Showing posts with label farmers' market/ CSA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label farmers' market/ CSA. Show all posts

6 Tips for a Non-toxic Summer

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We've been topping 80 degrees regularly for the past few weeks and while slogging through the final month of school my thoughts are all about swimming, sunshine, and SUMMER!

Here are 6 tips for enjoying a safe, healthy, non-toxic summer.

Cover up and use safe, effective sunscreen. 


My preferred method of sun protection is to cover up with long sleeves and hats. But for long days at the beach and other outdoor adventures, you will also need sunscreen. When selecting a sunscreen for my family, I look for sunscreens that use mineral/ physical sunscreens as active ingredients and that offer broad spectrum protection. I choose mineral sunscreens such as zinc oxide and titanium dioxide as active ingredients rather than chemical sunscreens because chemical sunscreens are known endocrine disruptors. I look for broad spectrum protection against both UVA and UVB rays since both types of rays have been linked to skin cancer. I avoid sunscreens with controversial nanoparticles (mineral sunscreens are often nano-sized) and harmful inactive ingredients such as Vitamin A/ retinyl palmitate (which may actually speed development of skin cancer), or fragrance. Some of my family's favorite sunscreen products include:

My Favorite Way to Prevent Food Waste

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Have you heard? Forty percent (40%!!) of food in America gets thrown away. Much of that food is tossed before it ever reaches consumers.

My favorite way to prevent food waste: shop at the farmers market.

One of the very big down sides of industrial agriculture is homogenization. This applies not just to the sharp decline in the number and diversity of varieties grown, but also to the accepted size and appearance of fruits and vegetables. Too large, too small, not spherical or cylindrical enough, slightly blemished. I read once that when citrus is harvested the fruit has to fit within narrow size and shape parameters so that the same quantity will fit perfectly together within each box. Those that don't fit correctly are tossed to the side, possibly recovered, possibly not. Many perfectly edible, nutritious, and delicious fruits and vegetables never even make it to stores because they don't fit the aesthetic or utilitarian standard.

The Perks of Being a Regular at the Farmers Market

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No matter what time of day I shop, this farmer gives me the end-of-the-day special.

 Find your local farmers markets here.

I've been shopping at the same small neighborhood farmers market for about four years. Shopping at the farmers market has numerous benefits, from fresher and better tasting produce, to the welcome absence of produce stickers and high fructose corn syrup. Here are some of the perks that I get for being a regular that go above and beyond the regular benefits.

11 Things You Will Not Find at a Farmers Market

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photo credit: Patrick Kuhl

I stepped into a Safeway the other day to pick up a few things for a sick child, and was surprised by the number of organic foods available. That's progress, I think. Still, I could have done without the helium balloons, aisles of candy and toys, and row upon row of packaged foods. My little shopping trip left me with a renewed appreciation for the farmers market.

11 things you will not find at a farmers market

  1. Little plastic stickers on every piece of produce
  2. Foods with tie-ins to popular TV characters
  3. High fructose corn syrup
  4. Magazines with scantily clad photo-shopped women prominently displayed
  5. Cheap toys
  6. Aspartame and other artificial sweeteners
  7. Candy at my kids' eye level in the checkout line
  8. Fluorescent breakfast cereals and yogurt
  9. Bread with more than 20 ingredients
  10. Eggs from caged chickens
  11. Sodium Benzoate and other preservatives

When I shop with my 3 little ones at the farmers market, instead of my kids nagging me for Doritos or Fruit Loops, they beg me for blueberries, dried persimmons, and grapes. If you are trying to switch from food-like substances to real foods, the farmers market is a great place to start! Find your local farmers markets here.

Feel free to pin or otherwise share:
photo credit: Natalie Maynor

What would you add to the list?

Related Posts




Check out these additional posts about real food by Green Sisterhood bloggers:

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Easy Eco-tip Tuesday: Shop at Your Local Farmers Market

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Find your local farmers market here.

Today's Easy Eco-tip:

Shop locally and in season without even trying by shopping at your local farmers market.

