04 September 2009

Fairtrade spices standards - a reprise

Steenbergs is a commercial enterprise.  We operate in an economy based upon free market economics and that is something that we are completely comfortable with.

02 September 2009

New Spice Standards for Fairtrade

Fairtrade has issued new standards for Fairtrade spices which seem to be a recipe for chaos.  They basically say that you can trade any spice or herb as Fairtrade and that the Fairtrade price is the price agreed between the buyer and the seller.  A p...

16 August 2009

Ignore the FSA and continue to believe in the best of organic foods

I have reflected further on the Food Standards Agency ("FSA") report on the nutritional and health effects of organic.  And I have 2 further thoughts, being, firstly, that the concept of the report is irrelevant, and, secondly, there is probably no p...

12 August 2009

Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits - my personal response to the Review Authors and the FSA

A couple of weeks back now in July 2009, the Food Standards Agency ("FSA") issued a press release together with the publication of a scientific review of the published science on investigations into the comparison of the nutritional composition and h...

05 August 2009

Eat More Greens

In recipes that people talk about and write about, there always seems a big focus on the extravagant meat dishes, a bit about fish and almost never that much about vegetables.  We certainly eat far too much meat for the balanced human diet and should...

11 July 2009

Some Good Books on the Environment

I have recently read Al Gore’s “Earth in the Balance” which is a pretty good overview of the environmental issues facing the world.  It is lucid and comes up with some sensible political strategies to managing the potential ecological issues impactin...

08 July 2009

Recipe - Wild Harvested Samphire

For many, the sign of summer is the first swallow or the sound of a cuckoo or the sound of cricket being played or perhaps Glastonbury of the Summer solstice.  For me, it is samphire.  Samphire is one of those truly old foods from the wild that peopl...

05 July 2009

Britain Will Go Nuclear

29 June 2009

The Healing Powers of Home Baked Cakes

I (Sophie)  was recently convalescing at home and by about the second week (apart from getting frustrated about not being out and about and having very little voice) I was very privileged to receive three delicious home made cakes.

20 June 2009

Some of the books that have inspired us

Both of us (Sophie and Axel) are avid readers of books - both fiction and non fiction. This is the first in an ad hoc series of books that have made us sit up and think. We would be interested in hearing books that have influenced you and also your v...

14 June 2009

A walk on the River Ure

10 June 2009

Get Some Peace, A Quiet Early Morning

I woke up really early this morning and was downstairs by 5am.  The house was quiet and the world was asleep, yet outside was suffused with a beautiful warm yellow light. 

16 May 2009

Being fair and responsible

At Steenbergs Organic, we have been committed to being an ethical business since we started in 2003, becoming Fairtrade for tea in 2004 (both as a trader and as a licensee). It is really important to us that we strike a good balance between our busin...