When does the California garlic get to stores nationwide?
I'd been buying the big bags of it at Costco, but the last couple of times I was there, it was definitely over the hill.
So I was very glad that a local supermarket, Redners, has American garlic. They know it's a selling point!
Olychick, I think if it doesn't say otherwise, you can assume that the garlic is from China.

Chinese garlic has had the roots trimmed completely away leaving a flat white surface on that side. California and Mexican garlic still have a bit of root intact for those of you who live in states where sources are not labelled.

Yes I buy cheap Chinese garlic.

1. I need to save money to put in the bank so that the bank can have money to lend to business and manufacturing.

2. I need to save money so that I can finance education. This country needs to upgrade education so that we will not rank #20 internationally.

3. Other countries buy Chinese so that they can lower cost to compete against us.

4. The Chinese out-source to lower their cost to be competitive, and we are forcing the government not to out source. To me that is economic suicide.

5. If garlic grower cannot compete, either get more efficient or find another business to go into, like manufacturing. History has proven that subsidizing an industry never works long term. Haven't we learned a lesson from subsidizing Solyndra and A123?

Another thing, I could be wrong, as I remember, the US exports more agricultural product to China than importing from them. It could be very interesting if we start a trade war with them.

dcarch

cloudy christine, the stores here (or the ones I shop in) all label country or state of origin of produce. I've never seen china garlic, just CA, Mexico or local WA.

Our farmer's market is open from April - Dec 24, so I just buy it there and sometimes around April/May, before the local fresh is ready will buy CA if I need it.

Dcarch, I don't see anyone talking about subsidizing garlic!
In a free market, consumers choose which product to buy based on a judgment about price and quality. Not everyone makes the same choice, and that's good. Choice is good.

Annie, I just purchased 1/2 lb. of Music from Territorial Seed to give a try. I'm especially attracted to its apparent keeping qualities. Thanks for the recommendation.

We won't knowingly purchase food products for home use from China. But then again we are getting persnickety about some food products that are grown/raised in the U.S. such as solution injected poultry/pork & large commercial operation eggs. Choice is good.

/tricia

I prefer to buy local, regional, and the USA to keep my $ creating jobs in the US, to reduce the waste of fossil fuels shipping crap (including impure food) from china, to keep the use of toxins in production of food and goods and the poisoning of the earth under the purview of the US govt (even though our regulations and oversight are completely inadequate) instead of the chinese govt, to prevent the exploitation of labor (including children) in china. If it costs me a little more money to do so, I believe our children and grandchildren will be better off. It's not worth cheap garlic to me.

I have a lot of Society Garlic in my yards, front and back, and I just found out that the leaves are edible! It is native to South Africa (like a lot of other plants that I grow) and is hardy only to zone 9, as temperatures below 25 degrees will kill it. I was not aware of that either.

I think maybe I should plant some regular garlic as well, since it is an attractive plant, and I think I can grow it easily enough in the ground, since the society garlic grows well here.

You can order garlic from Gilroy on-line, and this year's crop is now available. I'm going to order another two foot braid because the one I got last year is almost gone. For me, the garlic keeps for a full year when stored on a braid, but I'm in a very dry climate.

Gilroy

Here is a link that might be useful: On-line source for Gilroy Garlic

Off-topic a bit, please excuse, jasdip.

Last year about this time, Ann T. and others (I think) purchased garlic, peeled, separated into cloves, placed in a jar covered with olive oil, and stored in the freezer.

How did the garlic freeze?

/tricia

Annie, a guy at the farmers' market gave me a head of Music garlic late last summer. He was planning to start growing it. Anyway, I saved it & planted the cloves. Just today, I harvested 6 big beautiful heads of it. Will prolly set most of it aside to replant but will eat a bit of this year's harvest. We shop at the local FM and also one in a nearby town & I can't remember for sure where I was when I got the Music. Anyway, if I like the way it tastes, I'll try to find that guy & buy some more of it to plant.

Cheryl, I got (all the rest of) my starter garlic from 'wegrowgarlic dot com'. I live in WI and wanted to buy garlic from WI to ensure that it was plenty cold hardy. You could consider buying local to you harvest garlic from a farmer's market. Prolly cheapest that way and you'll know that it will perform in your climate.

I'm adding a link to We Grow Garlic; no matter where you get your starter garlic, I think you'll find a lot of good info on how to grow it at the site.

Here is a link that might be useful: We Grow Garlic

Agree completely that choice is good!

As questionable as the FDA is at inspecting the US grown crops, I put far more faith in them than I do in any food product from SE Asia. That said, I would never stop anyone comfortable with SE Asia methods from purchasing and ingesting things that I would never eat or serve family or friends.

