healthy food

Keep it Simple

/ Ren

Books, movies, TV, the Internet..  its easy to be overwhelmed by the ton of health and diet information that’s out there, some of it good, some not so much.  How do you tell the difference?

What it really all comes down to is that we must stop eating those mass-produced things that contribute to diabetes, heart disease, cancer and obesity and get back to eating fresh, whole, minimally processed foods.  You know, the stuff that our great grandparents ate and would still recognize today.

Throw away the processed sugar and flour, the pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, preservatives and synthetic vitamins and eat the way nature intended.  Eat as if your life depends on it.

Here’s a simple, healthy and nutritious summer lunch of hard-cooked pastured eggs, homemade mayonnaise & mustard and just-gathered tomatoes, herbs and wild greens.  Totally delicious.  I’m heading back to work feeling good today..

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For egg salad, place pastured eggs in a deep pan and cover with cold filtered water; the eggs should be 2 inches below the surface.  Turn the heat to high and bring the water to a boil.  Immediately cover the pan, remove from heat and allow to sit 10 minutes.

Drain the water, roll the eggs around to crack the shells, and cover the eggs with ice water.  Allow to cool 5 minutes before handling.

Peel the shells and dice the eggs into a bowl.  Add approximately 1 1/2 tablespoons of homemade mayonnaise and 1 teaspoon of coarse, homemade mustard for every 4 eggs, along with a squeeze of fresh lemon and good bit of sea salt and cracked pepper.  I’m adding fresh chives and tarragon, just because that’s what looks good in my container garden today.

To serve, dress field greens with oil & vinegar, mound egg salad on top and garnish with tomatoes and black olives.

(Mother Earth News) Eggs from hens allowed to peck on pasture are a heck of a lot better than those from chickens raised in cages! Most of the eggs currently sold in supermarkets are nutritionally inferior to eggs produced by hens raised on pasture.

Eggs from hens raised on pasture may contain:

• 1⁄3 less cholesterol
• 1⁄4 less saturated fat
• 2⁄3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more vitamin E
• 7 times more beta carotene


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This post is part of the Real Food Wednesdays Blog Carnival


Will Allen, Urban Farmer

/ Ren
Nigel Parry for The New York Times

Photo by Nigel Parry for The New York Times

“Will Allen is an urban farmer who is transforming the cultivation, production, and delivery of healthy foods to under-served, urban populations. In 1995, while assisting neighborhood children with a gardening project, Allen began developing the farming methods and educational programs that are now the hallmark of the non-profit organization Growing Power, which he directs and co-founded. Guiding all is his efforts is the recognition that the unhealthy diets of low-income, urban populations, and such related health problems as obesity and diabetes, largely are attributable to limited access to safe and affordable fresh fruits and vegetables. Rather than embracing the “back to the land” approach promoted by many within the sustainable agriculture movement, Allen’s holistic farming model incorporates both cultivating foodstuffs and designing food distribution networks in an urban setting.”  —The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation


“Like others in the so-called good-food movement, Allen, who is 60, asserts that our industrial food system is depleting soil, poisoning water, gobbling fossil fuels and stuffing us with bad calories. Like others, he advocates eating locally grown food. But to Allen, local doesn’t mean a rolling pasture or even a suburban garden: it means 14 greenhouses crammed onto two acres in a working-class neighborhood on Milwaukee’s northwest side, less than half a mile from the city’s largest public-housing project.

And this is why Allen is so fond of his worms. When you’re producing a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of food in such a small space, soil fertility is everything. Without microbe- and nutrient-rich worm castings (poop, that is), Allen’s Growing Power farm couldn’t provide healthful food to 10,000 urbanites — through his on-farm retail store, in schools and restaurants, at farmers’ markets and in low-cost market baskets delivered to neighborhood pickup points. He couldn’t employ scores of people, some from the nearby housing project; continually train farmers in intensive polyculture; or convert millions of pounds of food waste into a version of black gold.”  –Street Farmer, NY Times


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Pattypan Squash

/ Ren

Here’s a fast and tasty dish of seasonal patty-pan squash, heirloom baby San Marzano tomatoes, elephant garlic, red & green spring onions, fresh oregano, basil, Celtic sea salt and cracked black pepper.  Sautéed in a little olive oil with pastured butter and brightened with a squeeze of fresh lemon..

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