It's easy bein' green
Sustainability. This is our focus, in food, wine, business & life. We don’t want to have a negative effect on the world, so we strive towards sustainability every day. Ingredients we can respect. Unbleached organic sugars & flours for our pantry. Humanely treated, antibiotic-free, organically fed beef, lamb & poultry. Eggs sourced from pasture raised hens. Produce from local farms and local farmers markets. Buy Fresh, Buy Local. Antibiotic & hormone free dairy products. Artisan cheeses made by small producers using traditional methods. Fair-trade coffees, teas, chocolate, bananas, spices & nuts. Seafood from healthy populations and concerned fishery management. Look for CleanFish & Monterey Aquarium Seafood Watch logos. Wines from vineyards that have been certified as sustainable, organic or biodynamic. Encouraging producers to restore waterways, eliminate chemical pesticides & fertilizers. Extensive reuse & recycling programs. For our operation, staff training is key in this area. Caustic chemicals are not our friends. Use of traditional methods & common sense allows us to clean smart & safe. Actively protect open space, and support renewal of the Urban Limit Line here in Contra Costa County. Think personal, local on the small scale in a global picture. Know where your food comes from. Don’t be afraid to ask. Start a compost program for your neighborhood. Join a CSA. Talk about it with friends. Educate the next generation. Take action.
Make a difference. Vote with your dollars.
Sustainable obviously means different things to different people. I had a friend that spent several years in the Yucatan studying Mayan polycropping practices and felt that nothing that didn't reach that level or at least used a solid polycropping regimen could truly be called "sustainable". He might be just a bit biased. Any thoughts on this?
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Thanks for your comment! My understanding is that there is a significant contrast between Western single-crop agricultural management and polycropping. The polycropping that occurs in indigenous populations, such as in the Yucatan or in Africa can look disorganized and unscientific, but through studying these farming practices it becomes clear that it is the result of careful, logical, complex relationships within agricultural science that is quite different than what is utilized in the West.
Sustainability to us here at Nibblers means that anything we bring into the restaurant comes from practices that do not knowingly harm our planet, our people, our animals, or our environment. At this point, we choose to leave the agri-sustainability arguments to the farmers we know and trust.
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