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La Vida Locavore is the blog for anyone whose crazy life includes planting, growing, weeding, fertilizing, raising, picking, harvesting, processing, cooking, baking, making, serving, buying, selling, distributing, transporting, composting, organizing around, lobbying about, writing about, thinking about, talking about, playing with, and eating food!

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USDA

Senate

Agriculture
Chair: Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
- Max Baucus (D-MT)
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- Dick Lugar (R-IN)
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- Pat Roberts (R-KS)
- John R. Thune (R-SD)

Appropriations
Chair: Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: Herb Kohl (D-WI)
- Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
- Dick Durbin (D-IL)
- Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
- Tom Harkin (D-IA)
- Tim Johnson (D-SD)
- Ben Nelson (D-NE)
- Jack Reed (D-RI)
- Robert Bennett (R-UT)
- Christopher Bond (R-MO)
- Sam Brownback (R-KS)
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- Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
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Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions
- Chris Dodd (D-CT)

Senate Hunger Caucus

House

Agriculture
Chair: B Collin Peterson (D-MN)
V. Chair: B Tim Holden (D-PA)
B Joe Baca (D-CA)
- John Boccieri (D-OH)
B* Leonard Boswell (D-IA)
- Bobby Bright (D-AL)
B* Dennis Cardoza (D-CA)
- Travis Childers (D-MS)
B Jim Costa (D-CA)
- Henry Cuellar (D-TX)
- Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA)
B Brad Ellsworth (D-IN)
- Debbie Halvorson (D-IL)
B Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD)
- Steve Kagen (D-WI)
- Larry Kissell (D-NC)
B Frank Kratovil (D-MD)
- Betsy Markey (D-CO)
B Jim Marshall (D-GA)
P Eric Massa (D-NY)
B Mike McIntyre (D-NC)
- Walt Minnick (D-ID)
B Earl Pomeroy (D-ND)
- Mark Schauer (D-MI)
- Kurt Schrader (D-OR)
B David Scott (D-GA)
B Zachary Space (D-OH)
- Timothy Walz (D-MN)
- Frank Lucas (R-OK)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- K. Michael Conaway (R-TX)
- Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE)
- Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
- Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
- Sam Graves (R-MO)
- Timothy Johnson (R-IL)
- Steve King (R-IA)
- Robert Latta (R-OH)
- Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
- Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
- Jerry Moran (R-KS)
- Randy Neugebauer (R-TX)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Mike Rogers (R-AL)
- Jean Schmidt (R-OH)
- Adrian Smith (R-NE)
- Glenn Thompson (R-PA)
*=House Organic Caucus member
B=Blue Dog Democrat

Appropriations
Chair: Dave Obey (D-WI)
Ag Sub-Committee
Chair: P Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
- Sanford Bishop (D-GA)
* Allen Boyd (D-FL)
- Lincoln Davis (D-TN)
*P Sam Farr (D-CA)
*P Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
P Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
P Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
- Jack Kingston (R-GA)
- Rodney Alexander (R-LA)
- Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO)
* Tom Latham (R-IA)
*=House Organic Caucus member

P=Congressional Progressive Caucus

Education and Labor
P Chair: George Miller (D-CA)
- Jason Altmire (D-PA)
- Robert Andrews (D-NJ)
- Timothy Bishop (D-NY)
P Yvette Clarke (D-NY)
- Joe Courtney (D-CT)
- Susan Davis (D-CA)
P Marcia Fudge (D-OH)
P Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)
P Phil Hare (D-IL)
- Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
P Mazie Hirono (D-HI)
- Rush Holt (D-NJ)
- Dale Kildee (D-MI)
P Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
P Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
- Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY)
P Donald Payne (D-NJ)
- Jared Polis (D-CO)
- Robert Scott (D-VA)
- Joe Sestak (D-PA)
- Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)
P John Tierney (D-MA)
- Dina Titus (D-NV)
- Paul Tonko (D-NY)
P Lynn Woolsey (D-CA)
- David Wu (D-OR)
- Buck McKeon (R-CA)
- Judy Biggert (R-IL)
- Rob Bishop (R-UT)
- Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
- Michael Castle (R-DE)
- Vernon Ehlers (R-MI)
- Luis F Fortuno (R-PR)
- Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
- Peter Hoekstra (R-MI)
- Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA)
- John Kline (R-MN)
- Kenny Marchant (R-TX)
- Tom McClintock (R-CA)
- Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
- Thomas Petri (R-WI)
- Phil Roe (R-TN)
- Todd Russell Platts (R-PA)
- Tom Price (R-GA)
- Mark Souder (R-IN)
- GT Thompson (R-PA)
- Joe Wilson (R-SC)
P=Congressional Progressive Caucus

House Organic Caucus
Congressional Progressive Caucus

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Difficult Vegan Decisions

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Jun 18, 2009 at 16:05:17 PM PDT

I'll admit it: I have a sweet tooth. A totally incurable sweet tooth. Today, after eating an orange, some quinoa, and some beans, I wasn't hungry - but I wanted junk food anyway. Specifically: a cookie. A chocolate chip cookie. There was one at my favorite bakery cafe that caught my eye yesterday and I've wanted it ever since. But it's not a vegan chocolate chip cookie. Hmm.

Well, I could make cookies. Except then I'd have a minimum of a dozen cookies on hand, and I'd have to run around buying all the ingredients. No thanks. Hmm. Whole Foods sells vegan cookies. Well, on that note, they also sell sorbet. Sorbet's vegan, right? And better for you than cookies.

So, off to Whole Foods for some sorbet. I chose the "mojito" flavor and then decided to make it half mojito, half watermelon. Yum. But that didn't help my cookie craving.

