Interview with LaFuji Mama

Last week I was flattered to be interviewed by one of my favorite blog moms, La Fuji Mama. It was a fun chat and I really enjoyed talking with her about my passion for good, local food and how it led me to my work at the Ballard Farmers Market.

Interview with La Fuji Mama.

This mama is a wonder... let me tell you. I have a hard time getting things done with my one toddler, and she has two kiddos under three yrs. Amazing! And she can bake. That in and of itself is awe-inspiring to me. My house is the place where bread comes to die. I hope that you can take the time to check out the interview and her other amazing posts. Enjoy!

BTW This is the cartoon I was refering to in the interview:

Plug for Farmers Market

I think it shows the choices quite nicely. ;)

Tom Vilsack as USDA head... WTH???

I don't have tv... I say this because there is SO much crap out there that I want to keep clear of. But when I see things that I didn't know be used against me... like this. It makes me angry. Seriously? The president I voted for appointed a money grubbing poison toter as my head of Federal Food Regulations???? I am a bit taken aback right now. No, wait. A lot taken aback. I have a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach that very soon they are going to start attacking the things I hold most dear. My friend Patti put it best here:

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In the not-so-distant-future, there is a knock on my front door.
"Hello. May I help you?"

"Uh, Yes 'ma'am. We're here on behalf of the zoning commission. It's in regards to your garden."

"What about my garden?"

"We understand that it is an organic garden, is that correct?"

"Why, Yes it is."

"And you plan on feeding your family and perhaps a few friends and neighbors with this organic food; is that correct?"

"Yes, of course. Is that a problem? What is the meaning of this?"

"Ma'am, you are in direct violation of zoning code HR5467-33.463 and 1/2 which clearly states on page 345, paragraph 7, sentence 4 that 'no private citizen will produce, preserve, distribute or consume food without direct and decisive permission, authorization and regulation from thus mentioned board as well as the USDA, CIA, FBI, GMO Seeds, Inc. and, of course, da' man'. It's all right here, ma'am, in black and white.

"This is ridiculous! It's a garden, for Christ's sake!"

"Ma'am, you will have to come with us, ma'am..."

"Please! I'm sorry! I was just trying to grow cheap, healthy, real food for my family! There are only a few chickens! We just needed the eggs..."

"Chickens? Did you say you have chickens on these premises? Agent Terry, you had better call and get us back up..."
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Frankly, I have a rock in my stomach... and I really really hope this doesn't go the way it seems to be. I don't know what else to say.

Plastic Bags, an article from my friend Kristena

Original here

5 great reasons NOT to use plastic

1. The U.S uses 380 BILLION plastic bags, sacks and wraps every year. 100 billion of those are shopping bags.

If you have ever walked past a public garage can, you can see how many hamburger wrappers, sandwich wrappers, plastic cups and things of this nature are thrown away.

There have been times I have imagined every garbage can in my town and am overwhelmed with the fact that just one little town can create such waste in one day.

Thinking ahead to 10 years with this same situation, is pretty disheartening.

2 Plastic bags are made from petroleum and 12 MILLION barrels of oil are required to make the bags consumed by the U.S. alone.

3.Only about 1% of plastic bags are recycled. the rest end up in the landfills, on trees,in rivers and oceans which brings us to the next point.

4.Hundreds of thousands of marine mammals, birds, and land animals die every year from eating or being entangled in discarded plastic bags. When swallowed, plastic bags choke animals or block their intestines leading to an agonizing death.

Also, things like straws are picked up by birds, and causing them the same fate.
To reference the marine issue, also called the plastic soup, you can see this link

5.Plastic bags take up to 1000 years to degrade. The process is called photo-degradation where plastic pieces get smaller and smaller, becoming toxic, contaminating soil and waterways, entering our food chain.

So what can be done? Well one VERY EASY way to cut down on plastic consumption is to bring your own tote bags to the store with you.

We keep about 4 in our vehicle and I have a Chico bag in my purse as well.

This is really really simple, it just takes some practice in getting accustomed to grabbing your totes when you enter any store.

Another great way to cut down is to get Eco Bags for your produce and bulk items. Or if you can sew, make your own with really cool fabric.

We keep these in our totes so we can avoid using the plastic bulk food or produce bags.
These are washable,so each time we wash them, we take them back out to the vehicle on our next trip out to it, and put it in our totes.
Again, with practice, it happens easily.

These are really great and I need to thank Emily and Stacey for hooking me up this year with some.

Totes are showing up everywhere and often for free. Take advantage of them and use them. It is so wonderful to know you are doing something to keep all those shopping bags from flying through the air, littering your neighborhood or ending up as the huge problems I have mentioned.

Another way to cut back on plastic consumption is to use glass or ceramic containers with lids to store your foods.

We use Frigoverre by Bormioli Rocco. These bowls next inside each other and really save space in our tiny kitchen. I love them so much for all my food storage. You can see through it, since it is glass, and know exactly what is where, which seems to cut back on food waste. They look nice and can also be used when taking foods to gatherings. I love them!

A huge thanks to the town of Jackson and the efforts they put into keeping things green. The statistics mentioned about was given to students in schools along with a free Bag 2 Differ bag.

