Shake the Hand that Feeds You

What's the best way to get away from the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) or the Western Diet that is making so many of us sick and fat? Stay out of the supermarket! Stay out of fast food joints.  Cook Real Food at home.

Start shopping at farmer's markets, join a food co-op (CSA*), plant a garden! Why?

Butterhead lettuce, looked like
a watercolor painting

Your produce will be local, so it will be in season and at the peak of quality. No need to buy strawberries from Chile in November (have you noticed a lot of produce is coming from South America now? It may be labeled organic, but it can't be picked ripe if it has to travel that far.) Last year, we got strawberries from our CSA for a few weeks. They were picked the day before we ate them, and were so juicy they were staining the bag red. The butterhead lettuce was perfect with velvety-soft leaves so beautiful I took pictures of it. It tasted as good as it looked too. My home-grown lettuce mixture surpasses anything in the "baby lettuce mixtures" at Fresh Market, which tastes like cardboard in comparison. Yesterday, the lettuce in the salad came from the dirt to the table in about 10 minutes.


Chris and Jenny, the farmers for our CSA. We say Hi every
Saturday from April to November.

You can shake the hand that feeds you! Talk to the people who are raising the food you eat.

Our CSA farmers, Chris and Jenny, feed over 125 families with the fresh organic food they raise on 4 acres. Sometimes I look at the food on our table and realize everything we are about to eat is a result of their hard work.  (Chris writes a farm blog that is so well-written, I told him he should turn it into a book!)





SunGold Tomatoes

The variety of products will probably be different from what you'll find at the supermarket as well. I tried Japanese Turnips recently from White Oak Pastures -- they were so tasty I ate them as I sliced them onto a plate, but they aren't available in stores.  The local SunGold tomatoes are so sweet you will wonder if you bit into a yellow grape. By buying produce from the local farms I discovered vegetables I had never heard of: tat soi, sunchokes, Japanese turnips, watermelon radish; plus some I had heard of but didn't recognize: bok choy, Russian kale,  and more.

Of course, the farmer's market probably won't operate year-round, or you might not live near one. If you have to shop at the store, stay around the perimeter, don't go into the aisles with all the processed packaged food-like substances.  Not everything around the edges is natural of course -- just look at all the no-fat yogurts and individually wrapped cheese slices. But you can find produce, eggs, meat, and dairy that are not overly processed. 

*CSA Community Supported Agriculture, another name for a farm co-op. Members pay at the beginning of the season then recieve a box of produce each week from the farm. It's a great way to eat fresh food while helping small local farms stay in business.