permaculture design certification in nyc

Learn with the permaculturist who taught me...

Permaculture Design Certification in NYC
with Andrew Faust

March to June 2010
11 weekend sessions 9am to 5pm

Permaculture provides positive solutions for the social and ecological issues of today. Come be inspired by one of the leading visionaries in Permaculture Design and prepare to transform your world!

Enroll Early! Before March 1st $1000. After March 1st $1200.

Information/Registration, email Andrew@HomeBiome.com

Check out the website for more classes www.HomeBiome.com

permaculture hedonists presents (hands-on workshops)

Mmmm... kimchi [image: Wikipedia]

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Permaculture Hedonists Presents
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Hands-on workshops by Permaculture designers, educators and hedonists Andrew Faust and Adriana Magaña.

Who says you need a homestead to practice Permaculture? We'll show you how to live the good life by putting your hands and kitchen to work! We think our bodies deserve the best and as permaculture hedonists believe that what we create with our hands is far superior to anything you can buy on the shelves of any store.

Last year we ran this series of lactoferment classes along with a Handcrafted Beauty series to great success. Many sold out fast with our cap at 10 students for each class. We checked our busy teaching and parenting schedules and set aside some dates to present these learning opportunities once again. Join us for these three fermented foods classes that will increase your vitality as well as your self-sufficiency. Come learn why they are so incredibly nutritious and how they can fit into your life.

The Handmade Beauty series will take the mystery out of formulating your own safe and cheap beauty necessities. We will explore a host of different ingredients from ones found in your kitchen cupboard to exotic floral waxes found via the internet. This series will now include household cleaners as well. All of these will be great for gift giving!

Start crafting today and share your creations with friends and family!

Lactoferments
Wednesday, November 18
6:30- 8:30-pm $40

This workshop will walk you through making a variety of lactoferments including: kim chee, sauerkraut, ginger-carrots and other root crop lactoferments. Bring 2 wide mouth 1 pint glass mason jars with lids if you would like to take home jars of our finished products. Also bring a good cutting knife a cutting board and the Organic vegatables will be supplied. Handouts of recipes will be provided. IMPORTANT!!! Please register at least one day in advance so we can insure the correct amount of ingredients. This is sure to fill up fast!

Sourdough Bread
Wednesday, December 9th
6:30-8:30pm

In this, our second fermented food workshop, we will harvest Brooklyn’s wild yeasts to make bread rise into a fluffy loaf that is truly delicious! We will show you the ins and outs of making and baking sourdough bread so that you can get started with confidence! We will also cover sourdough pancakes. Delicious! Participants should bring a small jar to take home some sourdough starter.


Handcrafting Home Brews
Thursday, December 17th
6:30- 8:30 pm $40

This third workshop will cover: malting whole grains for superlative home brew beers and will include sources for organic whole grains; preparing herbal tonics and sacred beers with wild dandelion, yarrow, rosemary and others; culturing wild yeasts. Kombucha preparation will also be covered and kombucha “mothers” will be given away to make at home. Handouts of recipes will be provided.


Handmade Beauty Part 1 and 2
Saturday, December 19th
Part 1 - 12am-2pm $40
Sunday, December 20th
Part 2 - 4pm -6pm $40

In this class we will craft a variety of body care products made from ingredients easily found in your kitchen cabinet or local heath food store. You will expand your knowledge of herbs, save money and feel your beautiful best by making and using your own handmade beauty products. Are you spending wads of cash on eco-household cleaners? Well you can stop! We will be providing recipes and samples for some of the most often used cleaners. Bring small containers (washed take out condiment containers work great) if you'd like to take some samples home.

Part 1

For your Face...
*Face Cleanser *Face Scrub
*Herbal Face Toner *Moisturizer *Tinted Lip Balm

Plus Household Cleaners!

Part 2

*Herbal Shampoo *Herbal Hair Rinse
*Body Scrubs *Tooth Powder/Paste
*Mouthwash *Shaving Cream

Plus Household Cleaners!

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Handcrafting Herbal Tinctures, Salves and Extracts will be offered after the new year. So get ready!

All of these classes will take place in our small apartment so enrollment in limited to 10 people for each class. Allergic to pets? We have two cats and a dog FYI.

Please pre-register so we know how many people to expect dreikycaprice@gmail.com

We can and will offer these classes again so please inquire if the dates don't work out for you.