Variety and the Seasonal Eater

Every nutritionist will tell you that variety is an important part of a healthy diet. You are born with an urge to try out new tastes. One of the first reflexes you have puts new things strait into your mouth. It seems from the outside that a healthy diet is harder if you are a local/seasonal eater in most places... and to a point, it's true. I don't have a whole lot of fresh fruits and veggies in February when around here, the ground is frozen solid. However, there are a few things I do to counter that February slump that have helped keep our diets optimal and our variety up.

Storage: The trick for me has always been storage. Eating what you have stored, however, is a acquired habit. It doesn't happen overnight. Nor does storing enough food for the entire season. Each part is a process.

This year we actually ran out of a few things! This last summer, the amount of food that we consume jumped much more than I assumed it would. At the start of the summer with my family (my kids then 16 mos, almost 7 yrs, and almost 12 yrs) I was feeding 2 adults, and 2 children. By the end of the summer I was feeding 3 fully adult sized portions, and 2 fully kid sized portions (because, of course, Logan didn't stay a baby forever). So my storage for this winter was off. It isn't an exact science... but if you calculate it out before you look for produce to buy in August or September, it will be much easier to adjust to what your family personally needs.

On page 10 of the Ball Blue Book it has a chart for planning how much food to grow and/or preserve for your family. It lists how many servings you would have per week, and then times that by 52, and you have how many quarts you need for the year. For example, we can peaches each year. This last year we ate 3 quarts of peaches each week until they were gone. (The year before that it was 1 or 2... that is how much it changed this last summer. Teenagers really throw the food prep for a loop!) So for this next year I am planning to can 70 quarts, or 5 boxes of peaches. I do the same calculation for green beans, blueberries, tomato sauce, beets, snow peas, dried herbs, etc.

The Ball Blue Book only lists the things you preserve by canning, but I have modified the planning to everything I need... freezing, drying, and canning. As the time gets closer, I will have more details about the food preservation, low sugar canning, and other tips for keeping your local harvest beautiful and yummy all through the winter. Basically planning ahead allows us to have variety in the winter months so we are not buying blueberries from Chili, or strawberries from Mexico in January.


Variety and how important it is... or not. The truth is, you don't have to eat a thousand different kinds of foods every day to stay healthy. For thousands of years our bodies were adjusted to eating what was around our local area. Our bodies crave things that are in season. When the sun is out, our bodies naturally want lighter, more sweet foods... and when the winter cold closes in, our bodies turn to heavy meals that usually have quite a bit of protein in them to keep us warm. It is important to keep those seasonal feelings alive in our bodies.

Even a hundred years ago, beef was rarely a summertime meal, and chicken was never found in January. Cows were slaughtered in the late fall to boost the winter months with a high protein source, and chickens were culled in the summer when people found out just how many roosters they had. Egg layers took the months of Dec -Feb off and started up again in March and a huge celebration took place to honor them. Cows had babies in the spring and by April had enough milk to feed the neighborhood, but were never over taxed and so therefore, to keep the cow healthy, no one had tons of milk in the winter when the cows were pregnant. Everything has a season. Even meats, milk, and eggs. A letter to Sally Fallon (the author of Nourishing Traditions) says:

"Traditional diets didn't rely on refrigeration or long distance transport. As advocates of Weston Price's work, we need to pay more attention to the seasonality of food; even milk, meat, and eggs.

Left to her own devices, a dairy cow will breed so that she calves in the spring. This way both she and the calf will have plenty of high quality feed to rebuild and grow with so they both will go into the following winter with plenty of vigor and stored nutrients with which to meet its harsh temperature and poorer quality feed. (Similarly, a hen will not lay eggs in the middle of winter unless subjected to artificial lighting.) Our modern eating habits push a farmer to breed her cows so they'll calve in the fall. When children go back to school, we expect milk for our breakfasts and milk sales go up. This is completely backwards!" ---Read the rest of the letter here.---

I am not saying, by any means, to stop eating chicken just because it is winter... but to be conscience of the natural cycles of the plants and animals from which we get our foods. And the cycles in which we have our cravings as well.

Good article about nutrition, taste, local, and organics

This article brings up and helps clarify some really wonderful questions about local foods, farmers markets, and organics 'at all cost'.

Eating Better Than Organic

I bet you, that man from the "liberal Washington group that supports strong organic standards" is currently living less than an hour from me. I should look him up.

Wise Traditions

by Sally Fallon author of Nourishing Traditions

http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/dirty-secrets.html

This article challanges the way we eat food today. Challanging that when 'they' say that half our diet should be made up of grains it doesn't mean processed grains, and that processed grains can actually be killing us and making our children more suseptable to disease.

I have never thought that cold cereal is good for you. But the main thing that has always held me back in buying it is price. Not nutrition. So when I read this, I was shocked to not only believe what she says, but understand that gut reaction that has told me that cereal isn't good for you. She doesn't use scare tactics... she uses plain facts. Some of which have been covered up by the billion dollar food market that keeps telling us these things are good for us.

Another thing that startled me was the way they put the fat back into milk. Now I am wondering if there is a way to get small farm milk from around here.

And orange juice... just make it yourself. Really.

A less scary article

Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation, and one of my favorite non-alarmist, just good information authors, wrote this article about the food we consume:

Cheap Food Nation

A very good read and some great food for thought, with out the alarmist view of the inevitable death of us all. lol...