LITTLETON FOOD CO-OP | WINTER 2017
THE RADISH
2017 Holiday Gift Guide
The best products from our shelves for under your tree. Granite State Market Match at the Co-op Helping to make fresh & local produce affordable for all.
Winter Fat-Biking in the North Country Rodney Mitton on one of the latest and greatest local winter activites.
Stretching Your Dollar Ed King, General Manager
For the last two seasons, The Littleton Farmers Market has been participating in a program called Granite State Market Match. This program has allowed SNAP shoppers at the Farmers Market to double their purchasing power toward local fresh fruits and vegetables. Granite State Market Match is available throughout the state and is offered through a partnership between Wholesome Wave, The New Hampshire Food Bank, The USDA, and with support from the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension. One of the shortcomings of the program has been the limited annual window of time that these benefits have been available — what happens when the Farmers Market ends in October!? The Littleton Food Co-op is excited to announce that we will be offering Market Match as a benefit to our SNAP shoppers starting immediately! The Coop will offer a 50% discount on all Fresh fruits and vegetables when the purchase is made with a SNAP card. This program will be funded through a FINI (Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive) Grant, awarded via the USDA. These grants are designed to improve nutrition by making fresh fruits and vegetables accessible for all. Currently, the program has funding through March 2018 but our hope is that it will develop into an ongoing program. We’re the first retail space to offer the Market Match program in New Hampshire, and we hope that you’ll help us spread the word. Granite State Market Match is the perfect compliment to our Healthy Food Access Program here at the Co-op, where qualifying shoppers get 10% off of their food purchase. If you have any further questions about either program, please stop by our service desk for more information. Both of these programs help fulfill the Littleton Food Cooperative’s mission to encourage (and facilitate access to) healthy dietary choices. We’re very excited to be participating in the Granite State Market Match and even moreso about the potential positive impact it could have for our community.
President Patricia O'Brien Vice President Marcie Hornick Treasurer Luther Kinney Secretary Marni Hoyle Director Mark Hollenbach Director Tom Southworth Director Alyssa Sherburn Director Charlie Wolcott Director Laura Walls General Manager Ed King Operations Manager Chris Whiton Perishable Operations Manager Rodney Mitton
THE RADISH Lead Editor, Art Direction Jessy Smith Managing Editor Kristina Zontini Copy-Editor Julie Wiles-Felch Copy-Editor Minnie Cushing
Cover: Ed King / Jessy Smith Do you want to see your story in print? We're accepting submissions from Member-Owners to help diversify and enhance the content featured in The Radish. Please submit your pitch via email to: jsmith@littletoncoop.org Be sure to include something about The Radish in the subject line of your submission.
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Getting Educated Students from the WMRHS Agriculture Sciences program visited the Co-op to learn more about the Farm to Table Movement & Organic Food Choices.
Left: Rick Grima's WMRHS class, shot among our mountain of pumpkins this past October. Below, from left to right: Students prepare their lunch with locally sourced ingredients in the CafĂŠ; Students listen to Rodney Mitton speaking about our produce department; Students doing some autumnthemed heavy lifting in the pumpkin patch.
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Fat Tires Float Through NH Winters
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inter Fat-Biking is a great (new-ish) outdoor winter activity. With huge wide tires, fat-bikes are noticeably different. These larger and softer tires allow the bikes to stay above the snow-pack on groomed trails or even cut through up to six inches of powder! Winter Fat-Biking has gained a ton of traction over the past couple years — partially because of the lack of snow, and because, well, it’s just so much fun. We’re extremely
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fortunate to have some great trails right here in Littleton; Parker Mountain Trails and the Moore Dam Trail. Thanks to a lot of hard volunteer work, these groomed, single-track trails pack super smooth and wind through our very own local winter wonderlands! Local networks of snow machine and cross-country ski trails are pretty great to Fat-Bike on as well — it’s a great activity for when cross country or backcountry skiing isn’t super great. Winter 2017
Fat-Biking is a low weight-bearing activity that is not only easy on the knees, but actually helps build muscle around the knees and make them stronger! It’s not a super strenuous activity, but is intense enough to keep you warm once you really get going through the snow. If you’re interested in trying your hand at Fat-Biking get in touch with Littleton Bike & Fitness (Rentals) and Parker Mountain Trails (Information/Maps). No matter how you choose to, make sure you get out there this winter and have some fun exercising!
