Processed vs Real Food

"MSG is used to create fat mice so researchers can study obesity. MSG is an excito-toxin that stimulates your brain to eat uncontrollably. When fed to mice, they pig out and get fat. It is in 80 percent of processed foods and mostly disguised as 'natural flavorings.'" (From the Huff Post.)

Obesity is an epidemic in our country. According to the article "68 percent of Americans are overweight" and   "from 1960 to today obesity rates have risen from 13 percent to 36 percent and soon will reach 42 percent." In order to fight this epidemic we need to eliminate most, if not all, processed foods from our diet. Real food, prepared from its natural state with no added preservatives, is always the better choice.

 Grow your own, cook at home, shop your local Farmer's Market. Eat real food. Simplify your choices and enjoy better health.

Edible Allegheny

If you live in or near the western Pennsylvania area, check out the magazine "Edible Allegheny." It has articles concerning the food scene in the areas around Allegheny County, as well as lists of Farm Markets and Farmers Markets and CSA's in the area, local wineries, and restaurants which source locally-grown food for their menu selections.
And, now and then, the cover is eye candy, like this one which shows some of the King brothers of Freedom Farms.

Love Fresh Strawberry Pie? You Can Grow That!

My strawberry plants are loaded with white blossoms. Each blossom is a potential strawberry. My future looks sweet and rosy, how about yours? No berries in your garden? You can remedy that!

Find a spot in full sun with good, well-drained soil (or improve the soil, or create a raised bed.) Get some strawberry plants from your favorite locally-owned garden center or nursery. Choose a variety that performs well in your area.

You can choose from "June bearing" or "everbearing" types, depending on your eating and preserving habits. If you mainly want strawberries to eat fresh, and want the harvest to last longer, plant "everbearing." (They bear smaller crops over a longer period of time.) If you want to make pies and jams or jellies, then you may want "June bearing" which bear more heavily but for a shorter period of time.

Ask for planting directions from your strawberry source-- they know the best time and methods for planting in your area. Pick off the flowers in the first year and begin to harvest your own juicy sweet strawberries next year. Strawberries? You can grow them!

Keep Cilantro (and Other Herbs?) Fresh Longer

From the blog Vegetable Gardener, an experiment to find the best way to keep cilantro from getting mushy and disgusting before you can use it. It might be worth trying this method with other herbs, too.

Grow your own if you can, and just harvest as much as you need to use at one time, but if you need to rely on farmers markets or the grocery for your herb supply, this may be just the information you're looking for.

Best Restaurants?

Why is it that the "Best Restaurant" articles usually are accompanied by a picture of a dish that can't be postitively identified as food?

What makes the restaurant judges think that an artfully arranged plate of herbs and flowers or a stack of foodstuffs with an artful drizzle of balsamic sauce should be shown as an example of what is served in a good restaurant?

Perhaps Noma is the best restaurant, I'm not the one to ask. But, as an example, show me a plate of meat and sides, or pasta, or a piece of glistening grilled fish.

Fresh Herbs to Cook With? You Can Grow That!

Have you ever found a recipe in a cookbook or online and gone to the grocery store to buy the ingredients? I usually buy the meat or protein first, then the veggies and starches-- then I get to the fresh herbs. I need 2 TBSP or 1/4 cup of something, and I pick up the package of fresh herbs, and they cost... HOW MUCH? EEK!

You can grow fresh herbs in your yard, or even in a pot on your patio. Herbs respond positively to clipping, by throwing out new growth. So you have a good source of fresh herbs all summer and into the fall, from one plant, or one packet of seeds. And you'll pay the same amount or less for the plant or seeds as you will the single-use packet at the grocery. Talk about a win-win proposition!

Ask for instructions for growing herbs at your locally-owned independent garden center or nursery. They'll be glad to help, and they'll probably have a great assortment of herb plants and seeds for you to choose from. Happy gardening, and bon appetit!

Chicken Mama

The new batch of chicks should arrive tomorrow. (We won't get into last year when they didn't arrive on Monday, or Tuesday... or Wednesday..... or Thursday..... and my mind just kept seeing them thirsty and starving to death in some Postal Warehouse. They finally had to send another batch.)

This time, instead of getting just one variety, as I did two years ago, or two varieties, as I did last year, I chose a flock of four different breeds: Buff Orpingtons, Araucanas, Barred Rocks, and New Hampshire Reds.

Yesterday I cleaned and disinfected the trough that they spend their first weeks in, tested the heat lamp, filled the trough with wood chips for bedding, and covered the chips with a piece of weed mat to allow them time to figure out that the wood chips are not food. (I'll remove the week mat in a day or two, once they all seem to be eating properly.)

Next I'll fill the two feeders with chick mash and the waterer with a mixture of 1 gallon of water and 3/4 cup of table sugar to give them extra energy to recuperate from their trip across the country in a box. Then I'll wait for the call from my post office.