Don't Eat The Budget!

For those of you who are locals, our farmer's market is open Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings. Vendors get there at 6:30 AM and sometimes sell out by 10:30 so shop as early as you can.

Their prices blow away the overpriced, waxy, and sometimes flavorless produce at the grocery store. Bell peppers are only 50 cents vs. $1 or more at the store. I picked up 1# of yard beans (like green beans except really long! Like 2 feet long! These are fun for kids and tasty too.) for $1.50 and it made a HUGE pot.

Stop by and check them out. My kiddo had a blast picking our her own food and talking with the farmers. Hope your family enjoys saving money while buying fresher, healthier, and tastier food too!

Setting the Record Straight

I was chatting with a friend the other day while our kids played, about how crazy my week had been. This past spring Savannah went to school in the mornings and was picked up at noon. She then ate her lunch in the car during our 30 minute drive home. But this crazy day I was lamenting to my friend about how I had forgotten to make Savannah's lunch. So that Savannah would not feel sad and forgotten (and because I had no snacks on hand to stall he until we got home) I said, "Surprise, you get lunch from Chick file today!" This is something that never happens. Not so much because of the fact it is processed food which we try not to eat but more because of the fact I have not drank the chick file kool aid. Seriously, what is so wonderful about the food? I don't get it. But lunch was not for me but for her and she was overjoyed.

Now back to my friend who was listening intently. Her reply was not words of encouragement for this crazy time of having a newborn and a 5 year old with a busy schedule. No, her words were, "That just warms my heart to know that you forgot your child's lunch and bought her fast food instead."

What?

Let's set the tone for this blog right now. I am a busy mother or two with many obligations pulling me in several directions at once. Life gets hectic for me too and surprise! I am not perfect. But I do try my best to feed my family in a way that is nourishing to both our body and souls. I make mistakes and then I learn from them. I hope I always make mistakes because that's how one learns. And beyond that sometimes I just don't have the time or mental energy to create the right choices.

So this is a journey for me too. It just happens to also be my career as a dietitian, my job as a mom, and my hobby as a woman.

(And I do love my friend that said those words to me so it was not the least bit offensive at all. I display might faults right back to her with love!)

How to Shop for Healthy Food

One of the most frequent questions I am asked is how to read food labels so that they may decipher what food is worth buying. My reply is rarely appreciated but I'll repeat it again. It's easy, just don't buy food with labels and then you don't have to worry about reading them!

And just where do you buy food without a label? You buy it where food comes from...farms. If you shop at your local farms there will be no gimmicks, misleading marketing, confusing food labels, or mutilated food. What you will get is a bouquet of amazing aromas (there is nothing like the smell of perfectly ripe food), produce bursting with flavor that will not be left to rot in the crisper but rather begs to be eaten, and the story of your food from seed until consumption.

In the previous post I put a link to a farm listed on http://www.localharvest.org/. Devour this site! Punch in your zip code (or a zip code where you are traveling to this summer) and you will find local farmer's markets, grass fed meats of all kinds, farm fresh eggs, cheeses, milks, yogurt, kefir, butter, grains, vegetables, fruit, CSAs, honey, herbs, and just about anything else edible you can imagine that comes from the earth (and should we eat it if it didn't come from the earth?).

I'll be posting many resources on this blog but this is one of the best comprehensive sites there is. Just thinking about it makes me want to go into the kitchen and get one of those soak-your-chin-and shirt-down-to-your-toes, juicy peaches form a local orchard!

Bon Appetit!

Cleaning the Refrigerator for Lunch

In a rush and on my way out the door for work the other day I realized I needed something for lunch. I rummaged the fridge and found several fresh ingredients to throw together for a salad.

Mixed greens

Fresh spinach

Blackberries picked the previous day at a local farm

Crispy pecans

Feta fresh from the dairy

Cinnamon salad dressing leftover from the salad made the night before

Oh my, let me tell you how awesome the cinnamon salad dressing tasted with the juicy blackberries, salty feta, and nutty pecans! I could eat this all summer.

Pick your own blackberries and blueberries at Martin's Berry Patch
4534 Farm Rd 968 West
Marshall, TX 75670
903-660-3283
Only $9.50 to fill a whole bucket!
They store easily by freezing flat on a cookie sheet and then once frozen place them in a freezer bag. Don't wash them before you freeze them. It toughens the skins.

Fresh from the farm feta

Texas Daily Harvest

A certified organic dairy and farm.

275 CR 1455

Yantis, TX 75497

903/975/1100

They have wonderful organic raw and pasteurized cheeses but the feta is by far my favorite. This farm has been featured in the Dallas Morning News and can be found at a few farmers markets in Dallas. The Granary in Longview and Tyler often carry their cheeses. If you don't see them, ask for them and they will order them for you.

