about being a sugar cop

We are navigating a difficult food world, fraught with so much misinformation and downright inaccuracies. Just think of the cholesterol and fat myths that caused the egg white omelet and "lite" fat syndromes, and that were proven wrong in the end. Especially as mothers, in charge of food and the health and wellbeing of our families, it's like stepping through a minefield these days. And even though we want the healthiest foods for our families we have to police within reason without becoming rigid fundamentalists about it.

Many teens in this country develop a dysfunctional relationship with alcohol, because the culture is too fundamental about it - no alcohol, none, until you are 21. Of course this forbidden fruit becomes super desirable, and college binge drinking is a real problem. When I grew up in France kids would get a drop of red wine into their water with dinner, and the older the children became the pinker the wine would become - more drops of wine were added. There the children are brought up to drink responsibly and in moderation within the family environment, no need for binge drinking.

In my wider circle of acquaintances there are some sugar cops. Granted that sugar is unhealthy in large quantities (like anything in excess), that we have a diabetes epidemy in this country, that many are literally addicted to sugar. No wonder. Big Food has put sugar into just about everything and the sugar lobbies are going strong. I find most American dessert recipes (cookies, cakes, puddings, ice cream) too sweet and cut the sugar amount by about 1/3. I also find that many breads have sugar in them (sugar in bread, say what?), that bottled salad dressings are really sugary (just use oil and vinegar), and that the super sweet corn tastes like candy (yuk).

It's just that abstinence and prohibition always seem to achieve the exact opposite of what we are aiming for. Yes, I used to skim from my kids' Halloween bags, every day a bit, so it wouldn't be so noticeable, to reduce the pile. Yet, I wouldn't make them throw it all in the trash or donate it to the local dentist (who would in turn donate it to overseas troops - why should they eat the poison?). They were allowed to eat it (some), although for Easter and St. Nicholas they get good dark chocolate instead of candy.   I used to allow each of my kids to choose one of those colorful sugary mainstream cereals once a year, and take them to a fast food place just before school starts in the fall.

So we learn by comparison. It's just as important to experience the opposite in order to crystalize out the healthy choices. If your thinking is balanced and makes sense, if you model "good behavior" (and don't sneak a candy bar when you think they are not looking, or drink excessively at a party in plain sight) your children will get your arguments about healthy and balanced choices. Then you'll come out on top and so will they.

feel your body, understand your food

Have you ever gotten up from the table and felt sluggish and stuffed, and perhaps even lethargic after a meal? Has it happened that you've eaten something and then felt your stomach acting up an hour or so later? On the other hand, have you noticed that certain foods energize you, that your stomach feels light after eating them, yet satisfied?   I always yearn for lots of greens, raw or sautéd, and my stomach feels light after I eat them. When I eat meat in larger quantities, on the other hand, my stomach feels heavy and full. My husband says that cheese and wheat clog him up.  

You can learn to tune in to your body and understand which foods are beneficial for your particular digestive system. Science wished there were a one-kind-fits-all diet.  But that is just not so. Nature is complex, and we are complex.Think of extreme diets like that of the Masaai in Africa (beef, blood, milk) or the Inuit diet that consists mostly of fish and other marine protein. These peoples' stomachs would rebel if prescribed the Mediterranean Diet.  Yet, the Mediterranean Diet has been touted as the world's healthiest. I like it very much, but I come from Northern Europe and rye bread, sauerkraut, and butter all work well for my system, too.   Or how about the raw food diet (just another craze, we do need a balanced mix of raw and cooked foods), or the Paleo Diet, which often has been misconstrued to contain lots of meat (hunter-gatherers ate little meat and only perennial plants since there was no agriculture yet, ergo no annual grains).  And let's not forget veganism (beware - especially in childhood and adolescence we need protein to develop the brain).

It helps to understand your ethnic heritage, which can be a bit of challenge in this country when your heritage is something exotic like Irish-Italian, or Japanese-Spanish. Our digestive systems tune into the plants and animals in our particular geographic area over hundreds and even thousands of years. They even claim that our digestive systems haven't yet fully adapted to the annual grains our agriculture of the past 10,000 years has brought forth.

So lean in to your body, tune in, learn to read your digestive system's signals, - good and bad -, and let them tell you a story of what works for you, what makes you feel good, what energizes you.

when to sow and harvest

While native inhabitants, intimately knowledgeable with their local soil and weather conditions, have oftentimes known to plant in harmony with the lunar cycles (see more info here), Maria Thun, a leading authority on biodynamic agriculture, took this idea one step further. She did extensive research on the planetary influences on all produce growing phases.

