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| All items made from recycled plastic bags |
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| Local juices and honeys, and honeys |
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| Adding seeds and nuts is a nice, crunchy touch. |
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| Sauerbraten and warm potato salad |
Germany is a green country in more ways than one. First, sprawling verdant fields and forests cover the landscape. You never run out of forest here. Also, Germany is a bio-first green nation. Recycling is a passion and if you don’t feel passionate, too bad, it’s the law. In our house, we have five trash containers. One is for plastics and assorted light metal, another for paper, another for food scraps, another for glass, and yet another for anything that doesn’t fit in the first four categories. Want to dispose of yard trimmings? There’s a specific site to dump those, or there are a few pickups a year. Likewise for big metal items, or old furniture. It’s fair to say, if you use it, there’s a place to recycle it.
Some things would drive an American crazy. No washing cars in your driveway, or anywhere else except a commercial car wash. Why? I’ve been told the reasoning is that runoff from washing a car contains contaminants, and the water must be cleaned and recycled. Guess it never occurred to anyone that rain doesn’t give a damn. Makes me feel like a real outlaw every time it rains. I use my windshield wipers, honk my horn and dare someone to arrest me for unlawful runoff.
Let’s move on to food. Although the European Union food standards are very strict, even that isn’t good enough for the Euro-purists. Bio products are labeled and sold in practically every food market. Germany is also awash in what we would call ‘Health Food Stores,’ but Germans call Bio-stores. Every bakery offers Bio-bread of a dozen types.
Not that I’m complaining. If you’ve read my blog before, you’ll know I’m an eat-clean kinda guy. When I can, I buy organic, or free range, or grass fed, or natural, or whatever label you can find that describes pure food, non-genetically altered food, and animals not raised in cages. Did you know genetically altered crops are not allowed in the E.U.?
However, the use of growth hormones is an ongoing battle. The World Health Organization ruled circa 2008 that growth hormones in cattle feed and the like, pose no health risk. The E.U. appealed. Nothing is certain, but my understanding is that any use of growth hormones, or antibiotics for the E.U. food industry is carefully regulated. What does that mean? Beats me. Specific enough to sound safe, general enough to mean anything.
This was the first Bio-fest I’ve been to. Very friendly folk, lot of information and lots of good food and beer. The vegetables-salads were all strictly organic, the meat and wurst all bio-pure. Forgive me for sounding like a member of the lunatic fringe, but I think the food tastes better without additives and I think I know why. You can’t add preservatives and chemicals and/or allow something to sit on a shelf for months and then expect it to taste the same. All world-class restaurants and most wannabe world-class restaurants use fresh and unadulterated ingredients to the extreme. Had lunch in a Mexican restaurant in Manhattan a few years back and the sign over the door left an impression: ‘Our kitchen has never seen a can.’ Food was impressive, too.
So, I went to the fest. Had a great time. Drank beer that’s German-Law-pure, no matter where you drink it, ate some tasty food, learned about plants I want for my garden, tasted juices and waters that are supposed to clean out the pipes and allow the ol body to last a while longer. In this case, forget about the details, Bio meant interesting, tasty, and filling.
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| Homemade brats right off the grill! |
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| The sign on the bottom left means: A future for Man and Nature. |
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| The Germans celebrate the beauty of nature every singe day. |