This farm also offers butter, yogurt, produce, eggs, and fresh grains.

Talk about one top shopping!

For more information you can always email me or check out the link below.

http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M33172

The city may have Whole Foods but out here in the country we have access to the actual whole foods before the go to Whole Foods!

Country living is the Good Life.

Frizzled Egg Spinach Salad

A couple of weeks ago we had a magazine swap at our MOPS meeting. I hadn't read a Better Homes and Garden in years so I picked one up. My eyes rarely scan the recipe section in these types of magazines because the ingredient lists usually call for a variety of processed foods some of which even masquerade as health foods. Then I began monologuing to the magazine about what real food is. Good rarely comes from this.

But this time I was delightfully surprised to come across a fresh and delicious recipe. Frizzled Egg Spinach Salad (click for recipe) was a huge hit at our house. Don't let the sunny side up egg atop the salad scare you. Not only does breaking the yolk and letting it mix in with the dressing taste wonderful but the runny yolk is a gold mine of fat soluble vitamins and omega 3 fatty acids (if it is fresh from your local farm or backyard) some of which would be lost if the yolk was cooked until hard.

And speaking of the dressing, the mixture of cinnamon and cumin in AMAZING in combination with the egg, spinach, and mushrooms. This salad encompasses a full meal of multiple veggies, protein, carbs, and good fat. It is gluten free (as long as you guy gluten-free, nitrate-free bacon and dressing ingredients), soy free, and dairy free. But most importantly it's pleasurable.

Side note: we used nitrate free bacon, olive oil instead of canola, balsamic vinegar instead of raspberry (I did not have raspberry), a lot less honey than it called for, and pepper jelly instead of chipolte pepper sauce (again, it's what I had on hand).

Where I'm Coming From

A couple of weeks ago I began to post our family's food journal. But as I read my posts I realized they weren't adequate to help people. Important information was missing. For example what we don't eat is almost more crucial than what we do eat. And I never got around to posting why we eat the things we do. So let's start over from the beginning and I will tell you where I am coming from as a registered dietitian, mom, and the family cook.

Since college I have strived to eat healthy but that can entail an array of ideals depending on the decade.

"Eat eggs. they are the perfect protein."

"No, eat egg whites because they don't have the fat and cholesterol. You don't want heart disease do you?"

"No, eat the whole egg because the yolk has fat soluble vitamins."

"I hear egg beaters are best because they aren't even eggs!"

"Don't eat eggs at all. They come from an animal!"

"Wait, you have to buy cage free eggs. Then, it's ok."

"No, buy the eggs fortified with omega 3 fatty acids. They help your heart. But I don't know if you are still just suppose to eat the whites."

"Didn't you hear that the American heart Association now says we can have 2 eggs per week and we won't die immediately afterwards?"

And that's just on the topic of eggs. I could go on about carbs, fat, meat, milk, whole wheat, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, and a million other food items. Is the on going debate of what exactly is healthy overwhelming you?

No matter what food item we choose to follow the debate on over the years the same theme remains. It begins with a food found in nature, man decides the food is bad and/or he can make it better, hype surrounds this new epiphany, everyone MUST consume it for optimal, years later it is discovered this new version is toxic, research shows the original version was actually healthy but now people are scared to eat either.Think about it. Pick a food and see if my theory fits.

This same theme is found in the bible over and over again when man thinks he has a better plan than God. Man then screws things up. And when things are bad enough he returns to God's perfect plan. The food we consume is so far from what God created for us.

Our great grandmothers cooked with meat from the local farm or their own, vegetables from their garden, milk from their cows, and eggs from their chickens. (these are actualy "whole foods" by the way, not processed food you buy at the store Whole Foods. I love them but they have plenty of junk too.)

Our grandmothers cooked with meat sometimes from the grocery store, vegetables sometimes from the garden, milk from the milk man, and sometimes some canned goods to make things easier.

Our moms cooked with meat, eggs, milk and vegetables from the grocery store, store bought bread, canned goods, and occasionally they bought fast food.

Our generation does not cook with ingredients. Recipes call for a can of this, 2 cans of that, a jar of this, and a box of that. Actual food is not listed. The rest of the diet is filled in with fast food.We don't know how to cook with real food. We don't even know what real food is.

Because God does not make mistakes and man cannot help but make mistakes our family avoids manufactured (man-made) foods as much as possible. Nutrition trends will come and go but in the end research ( I am a science gal after all you know) always backs God-made food.

So when you are trying to figure out if you should avoid genetically modified foods, pesticides, or fruit loops ask yourself these two questions: Is this something that occurs in this form (or close to it) in nature?and Have people been eating this for thousands of years or is this new? Try it on any food, you will be amazed at how little "food" you are consuming.