Part of my quest to eat more natural and local food I’ve been searching all over for more links to local foods. My Google searching (regular and map) for local farmers markets, farm and restaurants that buy local/sustainable or fair trade food, hasn’t found much.
This morning though I found Sustainable Table. It not only explains what sustainable agriculture is, why its good for you, and what you can do, but also lists resources to find local food. There is a huge amount of information on this website that even I am still going through.
A few things I found to be immediately helpful with my quest for local food are links to Farmers Markets markets and a link to the Eat Well Guide.
I was able to find lists of local farms and farmers markets at Local Harvest. Something that I’ve been trying to find online for a while now. Previously I would jot down a name of a farm or market when I drove by it, making a note to visit again when it gets warmer. This way is much easier in that you can plan out where you are going and when, as well as finding some information on the various locations.
The other site Eat Well Guide does about the same, but it has an option to save recipes you find on the site as well as events and projects.
Navigating various links on the site I came across a website listing local “Pick Your Own”“http://www.pickyourown.org farms. These are farms that allow you to come on their land and pick the fruits and vegetables for yourself. I remember going to a strawberry farm as a kid and picking flats upon flats of fresh straberries, most likely from Hilgert’s Farm.
I might just have to go back in about a month and pick some again, and recommend you find a local pick your own, and do the same!
As part of my Au Naturale project I went through my cupboards, fridge and freezer and marked down and/or separated the items that are “Ok” and “Not Ok” in terms of being natural or not.
For an item to land in the “Not Ok” category it had to meet these criteria: it had an ingredient I couldn’t pronounce easily, had high fructose corn syrup in it, any modified food products, any natural or artificial flavors, and/or if it was fortified with synthetic vitamins. I let canned and frozen vegetables containing salt pass, because salt has been used for ages as a preservative, it is easily recognizable on the label, and unless you have heart problems a small amount of salt is ok in your diet.
The reason I did this was to see how much stuff we eat everyday is full of additives, preservatives and HFCS. I’m not throwing this food away, yet. If I do get rid of it, it’ll be taken to the food bank down the street.
At the end of everything about 90 items were in the “not ok” list and only about 55 items were ok. This of course doesn’t count the 20 or so boxed frozen vegetables in sauces that aren’t project friendly, and I counted each of the different kinds of cheese, canned food, and tomato sauces I had separately.
Not really, but I am starting a project where I eat healthier and from scratch. Thats everything, not just using my own seasonings instead of those in a packet. If its been processed, I won’t eat it.
I recently read the book In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, and I’ve begun his other book Omnivore’s Dilemma. They have inspired me to go on and read further into the subject of nutrition and food processing and its effects on people
I haven’t really gotten that far with my personal research since I only finished the one book about two weeks ago, but it inspired me. It talked about how most food isn’t really food anymore. For example Pollan talks about how if it was pre-1973 almost all breads would have to be labeled as an imitation food product. Scary huh?
In the book he lays out a simple plan to avoid these processed food products: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
Pretty much the guideline for what I plan to eat is the closer it is to the farm, the better, rather than the closer it is to the factory.
This pretty much means I will be buying simple staple items and cooking most everything from scratch. No more boxed dinners, no more takeout, and no more junk food.
Yes. This will be hard.
No more junk food, no more boxed food, no more salad dressing, pretty much no more of what is in a typical western diet.
I’m going to start collecting more basic recipes for everyday things, so there will be a new section of recipes that I have not personally tried. Feel free to try them yourself though and let me know how they are! (Also subscribe to the feed just for them!)
There will also be a specific section specifically for this project – Au Naturale.
Part of my quest to eat more natural and local food I’ve been searching all over for more links to local foods. My Google searching (regular and map) for local farmers markets, farm and restaurants that buy local/sustainable or fair trade food, hasn’t found much.
This morning though I found Sustainable Table. It not only explains what sustainable agriculture is, why its good for you, and what you can do, but also lists resources to find local food. There is a huge amount of information on this website that even I am still going through.
A few things I found to be immediately helpful with my quest for local food are links to Farmers Markets markets and a link to the Eat Well Guide.
I was able to find lists of local farms and farmers markets at Local Harvest. Something that I’ve been trying to find online for a while now. Previously I would jot down a name of a farm or market when I drove by it, making a note to visit again when it gets warmer. This way is much easier in that you can plan out where you are going and when, as well as finding some information on the various locations.
The other site Eat Well Guide does about the same, but it has an option to save recipes you find on the site as well as events and projects.
Navigating various links on the site I came across a website listing local “Pick Your Own”“http://www.pickyourown.org farms. These are farms that allow you to come on their land and pick the fruits and vegetables for yourself. I remember going to a strawberry farm as a kid and picking flats upon flats of fresh straberries, most likely from Hilgert’s Farm.
I might just have to go back in about a month and pick some again, and recommend you find a local pick your own, and do the same!
As part of my Au Naturale project I went through my cupboards, fridge and freezer and marked down and/or separated the items that are “Ok” and “Not Ok” in terms of being natural or not.
