Happy Earth Day! It's a strange April, one where we are celebrating our environment from indoors, but also one where we are seeing in real time the positive impacts a greener lifestyle can achieve. I've been planning this Sustainability Cheeseboard since last summer, and it feels even more prescient now than it did then. I was fortunate enough last June to visit 3 incredible cheesemakers who are committed to sustainably producing their cheeses, as well as attending a seminar at the ACS Conference in August about Dairy Farming and Climate Change. Both of these experiences were incredibly enlightening to the challenges everyone faces in the food industry, all the way from farmer and producer to consumer. Ralph Schlatter from Canal Junction said it best; "Cows are not the issue. It's the way we farm that's that issue." Producing cheese on monoculture farms in mass quantities with single breeds of cows does heavily contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, land erosion, and poor water quality. But it doesn't have to be that way. Small cheesemakers are better suited to use a "soil up" approach. One that focuses on the earth and the land as the starting point for good cheese. When the grass is good, the cows benefit, the farmers benefit, the neighborhood benefits, and the customer benefits. It goes something like this: 1. Better grass = better hay = more nutrients = cows need less 2. Better grass= more organic matter in soil = more moisture retention = less erosion and less waste runoff 3. Better grass= better waste = better compost = better (other) crops Obviously this is a very simple rendering of a very complex issue. But the truth is that we don't all need to be soil management scientists to move cheesemaking in the right direction. We get the easiest (and most delicious) path; buying and eating cheese that comes from producers who are already putting these ideals into practice. This encourages them, and other cheesemakers, to do even more. Disrupting the status quo is a great thing when it promotes positive change. From left to right, here are the cheeses, and cheesemakers, on my Sustainability Cheeseboard. 1. Smokey Blue from Rogue Creamery- Rogue Creamery in Oregon is a fantastic creamery based on cheese flavor alone. Their Rogue River Blue won Best Cheese in the World last year. But it doesn't stop there. Rogue is a B-Corp; they use a water recycling system that uses waste water approximately 50 times before it becomes truly "waste; they have a wildlife and pollinator corridor surrounding their pastures; and they have a 35 acre buffer between their cow grazing areas and the nearby Rogue River. 2. Fromage Blanc from Cowgirl Creamery- Cowgirl Creamery is a California based powerhouse of the sustainability movement. All of their cheeses are organic and use milk from nearby farms, one of which was the first certified organic creamery west of the Mississippi! But what makes them truly special is their involvement and support of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, an organization that buys and preserves agricultural land in Marin County. 3. Goat Brie from Laura Chenel- Laura Chenel is a pretty big name in the goat cheese industry, and that's a good thing! Their new creamery in Sonoma, California is LEED Gold certified. All of their water is recycled, they use solar energy, and they source milk from small regional creameries. 4. Extra Aged Marco Polo from Beecher's Handmade Cheese- Beecher's is a local producer to my area, which immediately makes them higher on the sustainable scale. If you can't use any other metric to determine whether or not a cheese might be environmentally friendly, locality wins. The dairies that supply their milk use a mix of Jersey and Holstein cows. Holsteins produce more milk, but Jerseys tend to live longer. Finding the right balance in breeds and feeds can improve efficiency, which results in a healthier system. 5 + 6. Bay Blue and Toma from Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese- Point Reyes is a four-generation family owned creamery in California that puts sustainability first. They harvest methane for energy, conserve and recycle water, and mitigate carbon emissions through sequestration methods. They also sometimes help other nearby businesses with their own sustainability practices, like Lagunitas Brewery, who sometimes supply the cows with leftover grains from beer brewing! They also recently made the switch to 100% eco-conscious packaging material, so if you do choose to ship yourself a treat, it will arrive with the environment in mind. Extras- Albina City Nuts: Sweet and Salty Hazelnuts and Toasted Corn from Portland, OR. La Quercia Speck: Step 4 GAP Rated (pasture centered meat). La Panzanella Croccantini: local crackers made with non-GMO ingredients. There are many more cheesemakers throughout the world who are raising the bar for ethical and sustainable food production. I urge you to find one near you and give their cheese a try. Even buying a small piece as a splurge every now and again helps drive the practices further. I know that trying to balance and weigh every food purchase against an environmental index can be exhausting, often resulting in lingering guilt. I hate it; it's not my intention to make anyone feel that way. My hope is that by making occasional small changes, by educating ourselves and others, we can lift the burden onto the shoulders of the industry where it belongs.
(This post was not sponsored or endorsed in any way by the companies listed.)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
December 2018
|