Monthly Archives: December 2006

Alan Wong, Community, Contest

Partnerships

1 Comment

Richard Ha writes:

Sometimes Hawaii Community College is overlooked in favor of the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, but it shouldn’t be. The school gives students some excellent opportunities not otherwise available here.

My son Brian took the community college’s carpentry and electrician courses and now he’s an Apache helicopter pilot. The machine he flies costs more than our entire farm.

Several years ago I mentioned to Allan Okuda, director of the Community College’s food service program, that we were starting hydroponic vegetable production and wanted to do something with his culinary program. He was very receptive to the idea.

The Hamakua Springs Tomato Recipe Contest is our first opportunity to work with the culinary school. When I called Allan Okuda about doing something with them re: the tomato recipe contest, he said he’d been waiting for us to get back in touch. He liked the idea of having the program’s students prepare the recipes for final judging. Students will get the opportunity to use the skills they have learned to prepare the recipes for judging, he said.

Foodland Super Markets helped to make this event a reality by publicizing the Hamakua Springs Tomato Recipe Contest in their mailouts, as well as with point of purchase instructions next to their tomato displays.

As an added bonus, internationally renowned chef Alan Wong, who often visits us at Hamakua Springs and who treats us farmers like his partners, said he’d be happy to talk to some of the food service students.

In addition to being an internationally acclaimed chef, Alan Wong is a teacher at heart. He makes people comfortable and he also makes everything seem possible. I truly believe that for some of the students it could be a pivotal moment in their lives.

I asked Allan Okuda if he would select a few students to meet with Chef Alan, and he was happy to do it. He thinks this will be a unique opportunity for students to meet one of the best chefs in the world.

In Hilo, the “culinary backwoods” where we live, we will be so happy to help bring something like this about.

Current Affairs

Black and White and Read All Over

Richard Ha writes:

Yesterday’s Honolulu Advertiser had this headline on its front page: “FDA Lacks Crop Safety Research, Expert Says.”

The article stated that in spite of recurring incidents of microbial contamination of leafy vegetables, the FDA still hasn’t done the basic research necessary to identify solutions to the problem. It said the FDA hopes state authorities will take the lead in preventing disease outbreak.

This is not a new situation. When we started looking into diversifying our farm nearly five years ago, we knew that microbial contamination was a serious and gowing problem.

We also knew then that E. coli 157:H7 was associated with cattle manure. And that a major pathway through which E. coli can spread is water.

Knowing this, we did not wait. We put into place preventative measures necessary to prevent the contamination of vegetables by the virulent strain E. coli 157:H7.

First, we decided to grow hydroponically, because this method of growing gives us the best opportunity to avoid microbial contamination.

We became food safety certified because food safety certification organizations address microbial contamination issues. Every time we change the water we use to grow our lettuces, we test it for E. coli. We make sure that the spray water and the processing water is County-standard water.

We decided not to grow organically because of the risk associated with composting manure.

We fenced our reservoirs and water storage areas so that animals cannot contaminate our water.

We did not wait for the FDA to issue instructions about microbial contamination. Instead we did what we had to do in order to insure that our vegetables would be safe. That was five years ago. We’re glad that we chose to grow our vegetables hydroponically.

Also in yesterday’s Advertiser was a Viewpoint article, on the editorial page, by Waimea chef Peter Merriman. He writes about Sustainable Farming Vital For Health of Isles. He also wrote that, “Support for produce cultivated in Hawaii benefits everyone.”

Peter writes that “sustainable farming is vital for the health of the islands. It helps perpetuate Hawaii’s agriculture heritage. In addition to self sufficiency and food security, farming adds cultural depth to our communities and ensures a rewarding lifestyle for our agricultural workers.”

Thanks to Peter, and the rest of the Hawaii Regional Cuisine Chefs, for showing that there is added value in growing fresher, higher-quality crops for Hawai‘i’s people.

Losing Weight

New Plan

Richard Ha writes:

I’m trying to avoid gaining too much weight over the holiday period. But there is just too much good food to avoid it all, and I’m not going to fight it.

Last week I mentioned that Leslie has been very successful with her eating plan. She eats a normal breakfast and lunch, and a pre-planned snack at 10 and 3. Then after a reasonable dinner she does not eat any more—“not even a grape.”

I’m going to follow her plan. To determine how many calories I need to maintain my weight I used an online calorie calculator. For me, approximately 2000 calories is how much I need to eat each day to maintain my present weight.

To lose weight, I need to either eat less or exercise more. My plan is to enjoy 2000 calories per day and then lose weight by exercising.

My son Brian just came back from a year in Iraq. On Tuesday, Chris Seymour, who owns the Hilo Bike Hub, is taking Brian, Rodrigo Romo and myself on a ride on the Kulani mountain bike trails. We’re all looking forward to this ride. And it fits right into my new weight loss plan.

And now I’m going to open a couple gifts and get ready to eat my reasonable Christmas dinner. A very happy holidays to you all.