Consider bringing a neighbor with you or just telling a friend about your incredible purchases. You won't have to deliberate about whether you should buy those organic apples grown in Chile because they simply aren't available. Also not available: sugar cereals and packaged snacks with fifty ingredients. When you are shopping at the farmers market, anything your children beg you to buy, you'll probably feel pretty good about buying.

In addition to taking all the calculation and mental effort out of shopping locally and seasonally, the farmers market makes it super easy to reduce the amount of food you buy in disposable plastic packaging. Huge bonus: no little stickers on your produce!

If you're still buying most of your produce at the grocery store, I strongly suggest you find your local market and check it out, especially now while it's summer. Right now our local markets are bursting with stone fruit and berries and tomatoes. Last week I bought my first grapes of the season. Yum!

If you are a farmers market veteran, consider spreading the word. I always like to tell acquaintances new to our area about our incredible farmers markets. Many folks don't even know that they exist. I like to tell people how much I like meeting the farmers, how much my kids enjoy the samples, how fresh and tasty everything is. Even folks who don't consider themselves "greenies" can appreciate the benefits of the farmers market.




Related Posts
Getting the Most Out of Your Farmers Market
My Love Affair with the Farmers' Market
How I Shop for Food
Everything I Know About the Farmers Market


Do you shop regularly at a farmers market? Why or why not?

Why I No Longer Pay Much Attention to EWG's Dirty Dozen™

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Last Saturday my entire family was out and about doing errands in an unfamiliar part of town when we passed a farmers market. We made a note of it and on the way home stopped there for lunch and groceries. We were so glad we did.

This market was much larger than the farmers markets closer to my home that I usually frequent. While it was tougher to keep track of my kids (I was very glad my husband was with me), there was plenty to love among the aisles and aisles of vendors. In addition to tons of beautiful produce, there was honey and freshly squeezed juices, tamales and hummus, natural meats and fresh fish, flowers and potted plants, bread and pastries. There were eggs, $6 for 30 ($2.40 a dozen, about half of what I normally pay). I bought 60. When we passed a musician playing a James Taylor-esque version of "Up on the Roof," one of my 5yo's favorite songs, my son looked at me and immediately put his hand out for a dollar to put in the hat. It was like we were meant to be there.

Everything I Know About the Farmers Market

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Do you enjoy taking your kids shopping with you?

Today is my last day posting over on Dr. Greene's blog. I'm posting about why I take my kids to the farmers market with me, and how to make the experience of shopping at the farmers market with children more enjoyable. Click here to read and comment on my post Take Your Kids.

In case you missed one, here are all five of my posts on Dr. Greene's blog about Getting the Most Out of Your Farmers Market:
In other news, the Safe Chemicals Act has passed Committee, the first official action to address toxic chemicals in 36 years! But there is still a long ways to go to get the law passed. Stay tuned for opportunities to contact your representatives and make your voice heard. I also recommend subscribing to the email list for Safer Chemicals Healthy Families (coalition to pass Safe Chemicals Act) -- that's where I get my info!

Just a few more days to enter the giveaway for Plastic-free Beth's awesome new book: Plastic Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too. Click here to enter the giveaway.

Have a great weekend!

Getting the Most Out of Your Farmer’s Market

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I love shopping at the farmer's market! In fact, the farmer's market is the only place I shop for food on a weekly basis. I buy most of my produce there. Looking for a farmer's market in your area? Check localharvest.org.


Shopping at the Farmer's Market: Eco-novice's Top Ten Tips

Shop at the right time of day. If you want the best prices, go shortly before the close of the market, when farmers are often willing to haggle, especially if you buy a large amount. If you want the best selection, go in the morning. Which brings me to my next point...

Find out what time the market really opens. Officially, my farmer's market opens at 9 am and closes at 1 pm each Saturday. After shopping there for nearly a year, I found out that almost all the farmers showed up by 7 am in the summer, and 8 am in the winter. Before I figured this out, by the time I showed up at 9 am or 10 am, farmers were often out of items they had in limited quantity. Now I go at 8 am, especially if raspberries are in season.