Rodney Mitton
THE
RADISH PRESENTS
7 1 0 2 r e t n wi
E D I U G GIFT the
CO-OP AP PROVED
SECOND ANNUAL Winter 2017
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Winter '17 Gift Guide Out of gift ideas? We've curated some of our favorite products from right here in the Co-op to help make the Holiday shopping a little easier.
LifeStraw
Tony's "Chocolonely"
Originally designed for developing nations experiencing water scarcity; the LifeStraw is the perfect gift for the outdoorsperson in your life. Direct water filtration on-the-go.
100% Fair Trade, amazingly delicious chocolate that's sure to WOW the chocoholic in your family. We carry a variety for everyone. Great stocking stuffers!
Decomposition Books are produced by a family-owned company, printed on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper, and printed using soy ink. Great, quality journals.
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Evolution Salt Co. Himalayan Salt Lamps. There's conflicting research about the long purported airpurifying qualities of these salty, trendy, lamps — but you really can't deny how great they look in almost any space. Winter 2017
Dr. Bronner's ALL-ONE! Peppermint Castile Soap is the Cadillac of castile soaps. I've washed my dishes with it, I've washed my clothes with it, I've washed my floors with it — I've even washed myself. We carry it by the bottle or in Bulk.
Vacuum Insulated Barista Tumbler from Tree-Free greetings, Keene NH. Keeps drinks hot or cold for up to 12 hours, dishwasher safe, & printed using 100% solar energy! 17 Fl Oz Capacity.
Narragansett Lager is — excuse my saying so, a New England Tradition. It's certainly a curious selection for a gift guide, but nonetheless… Narragansett is to Cannon what Pabst Blue Ribbon is to Brooklyn. This lager is the perfect selection for the locally grown 20-something sub-arctic hipster in your life. Headquarted in Pawtucket, RI.
Taza Direct Trade/Organic Chocolate, inspired by traditional Mexican chocolate-makers, this company goes out of their way to let their amazing Cacao speak for itself.
Cocoa Santé Hot Cocoa is delicious, responsibly sourced cocoa from a superwoman duo team of two mothers from the Boston area. A great gift for the discerning cocoa connoisseur in your clique.
Big Dipper Wax Works Candles are produced using beeswax from beekeepers in British Columbia. Big Dipper also donates a portion of their proceeds to protect and conserve bee populations worldwide. Oh — and they smell Amazing!
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It's Always Sunny at the Co-op Tom Southworth, Director Why Put Solar Panels on a Grocery Store? Producing our own electricity at the Littleton Food Cooperative honors our stated mission to "[…] promote environmental sustainability locally." Solar production fits nicely with many of our additional initiatives that support the immediate geographical area and community — from member ownership to the mutually beneficial relationships we have with local producers. Our recent expansion project provided a timely and sensible opportunity to make the solar installation a reality. Our Solar Array We have 105 solar panels, each rated @ 285 watts; 57 of the panels are mounted on the roof of the pavilion, and the other 48 are mounted on the main building. These panels have the capacity to generate up to 29.93 KWh of electricity. On a clear summer day the 8
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"Producing our own electricity at the Littleton Food Cooperative honors our stated mission to '[…] promote environmental sustainability locally.'"
system produces something around 180 KWh (which amounts to 11% of our 1660 KWh average daily usage). Of course, daily production during the winter months is lower because of the shorter days (IE fewer hours of sunlight). Estimates have annual production around 32000 KWh, this would offset 5.3% of our annual usage. System Cost and Value In totality, the solar array set us back around $90000 — we received a 30% federal tax credit for implementing a renewable energy source, so the net cost was $63000 or so. We're expecting an immediate annual savings of $4000 or more, so as electricity prices continue to increase the value of on-site generation will increase proportionally. The panels are rated to last for 25 years. Fun Fact At 26, Albert Einstein posited his hypothesis that visible light was more than simple waves, as previously thought — that light was made up of waves as well as elementary particles called "photons". Really though, why Solar Panels? It's estimated that buildings use somewhere around 46% of the world's energy. The kicker, though, is that buildings (unlike other energy consumers like vehicles) are fertile in opportunity to be either net zero (or even net positive) energy producers. I predict this happening rather quickly as a result of more physical spaces incorporating renewable production into their building materials. Sure, investing in solar will (over time), save money. However, the greater motivator in adding our solar array was (and is) to reduce the building's carbon footprint and lower the Co-op's contribution to greenhouse gasses. In just five months, our solar production has offset more than 11 tons of CO2 emissions. That's huge.