Choice is good.

Alexa

I agree with Publickman about the Gilroy garlic.

We live so close to the "garlic capital" that it makes no sense to me to buy it from China.

I haven't bought garlic for several years, but when I did pick it up at the grocery store I admit I never paid attention to where it came from. The last few years I've become pickier about where our food comes from, though, and garlic is one thing I can grow. I'm down to 29 kinds and 500+ bulbs this year...I just can't help myself, hehe. Shooting for a few varieties that will store until May or June. We are just now cutting the scapes, so we won't be harvesting for a bit.

The people at wegrowgarlic are really nice to deal with. That's where I've gotten a lot of my planting stock.

Oh, that brings back a very fond memory! I was driving to San Francisco for work; on the trip I started smelling garlic. Odd I thought, then I started seeing signs for Gilroy the Garlic Capital and thought WOW, they aren't kidding. It was in July during the Garlic Festival so I stopped and had a fabulous time; I'll never forget it.

No. I use a lot of garlic in my cooking but would do without rather than buy foreign garlic.

You get what you pay for. Never felt cheap food was a bargain...not when it comes to our health.There are many other ways to be thrifty. I buy all our food, including all our meat, from trusted local farmers, or grow my own.

Tricia, I can only vouch that it will grow well here, this is my first year of growing it and so I can't tell you about its storage qualities. it has nice big cloves, thugh, and a good flavor, so I'm impressed so far.

Annie

Chinese garlic, shrimp, crawfish, and now Olympic uniforms ... no thanks!!! Know your source and make an informed decision. That's what choice is all about.

Garlic from China is all I ever see in our grocries, except in late summer and fall when local stuff comes in which is about 10x the price. But after reading all these posts, I think I'll try to grow some for next year. I'm very encouraged with my garden this summer, and seem to be headed for a bumper crop of tomatoes after NO crop last summer, and 2 lb 14 oz (from 15 plants) the year before.

I have to admit I don't pay much attention but I don't buy much garlic. I also don't have a lot of options available. I generally try to avoid Chinese products but I don't go crazy over it either. I'm pragmatic enough to know we're going to be buying China's products so no sense climbing on too high a horse. But at the same time, I still recall why we don't make TVs and such in this country anymore either. I'd like to keep more dollars in this country if possible.

Someone is buying Chinese big time.

In my area, within 15 minutes, there are three gigantic Asian markets, bigger than the normal supermarkets, and there is not a big Asian population here.

Within 30 minutes, there are at least 10 equally big ones, including the 150,000 sq. ft. one which I posted here once. A normal supermarket here is about 40,000 to 50,000 sq. ft.

Growing your own garlic has another good thing, you get delicious garlic scapes.

dcarch

Here is a link that might be useful: Asian Market

Many people buy by price alone with little regard for where stuff comes from.

Personally I'm not on a kick of boycotting Chinese goods entirely because that's a relatively impossible task. But when it comes to things that touch the mouth and beyond - food, toothpaste, dishware, etc. - I'll do my best to avoid Chinese and other South Asian products.

I don't automatically trust food grown/raised in the US either, but short of researching every single thing I buy I think it's a good bet that overall I'm buying safer products if I buy domestic.

With garlic prices differences, we're talking about very few dollars per year. Even if you pay twice as much, it's not a significant amount of money.
I might balk at $6 a pound, though, just on principle.

I found this 2007 article on Chinese garlic. Apparently, Gilroy's garlic crop is threatened by Chinese imports rather than not being able to produce enough. Gilroy producers have even started to purchase Chinese garlic for some of their products. I rarely use powdered or granular garlic (only use might be a dry rub) but after reading this article I'm sure I won't buy any more. Might call Penzey's and see but pretty sure they're using Chinese garlic. Actually, I just got off the phone with Penzey's & they do use Chinese garlic in their products. :(

Here's another article from CNN, dated in 2010 with another interesting garlic angle. I've speculated in oil, gold, silver, and even cattle once but NEVER have I speculated in garlic. (grin) Maybe, that's been our problem. We are just not adventurous enough! lol Sorry, I don't know how to post more than one link.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/23/news/international/china_garlic_bubble.fortune/index.htm

dcarch,

For us, it's not about global trade or economics. We just don't trust anything we ingest to China or any of the southeast Asian countries. But still, that's just us. Choices are good.

/t

Here is a link that might be useful: Washington Post - Garlic

Triciae, you might want to check with Atlantic Spice. I get most of my herbs & spices from them and know that they do offer both Chinese and California garlic in the minced & granulated forms. Might be worth checking with then on which they use in their blends.

