Real Food Movement

[big brown horse]

I just met with a woman who runs a successful high school garden, in very urban inner city neighborhood. We are trying to put together some cooking classes to kind of take the food from the soil to the plate so to speak.

She tells me that the students who choose to work the garden are very open to eating new foods grown there. The students who are using the garden for their mandatory internship, refuse to try anything new.

It is all in the mindset, that is where we need a shift. While it helps to see Emeril Lagasse talk about grass fed beef, we need more than that....we need it now and from every angle possible. Michelle Obama did a great thing by starting a garden now we need more schools to start gardens and offer classes in food and nutrition to families. We need more farmers markets, easier to locate local meats and cheeses, and on and on and on.

I feel sort of like it is an huge uphill battle right now, I think we are making progress but there is a huge battle in front of us. When 2 cheese burgers are cheaper than a pound of broccoli ( ) we have a long way to go.

Hey Dace, our high school kids also have a garden and a green house. They have plant sales for fund raisers. It is so wonderful!

When I taught Montessori school, gardening was a requirement in my classroom. Parents were always encouraged to show up at any time to help out.

I learned about gardening when I was a kid. My mom had about 1/3 of an acre dedicated to her veggie garden. (Being from S. TX she also grew nuts and fruit (pecans, persimmons, lemons, limes, loquats, pears and peaches). We were required to work in the garden and encouraged to just go out there and snack too. I ate tons of raw corn, sweet onions (I was a strange kid ) parsley (love parsley!), okra (great raw) and tomatoes etc. right out of the garden. We had so much she sold the leftovers (along with frarm fresh eggs) in her Antique shop.

My garden is not so big (yet) but my own daughter has her very own section that she planned, planted and tends all by herself. (I even gave a section to her friend who is on "section 8". She took home every potato that she grew!!)

START 'EM YOUNG!! I say

Freemotion says:

If each of us were to educate as many people in our circle as we can, patiently and repeatedly, we could make a significant difference.

When I first got my chickens for the purpose of having access to fresh, healthy, beyond organic and cruelty-free pastured eggs (lots of adjectives, there, and not even enough to do justice!) I had some brief difficulty in getting rid of the excess. I sent out a series of e-mails, each with a bit of information as to why we need to look at our food source. My list of people who wanted my eggs shot up to 17, and I only had 2-3 dozen a week to sell.

We NEED to do this or there will be no resources left for us. No seed catalogs, no wheat berries for grinding, no spices for cooking. The availability of even basic cooking and baking (from scratch) supplies is disappearing at an alarming rate.
Been to Whole Foods lately? It is ridiculous! I could not find soft white wheat berries, Celtic salt, or half the herbs on my list. No tamari. The goat cheese in the case had SOY OIL in it!!! No sprouting seeds. The list goes on. WHOLE FOODS!!! Sheesh!

Create demand, create markets.

And I say AMEN SISTA!


Drake and I are still trying to figure out a way to have that "seed sit-in" she mentioned on the Monsanto thread. We will get back to you on that.

 

[lorihadams]

well, alrighty then, I stand corrected....

My point was that our diet has contributed to the rise in lots of diseases that weren't as prevalent as they are today.

 

[inchworm]

I was channel surfing this morning and caught a bit of a "news segment" espousing the benefits of eating whole milk, butter, eggs, and natural oils (think it was Fox). I think there is a growing undercurrent of people rethinking commercial food. I think things will come around in the next few years and we'll see more real food available.

 

[hwillm1977]

I watched a fabulous show called 'My Big Fat Diet'... it was a documentary about a native community in British Columbia that had agreed to switch their eating habits from the deep-fried, carb heavy crap they were eating to a more traditional diet... what they would have been eating before the influence of europeans.

High fat, greens, fish, and nuts... almost the entire town (96 people) ate like that for a year. By the end of the year they had lost more than a ton, at the beginning almost 50% had diabetes and after a year no one was taking diabetes medication anymore...

It was really interesting to watch

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

did anyone catch the ABC world news last nite? they had a segment on how the US Iron Chef team 'battled' against the white house chef and they had to use ingredients from the white house garden!

i dont have cable so i'm sure others saw the show - i'm going to look for it online. i thought it was a great idea!

all the cele-chef commented on fresh, grow your own food! just what the kind of good PR we need to get folks out in the garden!

i was really encouraged by it - even if i dont like bobby flay
;-)

 

[big brown horse]

I saw that Iron Chef episode. It was very cool. They actually picked veggies out of the white house garden to use for the show....AND they only used locally raised meats and cheeses.

Great idea!! Lots of folks watch Iron Chef.

 

[Wifezilla]

I watched a fabulous show called 'My Big Fat Diet'

Dr. Jay is awesome

 

[1stepcloser]

I watched a fabulous show called 'My Big Fat Diet'

Dr. Jay is awesome

Oooh! Thanks! I found it online and watched today. Uber interesting!

 

[abifae]

*

 

[onebuggirl]

I was channel surfing this morning and caught a bit of a "news segment" espousing the benefits of eating whole milk, butter, eggs, and natural oils (think it was Fox). I think there is a growing undercurrent of people rethinking commercial food. I think things will come around in the next few years and we'll see more real food available.

As stated before too, if we keep spreading our message we maybe able to turn the tide. The sqeaky wheel gets the oil. I am working on educating people (family & friends) about raw milk, real foods and trying to expose the gross truth about processed foods. The BIG battle will be those lobbiests and the Big corporations who will have the $ to sue and shut us up...or make us go more underground than we all ready are.