Nutrition Smarts

To those of you that read my blog and don't have kids -or maybe have a squeamish tummy- I apologize for yesterday's post. But that's life with kids. That's my life with kids. Two things this blog is about. I'm happy to say that I think the worst is over and thanks to those that sent well wishes. All of this brings me to a subject I've been dealing with for many years, even before kids.

Food.

It's such a vital, integral part of our short time surviving on this big ball and something highly neglected. There are many sides to the food debate, meat or no meat, animal products or not, organic or doesn't matter, farm raised or styrofoam packed. I don't have an answer to what you should do. I can only work towards what is good for us, what we feel comfortable and secure doing. Be it eat meat or not, or any of the other questions being posed at the time.

Back in my youth I was a vegetarian for about six years. It initially started as a "fuck you" to my mom, just one more teenaged thing I could do to piss her off. My family ate meat daily. Sometimes multiple times a day. Sometimes for every meal. I didn't like it. I was forced to eat it if I didn't want to. Made to sit at the table until all the grisly pieces were ingested. But, not truly knowing what vegetarianism was, how to do it or having a very valid reason for doing it to begin with, I was a very bad vegetarian.

I ate carbs and nothing else, really. I hated onions, peppers, squash. I despised celery, lettuce and eggplant. Nary a mushroom would pass these lips! Then I got pregnant and my body screamed for MEAT! So my carnivorous days began again. But I was a bad carnivore too.

Fast food, processed meats loaded with salts and "flavorings", adding meat to dishes just because it had a slot on the pyramid. I didn't know what I was doing was wrong. TV, billboards, media as a whole, bogged me down with false promises of healthy eating for me and my kids with very little thought towards what it was exactly we were ingesting. I'm slowly pulling myself out of the fray, slowly trying to find my balance.

Over the past year or more I've been trying to find a balance in my life as a whole. Where new meets old. Where technology has a place right next to old fashioned. A peaceful marriage between parts of my world that have fallen out of sync. Food is a huge portion of that. It gives me the energy to persue the things I want, to keep us from being sick or better able to fight illness. Over the weekend we ate crappy food. Fast, easy and loaded with garbage -one meal would probably not ever decompose. I felt sick after eating it too after so long away from food I used to eat multiple times a week. No wonder we fell ill to whatever we picked up! If our food makes us sick how could we prevent true illness?

Living in the city gives us lots of options but it also limits them too. There aren't a wide variety of suburban farms at the ready to sell us the freshest food we could get. Though there is a plethora of restaraunts at the ready to serve us a quick dish. It's a major reason I want to be a farmer and to move into the country. So I can walk out my door, head over to a cow I raised from a babe, that's been free feeding in our clover and relieve her of some milk. Then to the chickens for a few eggs, the garden or greenhouse for a pepper and tomato and a few leaves of basil. Gives "vine ripe" a completely new meaning. And while I'm scrambling up that breakfast for my bairn, I know every ingredient has been created under the best circumstances, using the best available methods and can't really get any fresher. I can't get that kind of guarantee from the grocery store. I can't get that kind of satisfaction out of my life if I just went shopping for it.

So, for today I'll try to do my best with what I have. I might not do it right all the time but I'm trying. Trying to create nourishing food for my family that might not be "convienient", might not be the easiest, but are the best I can give.

Heavy Hitters

I've been posting a lot about food lately. It's on my mind at least three times a day. Almost as often as changing diapers. (Actually probably moreso since I like it a whole lot better.) I've also been trying to work off a meal plan and cook more from scratch. While changing a baby diaper takes about a minute, cooking takes up a few hours, therefore ingraining into my mind and apparently spilling over to the blog.

As you can see from my popcorn and tuna casserole posts, we've integrated Nutritional Yeast into some of our food. It's been a complete hit and super easy to incorporate. It's easier than pureeing veggies to stick into other stuff so the kids won't know they're eating them. My kids actually like it and ask for it. Magic.

Next in line is Flax and Wheat Germ. Two seriously heavy hitters in the nutrition department. They're also fairly cheap, too. I picked up the Flax for just under $2 a pound at Whole Foods. During the same trip got Raw Wheat Germ for just over $2 for a fair sized bag. It was actually cheaper than the toasted. I opted for Raw for a few reasons;
1. because it was cheaper
2. because it has less flavor and therefore can be added to more things unnoticed
3. the raw version retains more nutrients than it's cooked brother.
4. because it was cheaper

I'm keeping the flax whole until it's needed but I've already used it in a pie crust recipe. I've added the Germ to pumpkin muffins, apple pie, yogurt and cereal. I'm not a nutritionist though so I can't say how many x per x we're getting in each serving. I'm keeping them in glass jars with an O2 absorber in the fridge to extend life.

The kids don't mind it. I think part of that is not making a big deal over it. I bet if I had gone to them and told them what was in or on their food they'd revolt. That's what kids do with stuff that's good for them. Actually, adults do that too...

Anyway, this is basically how the conversation goes:

Various kid "Mom what's all this brown stuff on my yogurt?
Me "Wheat Germ. Eat it."
VK "Wheat Germ??!"
Me "Not like real germs. It's special sprinkles. Eat it."
VK "I don't think I like that."
Me "Did you try it? I didn't think so. Eat it."
VK "Hey, this is really good!"

There you go. I omitted terms like "healthy" "good for you" "make you strong" etc. However you choose to word it, I think adding these two guys to your diet is a simple, inexpensive good nutritional move.

Green Green Beans

I picked up some locally grown green beans for .99 a lb. While these aren't certified organic they are grown without pesticides or herbicides and in Organic soils. It helps to get friendly with your neighborhood farmers market as these details sometimes aren't advertised. I ended up with about 4lbs of beans. I followed these directions for freezing green beans


http://www.ehow.com/how_2326482_freeze-fresh-green-beans.html

I did about half the beans to start and froze them whole in 1qt freezer bags after snapping off the ends. This will be either additions to soups or sides for meals for all of us. The other half I blanched and pureed up for baby food for my munchkin. Even if I over do the quantity on these (I'm sure I'll end up with A LOT of puree!) I can add them to other pureed foods like chicken and potatoes or even pasta sauces and casseroles.


After blanching I added these to my food processor and pureed the heck out of them. Green Beans are stringier and coarser than the squash we blended up in the other post. I still added water in small increments to the beans as they pureed but blended them for about double the time. They are still more coarse but will be palatable for my wee one.

I used a mini muffin pan and a cookie scooper to dole out approximate portions. I stuck this in the freezer for about half an hour then added them to a plastic zippy freezer bag that I labeled with the contents and dated.

Here are the green bean pucks

It helps if you have small helpers snapping the ends off the beans. After they sifted through the discards for bean seeds which we'll try and sprout to grow our own.