I checked out the Gianna's brand cookies. Vegan, yes. Organic, no. Made with soybean oil. Yum, GMOs. Not to mention the cookies' plastic packaging. How about Uncle Eddie's vegan cookies? They aren't all organic but they are made with organic ingredients... and palm oil. God dammit. Why aren't there any vegan cookies out there that don't contain totally unacceptable ingredients?

I ended up buying Uncle Eddie's molasses cookies, because at least in their case, palm oil was the 3rd ingredient instead of the 2nd (after flour and molasses). You can actually make a pretty good vegan ginger snap cookie without any strange ingredients (like fake butter or egg replacer), so I find it incredibly lame that Uncle Eddie, whoever he is, found it necessary to put palm oil in his cookies. I ate two cookies and put the rest in the freezer (to hide them from myself). Now I'm overly full and disgusted with myself for buying palm oil. I can't help but think that cookies made with local, pastured eggs would have been healthier and more ethical than the ones I bought.

Jill Richardson :: Difficult Vegan Decisions

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Difficult Vegan Decisions | 12 comments

vegan cookies are way (4.00 / 5)

too much $$$. and you're right a lot of them have crap. The Bittman tofu chocolate pudding is really good and passed my test. I served it to my daughters chocolate junk food eating girl friends and they loved it. This week end I am going to try vegan chocolate cupcakes with coconut. I will let u know how they turn out

by: LeeN @ Thu Jun 18, 2009 at 19:23:09 PM CDT

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I've never made cookies and (4.00 / 3)

don't know anything about cookie recipes. I love to tinker, though, and I bet you pose a problem that many people would love to solve:

Can I make a little recipe that tastes good, takes only a few ingredients and a few minutes to whip up, and makes only three or four cookies?

Seems like a project that deserves a little research.

By the way, when I changed the way I ate in 1998, it took me about three months of trial and error before I settled into the new routine. One of the things I thought I could get away with was keeping my cookie jar, but eating only one cookie per day. For me, an absolute impossibility. I still have the jar, but swore off cookies. They're evil. I still want to do some research, however.

by: count @ Thu Jun 18, 2009 at 22:08:22 PM CDT

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There's probably a reason for palm oil (4.00 / 3)

My guess is that (1) it's cheap and (2) it works well with the recipe. Not all oils do. Most cookies of my acquaintance call for butter or shortening, and both are IIRC hydrogenated -- that is they are solids at room temperature. He might have needed that same hydrogenation to make the cookies come out right.

I can see how it would be frustrating, though, if you have your heart set on a cookie.

I have succumbed to the Twitter craze. @Omir55

by: Omir the Storyteller @ Thu Jun 18, 2009 at 22:09:53 PM CDT

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I think you're right, but (4.00 / 3)

Since Crisco and Parkay, everybody thinks of shortening as you stated. It wasn't always that way, however. Before WWII, people made perfectly good cookies without either butter or chemically hydrogenated substitutes.

I've never made cookies, but I have made several things from a very old Presto (Swans Down predecessor) book that often calls for shortening. I use oil, and they turn out fine. Don't know how this would work in various cookie recipes, but it works well with hamentashen, for example.

A major reason for the use of a shortening with saturated fatty acids (instead of an oil containing double bonds) is shelf stability. Baked products containing oil would go rancid after a year in the tropics without air conditioning, and this is important for global marketers. For producers and consumers in modern temperate zone America, I really question the need for palm oil in most instances. (You are correct - palm and coconut oils, being from the tropics, are minimally unsaturated.)

by: count @ Thu Jun 18, 2009 at 22:37:40 PM CDT

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i have replaced fat w/ applesauce (4.00 / 3)

in homemade cookies. works just fine. dont know about shelf stability though.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

by: Jill Richardson @ Thu Jun 18, 2009 at 22:41:36 PM CDT

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Shelf life probably not good. (4.00 / 2)

Those dagnabbed 130-lb applesauce gremlins, doncha know.

by: count @ Thu Jun 18, 2009 at 22:49:01 PM CDT

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Funny you should mention that (4.00 / 2)

We often substitute applesauce for most of the fat and sugar when we make quick breads like zucchini bread. Actually what we have is a recipe called "A-Z Bread" that says to make it with a couple of cups of any of the ingredients listed (and the list goes from apricots to zucchini), so we might make it with poppy seeds and mandarin orange slices one day, bananas and pecans the next.

I don't remember what the substitution ratio is, but it works and tastes pretty good.

I have succumbed to the Twitter craze. @Omir55

by: Omir the Storyteller @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 00:12:43 AM CDT

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Hmmm, I wonder, what is the diff between (4.00 / 2)

palm oil and coconut oil? Perhaps just from different palm nuts?

by: count @ Thu Jun 18, 2009 at 22:45:17 PM CDT

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Probably (4.00 / 2)

Not all palms are coconut palms. There are date palms, and probably other kinds.

I have succumbed to the Twitter craze. @Omir55

by: Omir the Storyteller @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 00:13:27 AM CDT

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Did you know... (4.00 / 2)

once upon a time, Palmolive products contained a mixture of palm oil and olive oil.

I don't know if either one is in those products today.

by: count @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 01:37:49 AM CDT

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Actually, yeah I did know that. (4.00 / 2)

Today it's probably made from lizard spit, toe fungus, Detroit tap water, maltrodextrin, salt and potrzebie.

I have succumbed to the Twitter craze. @Omir55

by: Omir the Storyteller @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 13:23:19 PM CDT

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Don't forget the most important ingredient! (4.00 / 2)

GMO HFCS!

I wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
--"Blueberries" by Robert Frost

by: wide eyed lib @ Fri Jun 19, 2009 at 14:04:37 PM CDT

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