Green Options

The French Agency for Food Safety (AFSSA) released a study last week that outlines a number of health benefits to eating organic food.

This comes on the heels of a UK study that said just the opposite. According to the AFSSA study, organic foods are not only more nutritious, but they’re safer. Here are the study’s main findings:

Breakfast time is usually a big deal at our house. I try to make sure the little guy gets a healthy nutritious meal to start the day.  I also try to stay away from cereals due to their high sugar content but occassionally a bowl of cereal makes it’s way onto the table.

Since having a child I’ve made breakfast important. I mostly make meals from scratch and make the best attempt to stay away from anything packaged. The chickens have been such a blessing. We’re able to cook eggs most days any which way you can think of and have them for breakfast or “breakie” (what we call it here).

Pancakes are the biggest hit for breakie…just ask my son, he’ll tell you he wants *pancakes*! Before I knew about this recipe I’m going to share; I’d always thought I was making pancakes from scratch.

“What’s on Your Plate?” is a compelling new documentary that follows two eleven year old African American city kids, Sadie and Safiyah, as they explore their local New York food systems over the course of a year. The film accompanies the two girls as they embark upon a quest to learn more about food politics and the origins of what they are eating.

Catherine Gund, filmmaker and co-founder of the feminist [...]

The White House has just released a new official video which profiles Michelle Obama’s hugely successful organic vegetable garden. The First Lady talks about the process of creating the victory garden, as well as the importance of shared family meals, making healthy choices, cooking fresh local food, and the need to change how our nation eats. In the short film Obama explains what

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A quick trip to the farmers market Saturday afternoon netted me several more pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables. The canteloupe vanished soon after arriving home. My daughter had me cut it open and scoop out the seeds for her and she sat down on the sofa with a melon baller. Ten minutes later, it was gone.

While she gobbled down the melon, I surveyed the fridge for dinner. I needed to use up some leftovers from a party earlier this week where I served dips and chips. I had a half jar of salsa and some sour cream left over. With the red potatoes and jalapeños I bought today, I had the makings of a good side dish for dinner.

Acacia trees, excellent for Africa’s depleted soil and helpful in counteracting climate change, may be the trees of the future for Africa. A very unique tree, it may help Africa in many other ways as well.

An explosive new documentary, Bananas!*, examines global food politics by following the crusade of lawyer Juan J. Dominguez, as he fights for the rights of thousands of banana plantation workers in Nicaragua who have been made sterile from exposure to the banned pesticide DBCP (Dibromo Chloropropane). This toxic chemical has been shown to cause cancer in animals, sterility in humans, and has been banned in most of the Americas

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I’m not a morning person.  When I get out of bed, I want an easy dish to make for my family.  This red potato frittata is a big hit in my house.  It’s a big hit with me because I can do it with my eyes half-closed.

Frittatas are well-known for their ability to absorb leftovers.  Just gather whatever is in your fridge, dump it into an oven-safe dish, and pour eggs over it.  Simple. 

When I was in college I briefly dated a boy whose idea of a meal was eating cold meat chili from an open can. In retrospect, how and what he chose to feed himself provided a very telling insight into his character and values. How and what we eat shapes our lives and who were are. Nothing we do is more intimate; our meals sustain our very existence. When we choose to grow our own food, buy from local farmers markets and not eat highly processed packaged food, we are not only taking positive steps toward building and sustaining a locally based economy, but we are also lessening our collective carbon footprint upon the planet.

If you are starting to feel inspired to create some simple, affordable, tasty meals from locally available seasonal food, but are a bit clueless how to begin, Lisa Jervis‘ new book, Cook Food: A Manualfesto for Easy, Healthy, Local Eating, may provide just the help that you need.

You can simply and easily reduce your carbon footprint, save money on your power bill and teach your kids through example how to help the earth just by tweaking your cooking techniques a bit!

Did you know:

• Choose the right size pan for cooking and keep the lid on for most of the cooking process to reduce energy use by up to 90%.

My daughter looks forward to shopping at the farmers’ market.  I think she’s excited because she never knows what will be there.  When one booth owner mentioned that he would have blackberries the next week, she talked about that to anyone who would listen and pestered me about it until we went back.  If my husband or I purchase a head of lettuce at the grocery store, even if she’s with us, she won’t eat it.  But she eats the lettuce she buys at the farmers’ market, just like she eats the lettuce she grows in her little garden.

I confess that I would do many things to get my daughter to eat her veggies – including eating vegetables I hate – but I, too, like gardening and going to farmers’ markets, so this one is no sacrifice.