OPCOM Farm Makes Indoor Gardening as Easy as Plant, Pick and Plate

It's not often that you get to help a client launch its line of indoor gardening products! We did just that with   OPCOM Farm! 

OPCOMLink USA announced today its OPCOM Farm indoor gardening systems, which enable anyone to easily grow their favorite vegetables, herbs, sprouts and fruits inside their homes, year-round.

The GrowBox and GrowWall models couple OPCOM’s soil-free, hydroponic growing technology with proprietary color LED lighting tuned for optimal plant growth. These next generation indoor gardens enable 25 percent faster growth cycles, and eliminate the challenges of weeding, pests and weather normally associated with outdoor gardening.

5 Ways to Improve Food

A recent email from GOOD Magazine got my attention when it started off "Our current food system is broken. The planet provides more than enough food for everyone, yet nearly 1 billion of us go to bed hungry every night. "

Working in the lawn and garden industry, where I read daily about massive zucchini harvests or delicious recipes using fresh herbs, it was such a different message.

So, I wanted to help spread the word.  Oxfam America and GOOD Maker are challenging chefs, restaurateurs, farmers and food entrepreneurs of all kinds to create better food experiences using the GROW method. The GROW method has five simple principles:

1. Waste less
2. Shop seasonal
3. Less meat and dairy
4. Support farmers
5. Cook smart

GOOD Magazine is challenging us to create a better experience.  Submit your idea by November 13 and the winning entry will receive $1,000 from Oxfam to turn that idea into a reality.

GMG's Friday Find: For the Love of Popcorn!

Our obsession with popcorn is impressive. There's evidence of popcorn from 3600 B.C., and for eons we have been popping and playing with the kernels of this amazing vegetable. Is popcorn really good for us?  According to Kantha Shelke, a spokeswoman for the Institute of Food Technologists, "Popcorn has an antioxidant called ferulic acid that's also found in beans, rice, wheat, barley and many other grains. Ferulic acid exhibits a wide range of therapeutic effects against cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular and neuro-degenerative diseases because of its strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity."

We not only consume popcorn, we play with it.  There are popcorn board games, phone apps, relay races, guessing games and even Christmas decorations. Now there is a fun new machine that, although in prototype stage, promises to be a must have for the popcorn enthusiast.

The Popinator was invented by the fine folks at Popcorn Indiana and it's voice activated to launch a kernel of popped corn in the direction of the command "Pop", allowing the recipient the delight of capturing an air-borne snack with little agility (well, only when you get good at it). The less obvious components of the Popinator include competition and gamesmanship, alertness, agility, laughter and satisfaction.  The possible scenarios for use may include parties and social gatherings, perhaps the counters at workout facilities, an alternative to little snacks served at food stores, staff meetings at work (we're definitely interested at GMG), or anywhere you may want a quick snack mixed with a little fun.

Check out the Popinator video and let us know what you think.  Would you put this on your must have list?

~Peggy
  Garden Media Group

A Food (pickup)Truck

Food trucks have hit mainstream, popping up in cities of all sizes across America.  

But this "food truck" is different.  Truck Farm Chicago is a nonprofit organization that uses a 1994 Ford F-250 named Petunia to chauffeur a miniature, educational farm around town.

Petunia is "geared" (get it?) to educate Chicago youth and families about healthy eating. Your education includes a short tour of the farm, plant identification, taste tests, and sensory exploration. 

"I was excited about this project as a fun, unique and creative way to bring gardening and nutrition education to children all over the city—especially those who may not otherwise get to see how food grows up close,” co-founder Shari Brown says. 

"Making healthy choices can be challenging, especially when good fresh food and education about why it's important and how to cook it is not always accessible. Truck Farm is trying to do our part by using our exhibit to spark these discussions, give youth the tools to make healthy choices, and inspire them to use their own creativity to encourage healthy changes in their communities."

Read more about the project at GOOD or on the Truck Farm's website.  What a cool spin on an already cool idea.

Food trends for the future

Here at the Garden Media Group we're always on the hunt for upcoming garden/green living trends.

Recently, treehugger.com posted an interesting article projecting food trends for 2020. The projections come from Spain from a group of food researchers at  azti-technalia, a marine and food technological center, tasked with developing a project to identify future food trends.

What they came up with is thought provoking and sure makes for interesting conversation! Even more so, it just may "revolutionize" the way we look at food, grow food, and "consume" food.  Self-fulfilling prophesy? You decide.

The article lists eight points; here are a few teasers in no particular order:
1. "Food telling"- (food with a message). Attractive, accessible info and transparency and more...
2."SuperSense"- Food as a multisensory experience
3."Slocal" - Quality consumption, awareness and responsibility about the impact of food consumption
4."EgoFood"-Express your identity
5."Made Simple"- KISS principle. Opting for the least time consuming choice.
6."Eater-tainment"- The food experience. Connecting emotions, needs and memorable experiences
7."Here & Now"- Facilitates lifestyles of urban dwellers who demand flexibility to optimize healthy lifestyle
8."My Health"- Personalized health.

So let us know what you think... your "takeaway".

Will these projections provoke you to take a more active stance on how food is packaged and labeled? Buy local? Grow your own veggies? Consume less?

Put down your donut and pick up an apple?

Feed us your comments. Love to spark "healthy" debate!

Lynne

Garden Media Group

Photo credit: Kennett Square Farmers Market and Wiki Commons

Changing the way we view food

Food. It's essential for life - like water and air. We often take it for granted in this land of abundance.

Our love of food is reflected by cooking shows springing up almost daily on TV and across the web. We celebrate chefs, creating almost a cult-like hero worship over the "best."

Our refrigerators are jammed with produce and dairy, meats and seafood. We shop at massive supermarkets that wind around like corn mazes, crammed with eye-catching displays that capture our glances with everything from exotic sauces to produce spilling over counters in leafy disarray.

Because of increasing demand, once hard-to-find veggies and fruit like kale and kiwi are commonplace in most supermarkets throughout the USA. And that's not all.

We shop and go, grabbing what we need and often, impulsively, reach for food we don't need but think we must have.

Young kids, when asked "where does your food come from?" often answer... "the store, silly!"

How sad.

There's a growing movement afoot that crosses all strata of socio-economic demographics. People want to get in touch with the food they consume on a more visceral level. Perhaps it's part economics, part desire to "connect with the earth" but in the past decade, there's a rising tide of  homegrown veggie gardens,  Community Supported Agriculture farms, and Farmers Markets sweeping the nation. Check out the fine organization, Local Harvest for sources of farms, CSA's, markets near you, and great tips.

If you want to dig a bit deeper, our 2011 GMG Trends Report: Gardening with a Purpose visits the growth in CSA's, veggie gardening, sustainable container gardens,and the rise of urban farming.

So whether you grab a pot and plant tomatoes and basil, or participate in a CSA to support your local farmer (in exchange for weekly boxes of fresh picked produce) or like me, linger over tables of honey, teas, beets and corn at farmers markets, touching, squeezing, schmoozing (in a ritual that crosses all races, cultures and creeds) we all need to re-connect with food - and on a broader level, with nature.

It's part of our DNA.

So why don't we all think about this: Donate food and/or your time to a worthy food bank in your area, support CSA's and Farmer's Markets and enjoy getting your hands in the dirt to "garden with a purpose."

 I guarantee you, you'll never look at food the same way again.

~Lynne
Garden Media Group 
photo credit: top: Farm to Table; basket of veggies:Clagett Farm; girl with basket: Slow Food