Community, Tomatoes

A Shiny Red Tomato For The Teacher

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Richard Ha writes:

Our philosophy of sustainable farming means we are always concerned about our workers, our community and the environment.

An example of this is when we sometimes have unexpected spikes in production of our hydroponic tomatoes. We asked ourselves, What should we do when this occurs? And we came to the conclusion that we wanted to support our community. But how?

We thought about teachers, and the important role they play in our community.

So we planned what we would do when the inevitable spike in tomato production occurred. Depending on the number of tomatoes we had available, we would find a school with a similar number of teachers. But we wanted to go a step further. We didn’t want to leave anyone out, so we decided we would give to a school only if we could give something to everybody on the staff.

Last week we had one of those spikes, so we went into action. We donated 97 boxes of Hamakua Springs cocktail tomatoes (that’s 776 individual “clamshell” containers) to teachers. We gave one clamshell to everybody on staff at the following schools: Kalaniana‘ole School, Waiakea Elementary, Waiakea Waena, Kea‘au Elementary and Middle Schools, Mountain View, Pahoa and Kaumana Schools.

We put a note in each container saying how much we appreciate the work they do for our keiki. We feel so good about being able to recognize these important members of our community.

Bananas

Yellow Bananas

Richard Ha writes:

Kindergarteners from Kaumana School came to our farm on an excursion Friday. Tracy took them on a tour to see what we do here on the farm.

Kaumana_bus_1

First, she asked them, “Does anyone know which way bananas face when they are hanging on the tree? Up or down?”

Some of the children answered “UP!” enthusiastically and an equal amount shouted “DOWN!” Some just yelled.

There were maybe 70 children, in several groups, each with an adult teacher or volunteer in charge. They were well behaved, walking in double lines and holding hands.

Tracy showed them how a worker removes the hands of banana from the stalk with a special air tool. And they got to see how the bananas are trimmed, washed and then weighed and put in trays of forty pounds each.

After learning how the bananas are carefully packed into a box, being careful not to bruise them, the children got a banana break. Each child received a banana.

Kaumana_eating_bananas_1

This was the most enthusiastic bunch of banana eaters I have ever seen. One kid ate three bananas. I wondered out loud, Are they always this hungry? Kris, my daughter-in-law and one of their teachers, told me that they do get hungry around mid-morning.

All of us on the farm were flattered that they liked our bananas so much. But I’m pretty sure any food at all would have been just fine for these little bundles of energy.

Our workers like when we have schoolchildren visit and they make a point of having the farm in top shape, looking clean and neat. They should be proud of the good image they present to the kids. I know that I am proud of the farm at these times.

After their banana break, the young children went into the coolers to look at the tomatoes that were ready to be sent to market.

They saw small, medium, large, red, and yellow tomatoes. They saw loose tomatoes, tomatoes attached to the vine as well as tomatoes packed in plastic clamshells. But, most of all, they liked getting to stand around in the cooler getting cool.

From there they walked to the tomato packing house, where they saw how the tomatoes that are harvested into plastic trays are brought up to be washed and disinfected and then packed into the containers that are sold in the supermarkets.

While they were looking at the tomatoes being packed, the lettuce came in and everyone went over to see how that was done. Tracy explained that the Chef Select has three different lettuces, so that Mom can make a colorful salad with just one container of lettuce.

Kaumana_walking_1

It reminds me of when Tracy took her first group of first graders on a farm tour more than 10 years ago.

We were wondering if farm tours would help us market our bananas. So she explained all about bananas and how Kea‘au Bananas (our name at the time) were the best.

And at the end of the day, hoping that her message had gotten across, she asked the children: “Now children, when your mommy goes to buy bananas at the market, which ones will you tell her to buy?”

They all replied in unison, “YELLOW BANANAS!!!” I am still laughing at that one. We no longer try to sell bananas to kindergarten and first grade kids, but we still love to have them visit.

Uncategorized

Not A Grape

Richard Ha writes:

Two weeks ago I concluded that I need to do more than just exercise in order to keep losing weight, and I said I was going to devise a routine to control my calorie intake. But before I put this plan into effect, I got sidetracked.

Then last week I realized that it was after I stopped loading the delivery van four times per week, with several hundred boxes each time, that I started having a hard time losing weight. Since I like to exercise more than I like dieting, I decided to increase my exercise volume and intensity instead of making a calorie intake plan.

And that brings us to this week. My weight is 196.2 now, and I lost the half pound I wanted to lose this week. But I am now exercising six days per week and losing much less weight than expected.

On four days, I exercise 30 minutes twice a day at a low heart rate of 110 or so. On the other three days, I do 30 minute sessions. On one of those days, I do three or four intervals of 150 beats per minute, and the other two sessions are done at 130 beats per minute or so.

This is improving my resting heart rate, which is now 53 beats per minute. When I’m not exercising regularly and am out of shape, my resting heart rate is usually in the mid-70’s. A low resting heart rate is an indication of an efficient cardiovascular system—a strong heart takes fewer strokes to move a given volume of blood around. I am trying to lower my resting heart rate below 50 beats per minute.

