Archive for the ‘Vendor Spotlights’ Category
Garden Volunteer Day 6/18
Interested in getting your hands dirty and learning how to garden? Join us for our Garden Volunteer day this Saturday, 6/18 from 9-11:30AM! Email Josh at joshua@in.gredients.com to sign up.
Weekly Update and Specials :: May 20th-27th
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Weekly Update and Specials :: April 22nd-29th
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Weekly Update and Specials :: April 8th – April 15th
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Weekly Specials and Update :: March 11th – 18th
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Weekly Specials and Update :: February 25th – March 4th
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A Complete(ly) Sustainable Protein?
We’re all about new ideas.
We’re also into revitalizing old ideas that have gone by the wayside. Eliminating unnecessary food packaging and focusing on locally and sustainably grown foods are good examples of old ideas made new again, and so is this: eating insects. Entomophagy, as it’s formally known, is a practice dating back thousands of years. Today, however, Western cultures hardly know the first thing about eating bugs, even though many other culinary traditions (Mexico, Thailand, and China, to name a few) still consume insects with regularity. As far as we’re concerned, insects are overdue for a resurgence in the West, and we’re not the only ones who think so.
Since 2010 when the idea of in.gredients was born, entomophagy has been on our list of creative solutions to environmental and social problems. Only recently, however, did we connect with two groups here in Austin leading the way in edible insects. World Ento, founded in Georgia in 2010 and recently re-located to Austin, is setting industry standards for safe, sustainably-raised insects. Little Herds, an Austin non-profit in its final days of a crowd-funding campaign, is on a mission to educate the public about the merits and joys of eating insects.
What are those merits, you ask? Insects are a highly efficient and nutritious source of protein (complete with all 9 essential amino acids), which makes insects far more viable in a resource-limited future than traditional sources. To give some context, the resources required to raise one pound of beef can raise nine pounds of crickets. That’s a significant difference, and one we simply can’t afford to ignore as population growth and resource depletion continue.
So how does one eat insects? Well, with over 2,000 edible species, the options are almost endless. Chefs from all over the States, including Austin’s own Sonya Cote, are already incorporating insects into their menus. Not excited about a whole cricket on the end of your fork? That’s fine, World Ento makes both cricket and mealworm flours that incorporate safely prepared insect meal into white or whole wheat flour. From there, the possibilities range from chocolate chip cookies, to pancakes, to just about any recipe involving flour. It’s a simple way to add a healthy, sustainable protein, and the insect flavor and texture are hardly detectable.
World Ento raises and sells clean, safe-to-eat, and ethically harvested insects (Good Karma Killing, as World Ento calls it, is a freezing process that lulls them into a painless stasis), and soon you’ll be able to find them (as a Chocolate “Chirp” Cookie Mix) at in.gredients!
Want to learn more? Follow World Ento and Little Herds on Twitter, and come out to our pre-party (for this amazing event) next Tuesday, February 18th. We’ll have tons of samples and a few of the big names in entomophagy on hand to talk to you in person about this exciting movement. Hop on board – you won’t want to miss this one.
Support the Bastrop Cattle Company Processing Plant Campaign
It can be eye-opening when you start researching where your steak comes from.
Living in a society with a large industrial food system, it’s easy to not know. You can go to the grocery store and buy meat that’s nicely cut, processed and wrapped for your convenience.
What if we all took a step back and asked where the meat came from? That steak came from somewhere (something), right?
That is when things get interesting.
With an industrial food system comes factory farming. Unfortunately the main goals of industrial farming is to increase yields, with the animals being treated as commodities, not living creatures. This business model leads to inhumane treatment of animals, unhealthy working conditions and massive environmental impacts (researchers have put the annual cost of environmental damage caused by US industrial farming at 34.7 billion dollars.)
It’s important to us at in.gredients to source our meat from local ranchers. By having a relationship with them, we know that the animals are treated humanely, the workers make a livable wage, and the farmers are doing their part to be environmentally conscious.
Because of our belief in fair and humane farming practices, we are thrilled to hear that Bastrop Cattle Company has started a campaign to build their own processing plant. The plant would benefit the local community by creating 30 jobs while providing a place for other small producers to process meat. The plant would also be designed as a wastewater treatment facility allowing the reuse of water for irrigation.
Bastrop Cattle Company believes in transparency and has always been open with customers about how and where their beef comes from. The same holds true for this campaign. BCC will publish the budget for the project and detail how the funds generated will be used.
BCC is taking another step to bring local, sustainable agriculture back into the spotlight. This processing plant would be an investment to ensure that local foods-raised AND processed- are available in Central Texas.
That is a project we can get behind.
Take the time to research for yourself, and help out a great local business working towards change in our community.
Bastrop Cattle Company Meat Club
Signup
…scroll to the bottom of this page!
What is it?
A monthly variety of sustainably-raised meats from local farmers, including Bastrop Cattle Company, Windy Hill Farm, Dewberry Hill Farm, and Richardson Farms!
How it works
The inaugural BCC Meat Club begins in September 2012 and runs through February 2013. The cost of each membership is $1000 for six monthly orders of all your local meat needs.
Initial payment: $400 due on Friday 31 August 2012 to reserve your membership and ensure BCC is able to process the appropriate amount of meat.
Monthly selection: Each member will receive a monthly “Meat List” by the 5th of each month, highlighting which products the BCC Meat Club will be offering members that month.
Submitting your order: Each member will have until the 10th of each month to submit their monthly order.
Monthly meat pickup: BCC Meat Club will send you an email notification when your order’s ready for pickup. This will occur during the third or fourth week of each month, and specify when you can pick your order up.
Order payment: Payment is due when you receive your monthly order at BCC’s pickup location.
Pickup location: in.gredients, 2610 Manor Road, Austin TX 78722 (map here).
Why you should join
- All animals are raised in local pastures by family farmers and ranchers.
- All animals are hormone-free and antibiotic-free.
- All animals are humanely treated.
BCC’s happy to answer questions about their ranching methods. Facebook or email them for more info!
Plans
- Texavore: $1200 for 6 months
- Localvore: $500 for 4 months
in.gredients 