Biodynamics (see here a previous blog posts on biodynamics) has often been criticized by skeptics. However, as it is dawning on us that the agriculture we have been practicing for the last 50 or so years may be doing more damage than good on a long-term basis, all kinds of alternative models are being resurrected and researched. These models all require a deep knowledge of local conditions - weather, soil, and native plant combinations.  So it behooves us to be open to all kinds of old and new, gentle and cocreative ways to grow out food.

So back to where I'm headed, which is a more connected way to grow your veggies and when. Based on her research, Maria Thun came to the conclusion that different planetary phases influence the growth of plants in different ways. Based on her research she came up with optimal timings for sowing certain types of plants, depending on whether they are root based (i.e. beets, carrots), leaf based (i.e. kale, spinach), fruit based (i.e. tomatoes, eggplant), or flower based (i.e. marigolds) and harvesting.

You can buy the annual illustrated biodynamic Stella Natura calendar, which has many interesting articles and is easy to read and use, but a very consumer friendly version is also available online at rhythmofnature.net (see blog illustration on top).

It has been demonstrated that produce sown into healthy rich soil and sown according to this calendar makes for a much stronger and more resistant plant (I would still recommend buying organic heirloom seeds, though) and a more prolific harvest.

Give it a try.

the whole kit and caboodle

Two recent articles made me aware of a truer meaning of sustainable agriculture and where we need to go next in our farm-to-table awareness.

The first one was about the enormous waste in the EU (and likely in the US as well) created by discarding produce that doesn't look perfect even though it is in good condition and tastes just like its more conformist looking counterparts. A young Portuguese woman started a produce cooperative named Fruta Feia or Ugly Fruit to market and sell such imperfect produce at 20%-30% less.

The other article was from chef Dan Barber on widening the premise of sustainable agriculture and including in our food choices also those crops that are typically used as cover crops to replenish the soil.  Soybeans, kidney beans or cowpeas (used as animal feed) are typical nitrogen replenishers for the soil. But Barber was talking about a much more sophisticated and complex crop rotation that is needed to keep the soil fertile and full of minerals, which guarantees not only superior taste but also mineral and trace element rich foods (less supplements you'll need to take). Such other crops might include rye, barley, or buckwheat, all little used in this country because less marketed and less known.

Sustainability, in agriculture and elsewhere, is about a wasteless circular process, in which all "waste" becomes a reusable base component for the next process in the circle, thereby eliminating the idea of "waste" altogether.  A sustainable farm would not buy outside fertilizer, seeds, and pest management products, instead using the farm animal manure for fertilizer, using crop rotation, crop variety and inter-planting as main pest control techniques, and saving its seeds from one year to the next.  Being able to sell its cover crops in addition to its "main crops" makes the farm more  viable and eliminates further waste.

The whole idea behind truly sustainable agriculture is to embrace every part of the agricultural process, the whole kit and caboodle, whether it's the little used rye (here in the US at least), the funny looking strawberries, the carrots with a nose or legs, or the lesser known fava beans (I made a fava bean hummus the other day that was as delicious and tasty as a chickpea hummus).

hurry-nights

Even though I cook from scratch, even though I don't buy ready-made meals, I still need to build conveniences and short cuts into my meal planning routines.  And there are definitely those hurry-nights when there isn't much time.  So I have come up with my own "fast foods."  What they really are are building blocks for meals. For one I precook legumes (beans and chickpeas), which I buy in bulk from the food coop, in a large pot and freeze in portion sizes in baggies.  I can take them out in the morning and use them that night to add to a salad or soup, or to use as a side dish.  The advantage to canned legumes is that they are without preservatives or salt.

Frozen organic vegetables are another convenience food.  I usually have spinach, corn, peas and string beans in my freezer.  I can make a spinach pie on the spur of the moment or creamed spinach as a side dish, corn and peas (mixed or alone) can be thrown into a quick soup, into a frittata (together with little potato cubes perhaps), or served as a vegetable.  The thin frozen French style string beans make for a very elegant side dish in a pinch  or when I'm out of fresh vegetables.

Cooking a large pot of stew, chili or soup when you have time, then freezing some in small portions, makes for fast food on a day you don't have time to cook (I just need to remember to thaw it in time).

Some cheeses freeze well.  I keep cheddar, mozzarella and feta cheese in my freezer for impromptu meal making.  There are so many quick uses for grated cheddar, and it makes vegetables under the broiler taste great (think broccoli, potatoes, cauliflower).  The feta is for a quick spinach pie, or if you like a Greek Salad in the summer, and the mozzarella is for homemade pizza or inside an oven baked polenta.

A quick, simple and really satisfying (and gourmet) dinner-in-a-hurry (although I like to savor this one with a glass of red) is a cheese spread with baguette and some freshly cut up fruit (pears, grapes, also the little Persian cucumbers) - literally an instant meal if you have purchased the cheese a few days earlier.

Spaghetti sauce, homemade or store bought, is my next convenience food, which I use as a base for homemade pizza (you can premake pizza dough and freeze it, or buy it ready, or make "instant pizza" on a tortilla or even an English Muffin), and of course a quick pasta dish (throw in some capers and black olives for a super easy Puttanesca sauce).

And my parents freeze their leftovers in small containers, then do a "tapas night" with a table full of small dishes when they don't have time to cook.

That hurry-nights have to mean take-out pizza or Chinese is a myth.  By the time I order pizza or Chinese and pick it up I have already made one of my fast foods (and they are cheaper and healthier for sure).

eat less meat!

How preposterous of me to tell you so?  Not.  Surprisingly, this is a huge environmental issue that goes way beyond the potentially ethical question of killing (they call it harvesting now, to make it sound more harmless) a living being and eating it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a vegetarian.  However, in the Western industrialized world meat consumption has skyrocketed from eating meat once a week or so to just under 200lbs/person/year in the US since the advent of cheap meat!  This enormous meat consumption in combination with the rise in world population and the increasing numbers of people able to afford the cheap meat has become a recipe for disaster.

The environmental calamity arises from "cheap" and "too much."  Why?  Because the CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) that these poor animals are raised in are among the biggest greenhouse gas emitters on this planet - generating about 18% (!!!) of greenhouse gases.  In addition, the huge amounts of animal waste leach antibiotics into our ground water.  And to top it off, the conditions under which these sorry souls are being raised, then killed and processed are so horrendous that it is literally unbelievable (read Jonathan Safran Foer because you must know).

There is nothing necessarily wrong with eating meat per se.  As a matter of fact, especially during childhood and adolescence animal protein helps to grow the brain.   But like with anything balance is the key and industrialized nations have become meat addicted.   Food researcher and author Marion Nestlé has advocated eating meat in condiment quantities.

How can we help?  First and foremost by resisting to buy cheap supermarket meat, which comes from CAFOs.  Instead, buy your meat at or from a local farm where the animals have been raised sustainably.  Yes, it will cost more.  But we ought to consume much less of it!

It's in the quality, not the quantity.

You may also want to revisit a series of three posts on meat eating.

on sauerkraut and kimchi

I love Sauerkraut and Kimchi.  Both are simple and cheap traditional cabbage based fermented foods, the first from northern Europe, the other from Korea.  Fermented foods in general are enormously healthy because they replenish your gut system with beneficial bacteria - and a healthy gut is prerequisite for a strong immune system (see an earlier post on fermented foods). While you can easily buy them both, beware of Sauerkraut (and pickles, for that matter) made with vinegar or the cooked canned version, and Kimchi with MSG (must read the labels!).   Sauerkraut and pickles in vinegar are not fermented and therefore do not have the beneficial bacteria we so need!  The sour taste of inauthentic mainstream Sauerkraut (or pickles) comes from the vinegar used for ease of manufacturing in an industrialized process.  And MSG is definitely not something you would want to eat - follow the link for more information if you don't know already.

So why not make both yourself?  It is so easy, quick, satisfying and fun (the pounding part of Sauerkraut especially).   I save large wide-mouth glass jars for storing them.

Sally Fallon's Sauerkraut has exactly three ingredients (cabbage, salt, whey), or four if you like caraway seeds in it.  I am a purist and prefer it without.  Saveur magazine dedicated a whole issue to Kimchi a few years ago since you can make Kimchi (like pickles) with just about any vegetable, and you can become more or less sophisticated with your ingredients.  But start nice and simple (follow the link to an easy recipe) and see whether you like the process and the result.

To the good bacteria!

local food relationships

In other parts of the world, whether Europe, Asia, South America or Africa, farmers' markets that sell fresh fruits and vegetables, but also meat, dairy, bread, spices and condiments (and kitchen utensils, clothing, and what not) year round, are nothing unusual.  Our local market in Paris, where I grew up, was held three times a week, as is Union Square Market in Manhattan.  Here in the US farmers' markets are relatively new, as is the entire foodie movement in general, and markets are mostly held once a week during the growing season.  Yet, the whole food movement has taken root quickly and with a vengeance.  People now love to know where their food comes from. Beyond the farmer's market a CSA (community supported agriculture), basically a subscription to a portion of the farmer's harvest, is a great way to get to know your local farmers, invest into their crop for the season and reap the benefits.  While produce CSAs are the most common, some CSAs also offer flowers, fruit, honey, eggs, even meat.  A few farms in the immediate area that do CSAs are Rogowski Farm, High Breeze Farm and Bialas Farms, to mention just a few.