I use AS's Saigon cinnamon. It's wonderful stuff, every bit as good as Penzey's and costs a fraction of what Penzey's does.

Here is a link that might be useful: Atlantic Spice

Tricia, thanks for the link. I'm strictly a fresh garlic cook, although I do use products like Sriracha and Thai chili sauce. I know Sriracha is made in the USA, but no idea where all the ingredients are sourced.

And let's not forget the melamine disaster where human babies and pets died from tainted formula and food from China.

The store I shop at most offers Chinese garlic....and USA grown garlic.
As far as the number of people shopping in Asian markets....whenever I have gone to the "Chinese Grocery"...overwhelmingly the people there are Asian....even in the middle of middle America. It's an adventure to shop there....but I try to keep my buying to Japanese and Thai stuff.
I won't even buy dog chews made in China!!....Latte was beside herself because I finally found some small dog chews made in the USA!

The "only" garlic sold in stores here is Chinese. No choice.
Except now, a couple of smaller stores have local garlic, just in the growing season.

It's too bad, though. $1 for 5 heads vs. $2 for 1 head of local. It would cost me more for the garlic, than it does for the chicken when I make 40 cloves of garlic.

Ci_lantro,

Thanks so much for letting me know Atlantic Spice carries USA garlic products. I think I'll just switch entirely to them from Penzey's & support a local New England company. And, what a great excuse for a Saturday afternoon drive to the Cape! :)

I've sure learned to READ labels & ask questions when it comes to food purchases anymore. Even though we're growing our own fresh garlic, I hadn't thought about the granulated I use in dry rub mixes.

/tricia

When Elery and I go to the asian market in Ann Arbor we are usually the only caucasians there, and the clerks speak little or no English, which makes it even more interesting. (grin)

I buy kacep manis, an Indonesian soy sauce, product of the Heinz company, LOL, and Nuoc Mam, a vietnamese fish sauce. I get Vietnamese cinnamon from Penzeys, and coffee from Costa Rica. At least I hope that's where it's from, but it's roasted in Lansing, Michiga. Elery's favorite sriracha comes from a small facility in Oregon, courtesy of Carol/Readinglady, so it's made in the USA too, but I don't know where the ingredients come from.

Although I don't make myself crazy, I try to buy things made and grown in the United States or Canada. Especially fresh produce is better if it's local and when something has to be shipped from a zillion miles away it costs us environmentally in shipping and delivery, not just in costs of growing/producing and packaging.

I already have so much "stuff" that I will often pick something up, turn it over, see the "Made in China" or wherever label and decide that I don't really need it. It turns out that I usually didn't need it in the first place!

Food though, that's something that I'm more careful with, I want it to be from a source that I know and trust, at least a little. I know the government only inspects about 1% of the shipments of food coming into this country and through the wonders of the internet I can hear about every baby in China that died from the tainted formula, all the pets who were poisoned with melamine, all the honey that isn't really even honey, people sickened by toothpaste.

Of course, it isn't just China, look up sources of olive oil. You buy one you think is from Greece or Italy and it turns out to be something else entirely. So I buy my "good stuff" from Sciabica's in California, it's a small family farm where they grow and process their product and I like that. It gets used for dipping sauces and salad dressings, things where taste matters, and I use a cheaper oil for saute pans and grilling, etc. I also get some really nice olive oil from Texas.

It's not just foreign food products, I try to avoid the herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, GMO products and support my local small farmer, hoping they'll do the same for me. If I had to eat commercial beef, I'd stop eating beef altogether because the way it is produced offends me, and that's produced here. I think everyone should tour a CAFO at least once. Do I tell everyone else to stop eating beef? Nope, that's their choice, although I think as a nation we eat way too much beef. No one really thinks that 4 ounces is a serving!

I also refuse to buy grocery store tomatoes. I don't like them and the conditions under which they are produced is nearly slave labor. It offends me so I won't support it. My choice. (shrug) I like to do business with companies that I like. Bob's Red Mill, now employee owned, is a good example. King Arthur Flour. Penzeys and/or Spice House.

So, I'll be a bit pickier and if I can't grow it myself, I'll cut corners somewhere else and buy food that I'm comfortable with. I seldom eat out either. Spend some time in restaurant kitchens and you'd never eat out again!

Annie

I had never thought to see where my garlic is from. At my local Kroger, it is usually just thrown in a bin with no information about the country of origin.

I just checked to see where the frozen Dorot garlic is from. It is from Israel. Wonder if they buy Chinese garlic and process it in Israel, or if it is Israeli garlic? hmmmmm...