How I Shop for Food

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A week's worth of produce from the farmers market

First you should know that one of my principal aims in life, now that I have three little ones, is to never set foot in a real store. I never loved shopping, and now with kids, I find that I really don't like it.  You should also know that I am willing to spend a significant amount of money on food. Maybe not more than the average household of five, since we rarely eat out, consume little meat, cook many things from scratch, and do other things that help lower our food bill.  But we try to eat mostly local organic foods, which can be expensive.

I aim to purchase most of our groceries from local organic farmers for a number of reasons: to provide my family with delicious fresh foods; to avoid eating weird things; to promote animal welfare and environmental health; to prevent the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria; and to support my local food economy. But I'm not a purist. While some items are non-negotiable for me (I will not buy conventional beef or eggs), about other things I am flexible. I'll occasionally buy a conventional watermelon since it's on EWG's Clean Fifteen; I still buy South American bananas even though I enjoy an abundance of local produce here in Northern California; and I sometimes purchase conventional animal products (buttermilk, ice cream, drumsticks) as long as they don't contain any growth hormones. I avoid GMOs (and would like to see them labeled) but don't agonize over them. My shopping priorities change as I learn more, but they are also subject to cost, convenience, and whim. If you are on a tight budget, I think the best thing you can do is cook more at home and learn to garden.

This is how I currently shop for food.

Green Phone Booth: Tomatoes

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The first week I saw tomatoes at the farmers' market, I bought 10 pounds of them.  After I came to terms with the fact that this might have been a little excessive, I started looking into easy and fast ways to preserve most of them, but then we ended up eating them all.  Read about some favorite ways we consumed them in my post this week at Green Phone Booth: Tomatoes Three Ways.  I'd love to hear your favorite way to enjoy fresh tomatoes in the comments -- pop on over and leave one!

Green Moms Carnival: Food Preservation

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Well, folks, I'm back from my unplanned blogging hiatus.  Everything is fine here -- no tragedies or major crises.  Just everyday life with small children, as well as hot days with no a/c and some hip pain that make sitting in front of the computer highly unattractive.

July's Green Moms Carnival is all about food preservation.  Food preservation is something I really want to attempt this summer and fall.  I wanted to try freezer jam and write about it for the carnival, but haven't managed to do it yet, so instead my food preservation is limited to freezing baked goods:

My Love Affair with the Farmers' Market

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What I purchased last Saturday at my local farmers' market:
strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, plums,  red onions, green onions, cilantro,
baby greens, and baby spinach (plus the tomatoes pictured below) -- all organic ($40).

If you have a garden, congratulations.  Seriously, I admire and envy you.  I would love to have a large, gorgeous garden full of herbs, tomatoes, zucchini, onions, carrots, peppers, lettuce as well as several fruit trees in my backyard, but that seems to be a few years into my future.  I do have a short-term goal of planting something.

My favorite summer salad: organic spinach and strawberries
from my farmers' market plus toasted walnuts and parmesan cheese.

But while I don't have my own garden, I do have the farmers' market.  Right now with strawberries in season we are loving our whole grain pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream (see this post for details).  I am also now making lots of my favorite summer salad: spinach, sliced strawberries, toasted walnuts, and freshly grated parmesan cheese with red wine vinegar dressing (see photo above).  I buy the organic spinach and organic strawberries at my farmers' market every week, and can get organic walnuts through my CSA.  Now that tomatoes are in season, I will be eating tomatoes on and in everything, including in the delicious caprese salad (slices of tomatoes layered with slices of fresh mozzarella and basil leaves, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar with a little freshly grated salt and pepper).

There are so many benefits that come from this direct producer-to-consumer arrangement.  Here are some of the things I love most about the farmers' market.  

