The Agrarian's Alcove

When you’re at the grocery store, do you ever feel like all you see is greenwashed logos and brands? It’s hard to find anything that’s not “all natural” or non-GMO. We’ve talked about labels before, and how they can be misleading. For example, meat is always gluten free, but now tons of meat products have a gluten-free label on them. Some consumers likely don’t realize that all meat has always been gluten free, and they pay extra for that little banner. One of the most misleading labels-in my opinion at least-is the “uncured” label on processed meats. What do you think of when you see that label on your lunch meat or bacon? I assume  most people, when they see this label, think Oh, there’s not as many chemicals! It’s gotta be better. More natural. Maybe even healthier! The good news is, I was really impressed with how accurate the first few Google results were when I looked up the differences between uncured and cured bacon. I saw only a few statements that uncured bacon ...

Here at the Agrarian’s Alcove, we absolutely love to celebrate ag. I mean LOVE to celebrate it. It’s the basis for life and the world’s economy. February is Black History month and so we’d like to dedicate our celebration to the amazing contributions that African Americans have made to our industry. First thing’s first-does anyone here like potatoes?(Read our post about the best potatoes here ) What about potato chips? The salty, savory, crunchy snack that we all fall for was created by George Crum , a half African American-half Native American chef. After a customer’s complaint in 1853 that he cut his fried potatoes too thick, Crum responded by slicing the potatoes as thinly as possible, and fried them until they crunched. The restaurant goer (not surprisingly!) ended up loving the crispy potatoes and Crum ended up opening his own restaurant. Crum never marketed his snacks, but snack food junkie William Tappendon began putting these chips on the shelves of grocery stores in 1895...