER’S ECOLIVING FAIR FOCUSES ON WORKING WITH NATURAL PROCESSES
Advanced seed theory and the scoop on poop were among topics served up for the fall version of ReThink Red Deer’s EcoLiving Fair on Saturday. The trade fair and workshops were focused on working with natural processes rather than against them, bringing foodies from across the spectrum — urban and rural, growers and consumers — to share ideas and inspect products that overlap ReThink Red Deer’s principles for urban planning. Michalak admitted on Saturday that the weather could very well have scuttled the plans for outdoor workshops and displays, given that the entire region was under a blanket of snow at this time last year. “We won a lottery with the weather, all there’s been is a little bit of wind,” said Michalak. “We have EcoLiving typically in the spring, with Seedy Saturday, and that’s when seeds are typically distributed because it’s time for planting. But, because we have a seed bank, that means the storing has to happen as well.” Therefore, the fall version of EcoLiving, including Seedy Saturday, was set up at Heritage Ranch to collect and swap seeds, share ideas and promote the annual harvest dinner, prepared by Chef Mike Ubbing at the Westlake Grill. Ubbing said the challenge for him was to create a gourmet dinner using local products without putting the costs out of reach. “It’s taken me six years to build supply lines and they’re finally getting to my standards,” said Ubbing, who grows herbs outside of his kitchen and also produces some of his own vegetables
in a garden at home. “Price is a huge issue. It costs local growers on small farms a lot more to grow products than your big commercial farms.” In the yard outside of his restaurant, a collection of those growers had set up displays to show the results of their efforts. Vance and Brenda Barritt, who operate Earthworks Farm northeast of Alix, have adopted permaculture principles in which the entire farm operation is integrated into single production cycle. Brenda describes permaculture as a concept that originated in Australia, based on working with the ecosystem in a more permanent and perennial way than standard practices. They have recently been joined in the operation by New Brunswickan Mark Cogswell, who shed the cosmos of information technology to come west and learn about sustainable farming. Cogswell met the Barritts through Vance’s mother, Connie, during permaculture classes offered at Gull Lake by a company based in Calgary. He has been working on the Barritts’ farm to hone and develop his skills, with hope of setting up an operation of his own in the future. “A lot of people who study permaculture, they live in cities and they want to find a way to grow veggies in their backyard, which is great. But permaculture has the ability to solve a lot of sustainability issues on large farms,” said Cogswell. Vance said he and Brenda are still working on getting their farm to the point where it becomes profitable enough to support the family.
Please see FAIR on Page A2
Photo by ASHLI BARRETT/Advocate staff
Marina Hill, front, and Barry Hartz weave their way through dangling skeleton heads during the Zombie Run at Top of the Hill Golf Course in Sylvan Lake Saturday afternoon. Runners took to the three kilometre course, making their way through skeleton heads, tunnels, bridges and other obstacles while being chased by zombies. The event was a fundraiser for local groups in Sylvan Lake, including the U14 and U16 ringette teams and the 25th Red Deer Area Scouts.
Staying sanitized with water ionization INNISFAIL BY BRENDA KOSSOWAN ADVOCATE STAFF Russian scientists working during the paranoid era of the Cold War can take a healthy measure of credit for leading-edge technology aimed at keeping deadly bacteria out of the food supply. That technology is now hard at work in an Innisfail food plant and available to consumers throughout Central Alberta and beyond. Robert Sinnamon and his brothers, Glen and Don, have been growing vegetable sprouts on their property west of Innisfail for a number of years, marketing in major grocery stores and online under the trade names Living Foods, Sproutz Alive and Sun Sprout. Hit hard by news reports citing sprouts as a source of E. coli, salmonella and other potentially lethal bacteria, the Sinnamons started looking for a better way to ensure that their product would be absolutely safe. The harmful bacteria are found four layers deep in the seed, so the challenge was to find a product that could penetrate those layers without harm-
WEATHER
ing the seed or damaging the nutritional benefits of the sprouts, says Robert. He and his brothers found the solution in their own neighbourhood, created by a former dairy farmer who had immigrated from Switzerland. “I came to Canada to milk cows,” says entrepreneur Ivo Wachter, founder of Profound Technology Inc., located on the east side of Innisfail. Wachter’s family had operated a meat processing plant near Zurich for five generations and spanning more than 100 years. Wachter, his mother and his brothers took over operations from his father in the early 1990s, when food safety had become a major concern throughout Europe. At the same time, a group of scientists who had been working behind the Iron Curtain found themselves quite suddenly on their own. Shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Wachters encountered a Russian engineer who had helped develop a water ionization process that could produce an antibacterial agent without eating up the equipment being used to make it. Water ionization or water electrolysis was already known to produce a highly effective anti-bacterial agent that breaks down to pure water with a
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FORECAST ON A2
BY PAUL COWLEY ADVOCATE STAFF
minute residue of salt. However, because ionized water is highly corrosive, there had been no effective way to produce it without eating up the machinery being used in the process.
Some of the communities singled out for making illegal donations to the PC Party say those issues have been dealt with at their end. Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith said last week that the Progressive Conservative Party accepted more than $102,000 between 2004 and 2010 from taxpayer-funded municipalities, school boards and post-secondary institutions. Smith called on the PCs to pay the money back. Olds was identified by Wildrose as contributing $500 to the PC Association of Alberta, in two payments of $250, in October 2009 and September 2010. Town chief administrative officer Norm McInnis said on Friday those payments were unearthed last year following a Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act request.
Please see WATER on Page A2
Please see DONATIONS on Page A2
Photo by JEFF STOKOE/Advocate staff
Bob Sinnamon of Living Foods and BioHygenic Solutions Inc. has his products in the Sobeys South location in Red Deer.
Notley to lead Alberta NDP Rachel Notley takes a commanding 70 per cent of party vote to become new leader of the NDP.
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Story on PAGE A3
ONLY N EDMONTO
Lessons learned after illegal donations brought to light
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