Things I Avoid Eating

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image credit: Adam Fields


Here are some things I like to avoid eating:
  1. Synthetic hormones (found in conventional meat and dairy products)
  2. Antibiotics (found in conventional meat and dairy products)
  3. Dioxins, PCBs, PBDEs, DDT and other environmental pollutants (found in fatty animal products)
  4. Mercury (mainly fish high in the food chain)
  5. E. Coli, Salmonella, etc. (a possibility with any meat or produce)
  6. Pesticides (conventional produce)
  7. Genetically modified organisms/ GMOs (nearly all processed foods, and many other conventional food products such as corn and oil)
  8. Food additives (non-food ingredients added to packaged and processed foods) including: artificial colors, artificial flavors, artificial sweeteners, preservatives
  9. Imitation food/ manufactured food substitutes: margarine, high-fructose corn syrup
  10. Plastic

Kids and Nature

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Hiking near our home.

Particularly if you live in an urban setting, keeping kids (and yourself) connected to nature can be a real challenge.  I recently read an article about how this generation of children is the first ever that will spend more time playing inside than outside.  Although I didn't spend my childhood wandering through forests or wild meadows, I did spend a whole lot of time outside playing tag, climbing trees, wandering through empty lots, and looking under rocks for bugs.

Eat Less Plastic

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Recent findings about plastics:
  • Lest you feel content to simply avoid BPA and phthalates (both hormone disruptors and long-suspected of toxicity to humans, particularly fetuses and children), another recent study found: 

Rainy Day Steals at the Farmer's Market

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This is what $21.50 worth of organic produce 
from the farmer's market looks like on a rainy day.
 
I always love shopping at my local farmer's market.  But I especially love shopping at the farmer's market on a rainy day.  I try to never miss the chance.  I feel bad for the farmers, I really do.  But boy am I happy to take that fresh produce off their hands for a few bucks.  And at least all of my money is going directly to the farmer.

Do I Need to Become Vegan to Live Plastic-Free?

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As I did my grocery shopping this week, I realized how much plastic packaging is involved in the selling of animal products.  My raw meat comes on a styrofoam tray and shrink-wrapped plastic.  My deli meat comes in a plastic bag.  My yogurt comes in plastic cartons.  My milk comes in plastic jugs.  My blocks of cheese come shrink-wrapped in plastic too.  My buttermilk is in a plastic-lined Tetra-pak container.  At least my butter is plastic-free (I think).  Even if I were vegan, it would be difficult to eat entirely plastic-free, but unless you raise your own livestock, I think it is well nigh unto impossible to live plastic-free while eating meat and cheese.

My Plastic-Filled Week

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Well, I knew my week wasn't going to be Plastic Free.  That's why I also like my alternate title: Plastic Awareness February.  Makes me feel less bad about myself.  Here is the rundown of my week.



Saturday: Farmer's Market
There are only 2 organic vendors at my Farmer's Market.  One sells several things already bagged in plastic.  I buy the baby lettuce and spinach in the plastic bags, but decide not to get the bagged mushrooms.  He also has unbagged mushrooms, but I don't have enough bags to get the variety I want.  Everything else I buy I put in my own reusable mesh and cotton produce bags.  Next week I will bring even more bags so I can buy 3 different varieties of mushrooms for my farfalle with mushrooms and peas.  I could ask the vendor about bringing some non-plastic greens, but I don't feel like bugging them to do this when I have plenty of other ways to eliminate plastic in my food that don't inconvenience others.

Some Thoughts on Cost (The Cost of Going Green, Part 3)

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This post is the third in the series, The Cost of Going Green.  
Previous posts include:
How we eat determines how the earth is used. -- Wendell Berry 

In many cases, going green is totally compatible with being frugal.  Our consumerist culture has gotten us into a lot of trouble with chemicals and climate, and you can take a large step in a greener direction simply by buying less.

But sometimes being green does cost more money.  For example, organic and natural food usually cost more money than conventional food.  And it can be tough to pay more for the organic milk, when you know exactly how much the conventional milk costs, because it's right there next to the organic milk on the shelf.  And since we have to buy food over and over again, we face this decision -- Should I pay more for the organic apple, the hormone-free milk, the grass-fed beef, the free-range eggs? -- over and over again.

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