If you'd like to learn more about eliminating carbon emissions, and why we must — I recommend the T.E.D. Talk by Bill Gates, "Innovating to Zero". It's a compelling lecture, a must see!
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"However, the greater motivator in adding our solar array was (and is) to reduce the building's carbon footprint and lower the Co-op's contribution to greenhouse gasses. In just five months, our solar production has offset more than 11 tons of CO2 emissions."
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The Littleton Food Co-op in Earlier Days (Winter 2014) Chris Whiton
From The President's Desk Patricia O'Brien, President of the Board
December is upon us once again, and as always; it seems that time insists on moving faster than I keep up with. No matter, though, as we find ourselves in the waning moments of the two-thousandth and seventeenth year; we all know that the holidays will be upon us in an instant. Further on the subject of holidays: I hope that your Thanksgiving was a memorable feast — one full of the gratitude that a year of blessings brings. Before we know it, the abbreviated days of December will collide with the solstice and make way for the longer days to carry us from January into the Spring (and summer) to come. There’s something very special about watching the days lengthen as the light returns. Even in these earlier days of the season (early December), it’s heartening that friends and family are already celebrating the Holidays with such gusto. Though, I must say: The Holidays are always better with snow — I hope it snows a ton, and soon! As I write today, we haven’t had much snow to write home about, but I have heard that it’s been cool enough to allow for some decent skiing! An industry, of course, vitally important to our local economy. Before I go, I'd like to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Myself, the Board of Directors, and Everyone else here at the Littleton Food Co-op!
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Vintage Cookbook Finds A Christmas Classic & Co-op Original to Share with Your Family & Friends this Holiday Season
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must share my favorite butter cookie recipe for you to try as part of your holiday spread. This is a recipe I had originally borrowed from a vintage cookbook in my collection. Everyone I’ve shared these cookies with (either the recipe, or the cookies themselves) has remarked how delicious they are. I’ll let you in on my favorite part of this recipe: They’re super easy to make, even with children. If you try this recipe, let us know what you think!
Old-Fashioned Butter Cookies Patricia O'Brien, President of the Board | Prep: 30 Minutes, Makes Roughly 6 Dozen. Preheat oven to 400°.
3 Cups Flour 1 Tsp. Baking Powder ½ Tsp. Salt 1 Cup Butter (Room Temperature) 2 3 / Cup Sugar 1 Egg 2 Tsp. Whole Milk or Cream 1½ Tsp. Pure Vanilla
1. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together. Set aside for now. 2. In a large mixing bowl mix butter and sugar until well creamed.
3. Add to butter/sugar, mixing well: egg, milk (or cream), and vanilla. 4. Once wet ingredients are thoroughly mixed, add flour mixture. Mix well and chill dough in the refrigerator for one hour. 5. Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface in thirds at a time to a thickness of about an eighth of an inch. 6. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters or pastry wheel. 7. Place on ungreased baking sheets. 8. Bake cookies for five to eight minutes or until lightly tan. 9. Let cookies cool. Decorate if desired.
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Vitamin D3
The Sunshine Vitamin
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cientifically known as "cholecalciferol," vitamin D3 is naturally synthesized in the skin, found in many foods, and taken as a dietary supplement. D3 is one of the most useful tools we have at our disposal for improving overall health — it's on the World Health Organization's list of Essential Medicines. Vitamin D3 has many important functions including: regulating the absorption of calcium, facilitating normal immune system function, and ensuring proper development of bone and teeth. Perhaps, as a result of people assuming they self-generate enough Vitamin D3 through typical exposure to
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sunlight — or, perhaps, because of the modern indoor lifestyle — deficiencies have been reported to be on the rise worldwide. It can be difficult, especially here in the North Country, to get enough D3 through diet and sun exposure alone — taking a supplement may be a solution for people who are deficient. Individuals with a suitable level of Vitamin D3 are said to be better equipped to fight off colds and other common ailments. Intake of D3 is recommended at 400800 UI per day, however some studies suggest that a higher daily intake of 1000-4000 UI is needed to maintain optimal blood levels.
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Your doctor can perform a simple blood test to determine whether or not you're suffering from a Vitamin D3 deficiency. The Littleton Food Cooperative offers a large selection of Vitamin D3 supplements to choose from, including the above selections from Nordic Naturals. Charise Baker, Wellness Manager
*These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.