Be well,

Adriana and Andrew

P.S. We are accepting registration for our Permaculture Design Certification from March 27th through June 5th. Sign up early to get a discount and save your spot!
To register email Andrew@HomeBiome.com

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The Center for Bioregional Living
Ellenville / Brooklyn, NY
www.homebiome.com

green books campaign: the raw milk revolution

This review is part of the Green Books campaign. Today 100 bloggers are reviewing 100 great books printed in an environmentally friendly way. Our goal is to encourage publishers to get greener and readers to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books. This campaign is organized by Eco-Libris, a a green company working to green up the book industry by promoting the adoption of green practices, balancing out books by planting trees, and supporting green books. A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on Eco-Libris website.



The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America's Emerging Battle Over Food Rights
by David E. Gumpert
(with foreword by Joel Salatin)
Chelsea Green Publishing
Printed on recycled paper

What do government regulators have against raw milk?

The Raw Milk Revolution is an exploration of this and other relevant questions in a time when the entire industrialized food system is coming into question.

Based on his blog, The Complete Patient, David Gumpert provides a reasonable, balanced, and straightforward account of the pros and cons of raw milk consumption and the legal constraints placed on its production.

The book provides historic context of the dairy industry, from about the time of the Industrial Revolution to more recent regulatory history regarding food safety. It balances past events with the current trend toward consuming raw dairy, explaining both the purported risks and benefits of the product that comes unadulterated from the cow (or goat or sheep).

A taste of the past
Pasteurization was a response to the increasingly deplorable conditions and industrialization of dairy farming. As dairy operations crowded into cities and were coupled with distilleries for "efficient" use of grain (as cow feed, something cows do not naturally eat), cows became sicker, farms became a breeding ground for pathogens.

An emotionally charged debate
But is the method of pasteurization - slow on the uptake at the turn of the century, yet widely used today - still valid? Is it making us safer? The answer is somewhat unclear. The rates of raw-milk–related illness are debatable, depending on who you ask. According to some groups, like [grass-fed] raw-milk advocates the Weston A. Price Foundation, the rates are inflated, while state and federal agencies argue that raw milk carries an inherent risk to health. As do parents of children who may have become seriously ill from it.

Raw milk is outlawed in 28 out of 50 states. But the incidence of other food-borne illnesses is just as high, if not higher, than that of raw milk. Even pasteurized milk carries some risk. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the highest rates of listeria illness are due to deli meat. If deli meat is 10 times more likely to expose you to listeria illness than raw milk, why isn't it restricted or outlawed?

Another question I kept asking is: Why can't we just put a label on raw milk and let consumers decide whether they want to take the supposed risk? Or more to the point, why don't consumers have the right to choose their foods, raw or treated?

A question of rights
Joel Salatin, now famous farmer of Polyface Farms in Virginia, posits in the foreword,

The only reason the right to food choice was not guaranteed in the Bill of Rights is because the Founders of America could not have envisioned a day when selling a glass of raw milk or homemade pickles to a neighbor would be outlawed. At the time, such a thought was as strange as levitation.

Indeed, what good is the freedom to own guns, worship, or assemble if we don't have the freedom to eat the proper fuel to energize us to shoot, pray, and preach? Is not freedom to choose our food at least as fundamental a right as the freedom to worship?

Due to the current laws regarding the sale of raw milk, people who choose to produce it are putting themselves at risk of government crackdown in order to fulfill a growing demand. Something is compelling consumers to, in many cases, cross state lines to obtain raw milk. Often, these consumers are pregnant women and mothers. Why are people putting themselves and their families at risk of breaking the law in order to potentially put themselves at risk of illness?

Having tasted raw milk and, unknowingly, carrying it over state lines illegally, The Raw Milk Revolution left me wanting to take the risk again, maybe in order to prove that the benefits are worth the risks.

I think I now have more questions than answers regarding the raw milk debate, but perhaps this is the point - to keep the questions coming with regard to food and our right to choose what we consider healthful to eat.

For more on the raw milk debate, visit The Complete Patient.

Founded in 2007, Eco-Libris is a green company working to green up the book industry by promoting the adoption of green practices, balancing out books by planting trees, and supporting green books. To achieve this goal Eco-Libris is working with book readers, publishers, authors, bookstores and others in the book industry worldwide. Until now Eco-Libris balanced out over 110,000 books, which results in more than 120,000 new trees planted with its planting partners in developing countries.