Green Options

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There are many sustainable options when it comes to putting food on the table, from eating organic to choosing locally grown foods to avoiding animal products. But there’s nothing quite as truly sustainable, satisfying, and tasty as growing your own organic food. What follows is my homegrown experience in community gardening.

After traveling around in a veggie oil and biodiesel powered “volksvegan” for most of last year, I was eager to have a garden again (not to mention an actual kitchen). It didn’t take long in our small town to find a wonderful non-profit organization teaching organic food production classes and get involved. Before long we were starting seeds in a greenhouse, not quite sure where we’d be planting them when they were sprouted. Luckily, the organization, Noyo Food Forest, was just breaking ground on a new community garden, and we jumped at the chance to get our hands dirty and grow some organic food.

Our gardening experience in coastal Northern California has been quite an experiment. After growing up in the hotter and dryer climate of Idaho, gardening on the coast took some getting used to. But we discovered that with some fertile soil, organic seeds, a few helpful people, and the labors of love, we could grow a bounty of fresh organic produce and community at the same time.

Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes
designed to showcase produce gathered
from local farms or grown in my own garden.  

Reading Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, which is where today’s recipe comes from, got me thinking about the pleasure and occasional shame that is a solo diner’s.   In a restaurant, dining alone, you may cower, or worse yet, be forced to dine at a table squeezed in beside the kitchen door. But at home, cooking for one can be a real joy when you throw in a bit fancy flare and fresh healthy ingredients.   

A long-time solo diner myself, I’m prone to falling back on my old stand-bys instead of trying something new that will give me a more balanced menu.  As tasty as baked beans piled over two slices of whole wheat toast is, no one can pretend such a dish makes for a well-balanced meal (although beans and toast does make a “complete” protein).   So, a salad made of those ingredients that bind spring and summer produce together is a welcome breath of fresh eating. 

We all know buying fresh is best, but when it comes to shopping for fresh produce, it is not always easiest. In fact, it is a little tricky and can be time consuming. Here are a few of our secrets to shopping smart for the fresh stuff in the produce aisle.

Buy produce that is in season: Foods that are in season are at the peak of freshness, flavor and affordability. If you don’t know if an item is in season, ask the producer manager.

Buy locally grown produce: Even the big grocery stores buy local produce, and you can also buy local produce at the farmer’s market or straight from the farm. Depending on where you live, transportation from the farm to the market takes quite a long time and often does the most damage to produce.

In the vegan cooking classes I teach and the outreach I do, I am often asked how to incorporate "organic" food into our diets without breaking the bank. Since I rarely have a simple answer, I usually start off by saying what I think is a really important thing to keep

Keep in mind that the typical consumer is NOT paying the true cost of food. The meat, dairy, and egg industries, in

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