Several days ago, when I was sitting in the doctor’s office waiting for a flu shot, it was 57. This is pretty good since I usually can’t relax enough at the doctor’s office to get my heart rate down below 60.

But for the amount of time I spend exercising, I am losing very little weight. So I am going to try a routine that Leslie is finding successful. Her routine involves eating a reasonable breakfast and a reasonable lunch. Then, around 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. or so, she allows herself a pre-planned snack. After a reasonable-sized dinner she brushes her teeth and doesn’t eat anything more that day. “Not a grape,” she told me. It is working very well for her and makes a lot of sense to me.

I plan to maintain my exercise program and copy Leslie’s eating plan. I need to figure out the amounts I can eat on that plan to accomplish my goals.

Current Affairs, How We Do It

We’re Clean

Richard Ha writes:

E. coli is in the news again, as green onions and now lettuce are now suspected of harboring the bacteria that made many people sick at Taco Bells on the East Coast. This has happened many times before.

We are making sure it doesn’t happen because of us.

Several years ago, we voluntarily became Food Safety Certified. Every year our operations are inspected, and the inspection protocol addresses and eliminates conditions that allow the E. coli bacteria to contaminate food products.

Some of the issues addressed:

There are no domesticated animals allowed in and around our farm.

We use city water for processing and spraying.

Reservoir_5

Our irrigation water source is fenced and otherwise protected from contamination by wild animals. We test the water source quarterly for E. coli and it has never tested positive. We are in the process of voluntarily testing even more frequently than that. We want to make sure our workers, as well as our customers, feel confident about our procedures.

We provide toilet facilities for all our workers; and soap, wash water and paper towels are provided for them.

Our employees are trained in food handling, food safety procedures and personal hygiene, and classes are documented.

Harvest bins are cleaned, sanitized and then documented. Harvest bins are not allowed to be in contact with the ground. Any fruit/vegetable that falls on the ground is discarded.

We are glad we voluntarily became Food Safety Certified. We always want to be proactive and in the forefront of food safety. We want our customers to rest assured that we are trying to do the right thing at all times.

Losing Weight

Loading vs. Losing

Today’s weight: 196.7 lbs. This week’s target weight was 192 lbs. I am 4.6 lbs. behind schedule. This week I lost .4 lbs.

I am putting too much pressure on myself in expecting to lose one pound per week. And so I am changing my weight loss goal to a half pound per week. Next week I hope to be at 196.2.

When I started losing weight on May 23rd of this year, I weighed 214.6 lbs. I have lost 17.4 lbs. since then.

Back in mid-September, when June and I went to the Tomato Fest at Carmel, we stopped loading the van for the Kona route ourselves. It took two hours each day to load the van and we had done that four days a week for over 15 months. It just occurred to me that I started having a tougher time losing weight sometime after we stopped loading the van.

I need to increase my activity to help make up for not loading the van. I think I’ll exercise twice per day on four days of the week, and up my calories exerted from 500 on those days to 1,000. I still enjoy exercising much more than dieting.

Alan Wong, R&D

Germinating

A couple of days ago an idea just came to me: Why don’t we dedicate a couple of our growing houses solely to Research and Development for our partner-in-good-food Chef Alan Wong?

Most of the time we focus on growing what we think might be popular in the supermarkets. But here we will plant things strictly for fun; just because we’re curious and because Chef Alan might be able to use them in his restaurants. He will make suggestions and we’ll try other new and interesting things as well. He is excited about this project and so are we. This is going to be great fun.

Today we started looking at what we could plant. How about long, short, round, striped and mini eggplants to start? What’s a tomatillo, exactly? Let’s try all the types. What about peppers—hot, sweet, long, mini, chocolate, white, whatever. Colored beets. Asparagus—thin, stout, purple, green and white. All things bean. Different colors and textures. Whatever else strikes our fancy.

Tomorrow we start germinating seeds. I’ll post here periodically about how our Chef Alan Wong R&D project is coming along.

Food and Drink, Sustainability

Slow Food

Richard showed me an interesting and thought-provoking article by Alice Waters of the restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley. It’s called Slow Food Nation and here’s the gist of it:

“Food is destiny, all right; every decision we make about food has personal and global repercussions. By now it is generally conceded that the food we eat could actually be making us sick, but we still haven’t acknowledged the full consequences—environmental, political, cultural, social and ethical—of our national diet.”

It’s a fascinating article, where she talks about fast food and how it impacts society and character, about “slow food values,” the family farm and the family meal.

Food is so basic to our existence and it can and should be enjoyable, a part of our simple rituals; something we put thought and positive energy into. These are not new concepts to Richard and Hamakua Springs, where it’s always about taste, environment, community and sustainability.

Water’s ideas will resonate with me for a long time because they make a lot of sense. Have a look at the article and see if you agree. — posted by Leslie Lang