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I buy as much as I can locally.  Many of our eggs come from a friend who has chickens and sells her surplus during the warm season, but also from High Breeze Farm (although they run out of eggs so quickly I can't get there fast enough much of the time).  Honey I buy in 5lb jars from a local potato and onion farmer who is also a beekeeper.  Some of my meat comes from a young professional couple who started raising their own chickens and hogs at their farm Hickory Field a few years ago to assure high quality meat, and who dream of making a living at it in the future.  I get beef, some pork, as well as maple syrup from High Breeze Farm, and raw milk from Freedom Hill Farm.  And until recently we even had our very own cheese maker in the area, Bobolink Dairy, who unfortunately moved away.

Then there are farm-to-table restaurants, which are either farms that also run a restaurant (in our direct area Rogowski's once-a-month Field to Fork Gourmet Supper Club comes to mind), or a restaurant that grows its own produce, and even its own meat, such as the Stone Barns research center in Tarrytown, NY with its fabulous Blue Hill at Stone Barns restaurant.

And if all of that does not get you in touch intimately enough with your local farmers now there are entire communities built and centered around a working farm, called agrihoods, as the NY Times reported.

Of course there is still your local seasonal farm stand for spur-of-the moment drive-by buying if you don't want to commit to a CSA for the season.  But if you would like to try a CSA now, in early spring, is the perfect time to scout out your local farms and find out who offers what.

locavorism

Perhaps you have heard about the term locavorism, buying your groceries from within a 50 miles radius of where you live and in season in order to cut down on your carbon footprint (another one of those "green" terms).   Buying produce locally is a challenge when you live where the growing season stops for several months (more on that in Barbara Kingsolver's delectable book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle). What I have been able to buy locally year round for years now are honey, eggs, milk and meat.  So many people in our area are keeping chickens that I am able to buy my eggs from a friend down the road and a nearby farm.

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Same for honey (when we are not keeping bees, which is a whole other story).  I get it in 5lb jars from a local beekeeper, who processes it minimally.  With all the well publicized bee problems his bees have remained healthy without much interference and "bee management."  We use a lot of honey as a substitute for sugar - in the hot chocolate I make for the kids in the morning, in cooking and baking, also drizzled over yogurt, pancakes, fruit salad or ice cream. 

Our raw milk comes from one of the two approved farms in our county.  Several families have gotten together and we take turns picking the milk up each week for the group.

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Finally, the meat - I buy almost all our meat in bulk from two local farmers and keep it in our large chest freezer in the basement. 

Bulk purchases require different storage strategies than weekly small scale supermarket shopping - you need pantry and freezer space.  It also requires a cash outlay.  In addition, I had to learn to plan ahead.  My chicken farmer for example asks me in the spring how many chickens I want to pick up in June to last me through the summer, and they ask me in June how many I would like in September to last me through the spring.  With regard to the milk I drop my empty jars off each week for the following week's order, so I have to plan a week ahead for the family's milk needs (it doesn't always work out if I decide to make ice cream or panna cotta or something else that requires lots of milk).

Something to consider.  Also look at a previous post on bulk produce shopping.

spice up your life

Spices have healing powers besides making food so much more interesting.  During the Middle Ages, when spices first made it to Europe from the spice islands, they were rare, exotic, cherished and very expensive.  Thus they were surrounded by an aura of far-away-lands and saved for special occasions. It's been said that people who like hot and spicy foods have a zest for life, and that people who prefer bland foods prefer a more unexciting life.  The Indian cuisine has perfected the use of spices and developed world famous spice mixtures such as curry and garam masala.  The North African spice mixture harissa is another example of a widely known spice mixture.  Usually each cook blends her own so that no two curry or harissa mixtures are alike.

Spices such as cinnamon, cloves, cumin, especially in combination with garlic and onions, also all chili powders, are known to kill bacteria and are commonly eaten in warm climates to safeguard against the possibility of potentially slightly spoiled foods.  In Indian cuisine the spices are sautéed in oil or ghee to develop their flavors before vegetables or meats are added.

I buy spices in bulk, 1lb bags of organic spices from the food coop, and keep surplus in the freezer or share it with other coop members.  Why not spice up your life?