"----look up sources of olive oil. You buy one you think is from Greece or Italy and it turns out to be something else entirely---"

If you buy a can of tomato paste that says on the label "Made in Italy", there is a very good chance that is made of Chinese tomatoes.

dcarch

Good thing Publix gets it from America, oddly enough this time

Not all Publix garlic is from the USA. The stuff in the sleeve that says it's

"distributed by" some FL farm sounding name is Chinese. It's only distributed here.

I have my doubts about the big single garlic, too, although that's what I buy.

Nice looking garlic, Annie. I was a bit late getting mine harvested this year but got it out of the ground with the heads intact. Actually, I was only a week or two late getting it dug but the tops were nearly totally brown. Looks like you got yours out at exactly the right time.

I really doubled down on growing my own garlic when I ran out of home-grown a few years ago. All of the heads of garlic that I was getting from the store had upteen itty bitty cloves, a real PIA since peeling garlic is not my idea of fun.

Growing your own is so easy. Plant it in the fall and harvest early-mid summer. Plus you get an early garlic treat from the scapes. Requires very little care and isn't bothered by any pests IME. And you can grow a lot of garlic in very little space. Just make sure you get varieties that are suitable for your growing zone, i.e., don't plant the (imported) stuff from the grocery store (unless you know that it was locally grown.)

I use garlic powder, pre-peeled garlic, fresh garlic and I also grow my own.

I use a huge quantity of garlic ( I make my own black garlic), I will go broke if I don't buy Chinese.

dcarch

I must be stupid but I don't understand how it can be cheaper to buy chinese garlic than localy grown but it obviously is..... very sad.

I grow mine. But when I buy if the loose stuff looks nasty, I buy the stuff in the sleeve.

I must be stupid but I don't understand how it can be cheaper to buy chinese garlic than localy grown but it obviously is..... very sad.

Islay, there is so much about food economics I don't understand. Publix, our local chain, has a line of organic vegetables. Now that can of corn was grown in FL near Pahokee, but it went to China to get processed and put in the can, before traveling back to FL to be sold. I will never understand how that can be cost effective.

We have very few food manufacturing plants left here in Canada. Our western provinces are huge wheat producers. They grow and harvest the wheat, send it to the States for packaging and then bought back at U.S. dollars for sale in Canada. Geesh.

Today there was a skid of Product of Ontario watermelons. (supposedly). Every one of them had a Grown in Missouri sticker.

" I must be stupid but I don't understand how it can be cheaper to buy chinese garlic than localy grown but it obviously is..... very sad."

Very sad indeed. Our schools keep making more lawyers, and their schools produce more engineers. I understand even Mexico produces more engineers than the USA.

In a "60 Minutes" interview. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Computer basically stated that we simply do not have the quality, work ethics and skills that the Chinese workers have.

dcarch

In addition to growing my own garlic I've taken to growing my own ginger and turmeric because I couldn't find any not grown in China.

Well, this is eye-opening and not in a good way. I cook A LOT with garlic and dehydrated garlic seasonings.

I get mine from the farmer's market, and next year I'll be growing my own. For the powdered form of garlic, Trader Joe's comes from California.

I will be growing my own turmeric next year, too.

We've grown our own garlic for several years. Bunches of it are hanging on the front porch drying right now. There aren't many things as easy to grow IMO. I don't think growing ginger or turmeric are possible in my climate.

Rosesstink, you can grow them in flower pots in the house, too!

Veda - I've not had much luck growing anything other than your typical house plants indoors (which I do). Do they need grow lights/special conditions? I don't use a lot of tumeric but I'd try growing ginger.

Bright light but not direct sun.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Grow-Ginger-as-a-Houseplant/

Thanks Veda. Temps? Our house can get down into the 60's (F) at night and in winter we don't get a much sun.

Well, it doesn't take quality, work ethics or skill to grow garlic, just a pot full of dirt or a piece of soil. Plant it in the fall, let it over-winter. By the next summer you'll have scapes to cut and by July (at least here in Michigan), you dig the stuff. Dry it and it'll store for months. It's by far the easiest, most reliable and least labor intensive stuff I've ever grown. Elery says we should grow a field full of it, if we only had a market for it!

I also heard the same kind of "employee" argument from the vice-president of a power company here, they hired a bunch of people from India to run the computer systems because there was "no one qualified" here. Big headlines about how much better customer service would be with all the "improvements" to the computer system. Two years later the computer system was a complete mess, everyone was ticked off, people were getting exorbitant and incorrect bills, it cost $6.95 if you wanted to pay your bill on line (!!) the head of IT was fired and some computer experts from University of Michigan were hired. Six months later the computer system worked, the customers were calming down and getting their own bills, and it cost nothing to pay on line. It's a shame how those computer engineers were "unqualified", which actually meant they wanted more money than the foreign workers did.

Annie