For an item to land in the “Not Ok” category it had to meet these criteria: it had an ingredient I couldn’t pronounce easily, had high fructose corn syrup in it, any modified food products, any natural or artificial flavors, and/or if it was fortified with synthetic vitamins. I let canned and frozen vegetables containing salt pass, because salt has been used for ages as a preservative, it is easily recognizable on the label, and unless you have heart problems a small amount of salt is ok in your diet.
If you do this yourself and don’t want to have canned items on your list by all means leave them off. I’m leaving them on because its the end of winter and its not quite the season for fresh vegetables.
The reason I did this was to see how much stuff we eat everyday is full of additives, preservatives and HFCS. I’m not throwing this food away, yet. If I do get rid of it, it’ll be taken to the food bank down the street.
At the end of everything about 90 items were in the “not ok” list and only about 55 items were ok. This of course doesn’t count the 20 or so boxed frozen vegetables in sauces that aren’t project friendly, and I counted each of the different kinds of cheese, canned food, and tomato sauces I had separately.
In Pollan’s book he talks about buying your food from the outer walls of the grocery store. Places like the produce section, dairy, and meat departments. Stay out of the middle of the grocery store as much as possible.
Looking at the majority of foods that didn’t make it, I’d have to agree.
Almost all grain food products failed. No more boxed cereal (Cocoa Puffs, Mini Wheats), baking mixes (pancake mix, cake mix), boxed rice or noodle dishes, breads, muffins, macaroni and cheese, or even instant oatmeal (the whole oatmeal in the big container is ok, ingredients: oatmeal).
There are also things like canned meals (Spaghetti-O’s, Manwich Sauce), soups, drink mixes, bottled sauces (salad dressings, miracle whip, tartar sauce), or boxed desserts like pudding.
Most of these items are found on the shelves in the center of the store.
Many of these are a given, they don’t resemble food much at all (like what does in nature does a cocoa puff resemble?). Some of the things that were a slight surprise to me were some of the canned tomatoes, frozen vegetables, pickles, and some sausage.
The canned tomatoes that didn’t pass actually had HFCS in them. The other brands that we had had ingredient list of tomatoes, or tomatoes and water, or tomatoes, water, and salt. Also, it was actually a name brand canned tomato that had the HFCS in it, the ones that had simple ingredients were all generic. This goes for other canned vegetables as well.
The frozen vegetables that didn’t make it, were the kind in boxes with sauces in them. Most of the sauces of one brand (green giant) were all sorts of chemicals, another brand (Birds Eye) only had two, food starch and HFCS (which was the last ingredient). The simple bagged vegetables that I had (including those new steamfresh kind) had vegetables, or vegetables and salt for ingredients.
I expected pickles to have many preservatives and additives, but the pickles that didn’t make it was a sweet relish produced by Vlasic. It had HFCS as the second ingredient! I had a jar or pickle spears, and it had ingredients like salt, vinegar and sugar.
The sausage that didn’t pass was that kind that comes vacuum sealed in a horseshoe shape. It had things listed in the ingredients that I didn’t recognize, I figured that couldn’t be good.
The “ok” foods on the other hand, were pretty straight forward. All the stuff that looked like it came from a plant or animal passed.
Right now I’m just using the list to see how many processed food we use everyday. If there is something that we (my roommate and I) don’t use very often, or every once and a while, we’ll just take it out of our diets. If there is something we use everyday, like ketchup (which contains HFCS), I’ll try and come up with a suitable replacement (different brand), or create it from scratch. I’ll post the recipes here.
It will be like the Top Secret Recipe books, but for everyday things instead of restaurants food, plus being all natural. I’ll add the recipes here along with what items that the foods replace.
Not really, but I am starting a project where I eat healthier and from scratch. Thats everything, not just using my own seasonings instead of those in a packet. If its been processed, I won’t eat it.
I recently read the book In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, and I’ve begun his other book Omnivore’s Dilemma. They have inspired me to go on and read further into the subject of nutrition and food processing and its effects on people
I haven’t really gotten that far with my personal research since I only finished the one book about two weeks ago, but it inspired me. It talked about how most food isn’t really food anymore. For example Pollan talks about how if it was pre-1973 almost all breads we consume today would have to be labeled as an imitation food product because of all the different food additives and chemicals in them. Scary huh?
In the book he lays out a simple plan to avoid these processed food products: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
Pretty much the guideline for what I plan to eat is the closer it is to the farm, the better, rather than the closer it is to the factory.
This pretty much means I will be buying simple staple items and cooking most everything from scratch. No more boxed dinners, no more takeout, and no more junk food.
Yes. This will be hard.
No more junk food, no more boxed food, no more salad dressing, pretty much no more of what is in a typical western diet.
I’m going to start collecting more basic recipes for everyday things, so there will be a new section of recipes that I have not personally tried. Feel free to try them yourself though and let me know how they are! (Also subscribe to the feed just for them!)
There will also be a specific section specifically for this project – Au Naturale
I remember going to a strawberry farm as a kid and picking flats upon flats of fresh straberries, most likely from Hilgert’s Farm.
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