Jerod and I have moved to Iowa and are slowly settled in. That warrants a MUCH longer update with pictures ( I promise they will come!) but right now, I have something else on my mind. And this is a bit of a diversion from my typical menu mondays.
Last year, at some point there was a lot of talk in our growth group (i.e. small group bible study) about “kingdom” economics – we talked about fair trade, organic, local, natural, etc etc. All of these are very IN concepts right now, especially if you’re anywhere near a college. I wasn’t part of all of the conversations, but it’s pretty difficult to live in the Happy Valley and not encounter a “Be a Local Hero, Buy Locally Grown” bumper sticker at least once a day. It was definitely something I thought about, but didn’t actively pursue. Mostly for lack of time to really do the research I wanted. I was a bit hesitant and skeptical of some of the things I’d heard about organic foods and products. And I didn’t understand all the fuss about High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFC).
I’m finally finally looking into things. A few things sparked this….
One: fresh vegetables and herbs are SO much better. Jerod had a small garden and I always loved fresh picked tomatoes and peppers, fresh mint and chives. Mmmmm, yummy. So, we (actually, it was Kristen) started our own garden. Delicious. If you don’t garden, you should. It’s worth the time and effort to just walk into your back yard and grab a nice ripe cherry tomato for a snack. If you don’t garden, find a farmers market and go visit the farm – find out what sort of practices they use. Eventually I want to do this.
Second: Fair trade. This wasn’t a huge thing for me – it seems that the hot button products for fair trade are coffee and tea, neither of which I consume. Sometimes I’d have tea, which Jerod would supply. So, honestly, this wasn’t a huge factor, but I’m still wanting to look into it.
Three: My roommate Jess and her quest to buy locally grown EVERYTHING. I think this was inspired by a book called Plenty about reducing the radius your food has to travel. The average ingredients in one meal travel something like 1000 miles to get to your dinner plate (apparently). If you get oranges from florida, apples from chile (which I did yesterday, unbeknownst to me), beef from Colorado, herbs from Iowa, milk from the local dairy – yup, it adds up fast.
Four: Organic/artificial fragrances. A girl in our small group reacted to scents, it could kick in her fibromyalgia. Jerod reacts pretty strongly to artificial scents. He can taste them, which is just crazy. When we were engaged, we had this one day where we took all my lotions, perfumes and shampoos outside and he took whiffs of them – he only lasted about a minute before his nose went bezerk. I purged a LOT of stuff, most of it expensive stuff from your typical department store. Make up too. Off to Whole Foods we went, and found some pleasing stuff.
Then I had a spa day before my wedding and had my first facial, which was all natural organic stuff and was introduced to the AMAZING-ness that is natural products. All I have to say is, my skin has never felt so great. Two wonderful companies I have found are Suki, and Grateful Body. Seriously, you should check out their stuff. And if you’ve researched anything through Skin Deep and EWG, check out this link on Suki about the skeptical legitimacy of their ratings. Just a note, this stuff isn’t cheap. But it is WAY better for you, and the ingredients aren’t watered down by additives, so you use a LOT less than you would from your normal stuff from Target.
Five: HFC & Gluten Free. Apparently HFC is bad. I want to find out more. Margo’s website got me thinking about it, so now I need to investigate. And then there is Gluten Free, something I hadn’t heard of until I met a number of people in Amherst that had digestive issues related to wheat germ and gluten. This is becoming more and more widespread. One of my close friends found out she’s gluten intolerant, so that means any of your regular flours aren’t edible…..but there are amazing substitutes. I’ve learned a little bit by bit from Melanie – check out her website which highlights gluten free menus and recipes very week.
One last note. The difficult thing with organic and natural food is that the labeling and certification process is difficult, and somewhat spotty. Organic certification is very expensive and monitored by the USDA, hence many smaller local farms aren’t going to shell out the dollars for this. Natural food is much less regulated, and is not necessarily organic.
I guess I’m a bit torn, because I’d prefer to support local foods and smaller farms, reduce the carbon footprint that results from food transportation (and is reduced further more if you are a vegetarian) and all of those wonderful things. But that seems to be in competition with getting organic food. I guess that’s why I want to visit local farms or be part of CSA. We’ll see. I guess this is Part 1. When I find out more, I’ll write Part 2.
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This is a great way to use up zucchini, though I’m a bit “late” for the prime time of zucchini season. We had a huge one from the farmers market a few weeks ago, and it lasted two weeks!
