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The Pasture Post: Spring 2005

In this Issue

News

Moosletter
Changes
Friends of the Eat Well Guide

Actions

How we need your help...

Coming Soon

From here...

First Ever Eat Well Guide Mooos-letter
Welcome to the first ever Eat Well Guide Mooos-letter -- a collection of updates, general information, moos, and clucks about the Eat Well Guide, your online guide to finding sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs in the United States and Canada. You are receiving this e-newsletter because you registered with the Eat Well Guide. If you do not want to receive this e-newsletter in the future, please respond to info@eatwellguide.org with "unsubscribe" written in the subject heading.

Changes
Since fall 2004, thousands of phone calls have been placed across the U.S. and Canada, an incalculable number of emails have been sent, and great partnerships have been made with likeminded organizations representing communities from California to Prince Edward Island.

As a result, the Eat Well Guide has undergone some significant changes, especially in size. Here are some statistics that should give you a pretty good idea of what we've been up to since September 2004:

• Over 2,300 entries have been added to the Guide bringing the total number of visible entries to just over 5,200.
• Of those added, about 1,300 of them were farms, 500 were stores, 60 were online resources, and 470 were restaurants.
• The average number of listings added per day has held steady at around 20. --Over 5,000 entries have been deleted, edited, or modified.
• The number of Eat Well Guide farms raising heritage breeds of livestock has grown to about 200. About 160 entries now have picture

How we need your help...
We do our best to comb the United States and Canada to find and include every outlet that deserves to be listed. Not only that, we work hard to ensure that each listing is accurate, up-to-date, and accessible. But there are sustainable farms, stores, and restaurants out there that we simply cannot pick up despite our best efforts. And there may be listings that have become outdated since our last update. That's where you come in.

Help us make the Eat Well Guide as extensive and thorough as possible. If you notice that a particular farm, store, restaurant, online resource, or organization is not included in the Guide that needs to be or if you find that a listing carries erroneous information, please let us know. All you have to do is visit the Eat Well Guide homepage and select the "Add A Listing" tab. From there, simply fill out the online form with as much information as possible.

We'll review your suggestions and add them to the Guide following approval. In order to recruit your help, we're willing to offer some encouragement, so the Eat Well Guide announces the "Suggest a Source" contest. To the Eat Well Guide users who suggest the most sources for entry into the Eat Well Guide, we will award a Meatrix gift bag, which includes a Meatrix DVD, t-shirt, mug, sticker, and magnet. Take note that contestants are only credited for suggestions and updates that are approved and entered into the Guide. Let the contest begin!

Friends of the Eat Well Guide
Over the past year, the Eat Well Guide has established partnerships with a number of great organizations across the U.S. and Canada. These partnerships have helped give exposure to the Eat Well Guide while also bringing attention to some of the great things these organizations are doing to promote sustainable agriculture. Moreover, it is through these working relationships that the Eat Well Guide has grown so considerably. Many of our partners have agreed to share their farm, store, and/or restaurant listings with us. While surfing the Guide, you may notice an organization's link and logo at the bottom of an entry. That means the organization was generous enough to share that source's information with us. The next time you use the Eat Well Guide please take some time to visit the listings for the organizations listed below:

Alabama Sustainable Agriculture Network American Grassfed Association*
Berkshire Grown*
Champlain Valley Foodshed Coalition Chefs Collaborative*
Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture*
Future Harvest-CASA*
Heritage Breeds Conservancy*
Just Food*
Land Stewardship Project*
LocalHarvest*
Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society
New England Livestock Alliance
Prince Edward Island Certified Organic Producers Co-op*
Regional Farm and Food Project*
Slow Food USA*
Society for Environmentally Responsible Livestock Operations
Vermont Fresh Network*
White Dog Café Foundation

* = organizations that have agreed to share listings with us

From here...
With your help, some good research, and strong partnerships, the Eat Well Guide will continue to grow. Yet, while we want to grow in size, we also want to grow in recognition. We owe it to the farmers, store managers, and chefs included in the Eat Well Guide to get our name out there. While we will continue to take the traditional routes to do so -- press releases, advertising, and newsletters -- nothing beats word of mouth.

Tell your friends, family, and coworkers! We're willing to supply you with materials -- brochures, postcards, etc. -- to help get the word out. This Guide is as much yours as it is ours, so please help us to make it the most comprehensive resource available. In the meantime, please keep visiting the Eat Well Guide and contact us if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions.

All inquiries can be forwarded to info@eatwellguide.org. We'll be sure to keep you updated and well-informed through the Mooos-letter, which we plan to be a quarterly service. If you want to know more about issues surrounding industrially-raised meat, check out Sustainable Table -- www.sustainabletable.org -- for information, ideas, resources and recipes about sustainable food!