Green Options

The foods we eat have a direct impact on our overall energy.

Think about how you feel after having certain foods.

A greasy fast food meal more than likely leaves you tired, sluggish, and possibly feeling guilty, while a meal full of complex carbohydrates, healthy protein and fats, and fresh fruits and vegetables leaves a person feeling satisfied and energized.

If your family is anything like mine, your kids will be begging for dessert every night.

The problem with desserts is that they can fill kid’s bellies with tons of sugar right before bed, and the high cost of the ingredients can break your budget.

Having a recipe for a simple, healthy dessert made from ingredients you have on hand will help meet everyone’s needs. Full of fiber and sweetened with honey, this cake recipe is nutritious, filling, and cheap to make. Kudos to my wife for creating this knock-out dessert that satisfies the sweet tooth and fits our budget.

I’m eating a lot of oat groats these days. I found a source for locally-grown oat groats, but the minimum order was 25 pounds. Oat groats are the least processed of all edible forms of oats, so they store a very long time (some sources are giving them 30 years under the right conditions.) So even though I’d never tasted them before, I decided to give them a try. I figured any minimally-processed food was a good addition to our diet, and even if it took us years to use them up, it’d be okay. And in the meantime if the apocalypse arrived, there’d be something to eat. Win-win-win.

Oh. My. God. This is what oats taste like. I like good old-fashioned oatmeal just fine — I’ve eaten it for years, still happy to eat it if that’s what’s on the table. When I discovered pinhead oats and stone ground oatmeal, though, I realized just how much regular oatmeal had lost in the process of being…well, processed. (Don’t speak to me of instant oatmeal. That’s not a food.) So it comes as no surprise that getting closer to the whole grain results in an even more interesting taste and texture.

Even so, oat groats were a revelation.

For every food dollar, the farmer or grower generally makes only about nineteen cents. The majority of our food dollars, 81 cents, goes to processing, packaging, advertising and transport (USDA Economic Research Service). You can save on some of these costs as well as help reduce the EPA-estimated annual amount of 80 million tons of packaging waste by buying from the bulk bins.

Bulk aisles usually offer a wide variety of beans, legumes, nuts, flours, grains, herbs and spices, nut butters, oils, pastas, dried fruits and even snack foods. Without the added costs of advertising and packaging, these staples can be purchased at a much more affordable cost — important as we all see our grocery bills increase lately.

(Recipe for Real Oatmeal and tips on bulk buying after the jump.)

Editor’s note: Eating your Cheerios? According to our friends at email tip provider Vital Juice Daily, oats, and other foods, are good for helping to reduce cholesterol.

I’ve heard through ads that Cheerios helps reduce cholesterol. Are there any other foods that may help reduce cholesterol counts?

- Cindy

Dear Cindy,

There are foods that can help reduce your cholesterol counts! Here’s a roadmap on how to work these smart foods into your diet: