With Respect to the Animals

I just watched a horrifying video a few hours ago showing the lives of animals raised on “farms”, from their birth to our table.
I can’t stop thinking about it.

I’d like you to visit my Good Food & Bad Food blog and read the post I wrote about it, “Can We Eat Like That and Be Healthy?”

No, this doesn’t mean that I am becoming a vegetarian now. But I did think what can I do that is doable, practical, and will make a change? Even if it is a small one. Because if millions of people will make a small change, then together, it will make a huge difference, don’t you think?!

I have decided that:
1. At least two nights each week we will have a vegetarian dinner.
2. At least once a week, I will pay more to buy meat/chicken/seafood from sustainable, free-range, organic, preferably local farms.

Tonight it’s going to be an Upgraded Pizza (recipe here) and a Citrus Salad (recipe here) for dinner.

What ideas do you have so more animals can live a respectful healthier life which will make our food healthier and better for us?

Green blackberries are red

Saturday was a lovely day, sunny and nice, and we visited The South 47 Farm in Woodinville. It is sooooo cool to live in the suburbs and have farms 15 minutes drive from your home!

What a beautiful place, isn’t it?!

Flower beds:




and herbs...





First we visited the animals, and fed them, of course. There were goats, lamas, chickens…

Then we went to dig some potatoes. They had a few varieties. We dug Yokon gold, purple and fingerlings. Fresh from the ground, straight out from the dirt. So earthy. Yum.

How cute is that?!

That’s me holding a potato still clinging to the stem of the plant. I have never done this before. I got so excited; my husband had to stop me from digging more and more potatoes because we have already filled a bucket full of potatoes to last a long time. The good thing is that when the potatoes are so fresh, they will last a few good weeks. That is, if they stay in the cold dark pantry that long. Tonight we’re having steak and farm fresh home-made French fries!







The proud Microsofty bragging about his digging skills…

See the bucket!

The Herbfarm is considered one of the best restaurants in the US. I heard it is VERY good and VERY expensive, and dinner lasts 4-5 hours with lots of wine, so it is on our to-do list for a very special occasion. The restaurant has a field in this farm where they grow their own herbs, vegetables, fruits and flower to be used in their kitchen. From farm to the table. How special is that?!

Salmons are a big thing here!!! Check this out: Issaquah Salmon Days Festival 2008.
The farm is not certified organic but they say they don’t use sprays, and they are friendly to the local salmon.

Beautiful sunflowers…

Green blackberries are red :) We might come back on Wednesday (short day at school) to see if they are ripe and ready to be picked.

But we did manage to fill 2 small boxes. By the way, it costs half of the grocery store price! What a sweet deal!

And how can we go home without kettle corn and apple cider?

Conclusions:
Going to a farm is fun.
Kids learn where food comes from. Very important!
Picking your own food is an extraordinary experience.
Produce cost less at the farm stand compared to the grocery store.
You support your local family farm/business.
It’s a win-win-win for everyone.
We should definitely do this more often.
It’s difficult to write all these conclusions without exclamation point at the end of every sentence!

You might want to read this post too: U-pick farms

And here are the potatoes disguised as REAL French fries (fried twice):

Love-ly Heirloom tomatoes salad

Eating heirloom tomatoes is a summer must-do thing. It is a real treat.

I saw heirloom tomatoes at the grocery store this week. They were $5.99/lb. (Yep. Ouch.). But today we went to a farm that is located 15 minutes drive from our house – how cool is that?! – for $3.99/lb.

Lesson learned: shopping at a farm stand cost less than shopping at the grocery store.

These tomatoes are so delicious, so sweet, and worth every cent. Try it and you will never look at a tomato the same way again.

I am not going to give you an exact recipe but a list of ingredients. Use whatever you like.
My husband prepared the salad in the photo and made it all pretty for posing in a picture.

Love-ly Heirloom tomatoes salad

Heirloom tomatoes – red, green, yellow, funny looking ones, fat ones, squishy ones, striped, etc
Salt*
Toasted pine nuts**
Crumbled goat cheese (and/or feta)
Herbs (basil, oregano, thyme, parsley, cilantro)
Black pepper
Splash of extra virgin olive oil
Squeeze of lemon juice

* my mom says that my grandma first salted the tomatoes and then let them sit for a while before she went on to take care of the other ingredients. That is the secret to very tasty tomatoes. (What an excellent cook she was, a magician, using only salt and maybe some oil, in her cooking. That was a time when herbs, spices, and fancy vinegars and oils weren’t used so frequently and freely like today)

** best way in to toast pine nuts is in a 350 F degrees oven. Second best it to toast them in a skillet over very low heat.

Isn’t it lovely?!
Nurit

Farmed Tilapia eating what???

I have just returned from a vacation in BC, Canada, where I read this article in the local Globe and Mail newspaper.
This is another example of how people play with nature, in this case feeding animals what they are not supposed to eat. The result is a food product that is not as healthy for you as you might think.

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail, by CARLY WEEKS, August 6, 2008

“... eating farmed tilapia, a widely consumed fish that has been steadily growing in popularity, may be no better than dining on bacon, hamburgers or doughnuts.
New U.S. research has found that farmed tilapia have low levels of omega-3 fatty acids - and surprisingly high levels of potentially detrimental omega-6 fatty acids.
Omega-6 fatty acids are considered to be essential and must be obtained through diet because they can't be produced by the body... But consuming too much omega-6 can contribute to cancer, asthma, depression and heart disease, among other ailments.
Farmed tilapia contains more omega-6 fatty acid than is found in doughnuts, pork bacon or hamburgers made with 80-per-cent lean ground beef, according to a new study.
Tilapia, a lean white fish with a mild taste, is the second-most cultivated fish in the world, after carp, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada. While China is the world's leading producer of tilapia, British Columbia and Nova Scotia also produce it on a commercial scale.”
And the reason is...” "This is a serious problem because they tend to feed [the fish] vegetable oils for growth and that's not quite what the tilapia is accustomed to getting in its native state," he said.”
You can read more here.

This article reminded me of the mad cow disease. The cows, which are vegetarian animals, are being fed with animal by-products, than they go mad and get cuckoo in the head and people who eat them get sick. Not to mention the poor animals suffering.

Why do those farmers feed animals with food they don't naturally eat?

The Future of Food – the movie.

I can't sleep. My son woke me up at 4:43 am because he had a bad dream.

I had a bad dream too. I really shouldn’t watch scary movies late at night.

I didn't plan to write about serious "things" on this blog. At first this movie did leave me speechless, but then my brain started to process the information and I can't stop thinking about it.

This is must-see movie. "THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade."

The movie discusses Genetically Engineered food. The first two things that came to my mind when I heard "Genetically Engineered (GE) food" were - it's a good thing and a bad thing. Well, let's re-think it.

The main points the movie raises are:

* A small number of GE food corporations are controlling our food. They do this through having power over patents and genetically modified seeds. Why should you be worried about it? Because while they are protecting their corporate rights over patents, they are damaging nature and gaining more and more control over our health, our future, and of course, our politicians. It is horrifying to think that a small number of people who own these businesses will control the food everyone on the planet eats in the future.

* GE corporations think they can control nature. Well, no one can. GE seeds are invading fields of farmers who are trying to grow their own original, natural, heirloom seeds. They are already found in Canada and Mexico since they are spread throughout the planet by the wind, birds, machinery and other ways.

* GE seeds are destroying the local agriculture and small family farms. They make farmers destroy their own original natural seeds. As a result, nature's original, healthy, heirloom seeds are being extinct!

* GE corporations are preventing people from having access to food. This is how they are playing a major role in causing/contributing to world hunger. They turn independent people producing their own food, to being poor, torn away from their homes and culture.

* GE corporations are being socially irresponsible and we pay the price! Twice! Once, when we buy the food, and second, when we pay for the unwanted consequences GE food has on the world.

The next step is selling us meat and seafood from GE animal. How do you feel about eating a steak from a GE cow, or cloned lamb, and genetically modified salmon? Some people are working very hard on that at this very moment.

So what can we do?

As they say in the movie: “The choices you make at the supermarket determine the future of food”.

We have some power as consumers. We can:
* Buy local produce and support our local farmers
* Buy organic and heirloom varieties
* Avoid eating and buying junk food, processed food. This is not food.
* Grow something green in our back and front yards, or at least in one pot.
* Teach our kids about food!

If you have additional ideas, please share and write a comment below.

One more thing. I have these two recurring thoughts:
1) I prefer to eat safe, clean, real food, then I-don't-know-what-it-is food.
2) I prefer to pay more for safe, clean, real food (that is, organic), then pay for medical bills and suffer the consequences of eating I-don't-know-what-it-is food.

More about organic food in another post.
Meanwhile, you might like to read this post: I want the cheapest, most rubbish one. Or do I?

The sun is rising. Have a wonderful day!
Nurit

U-pick farms

A fantastic and fun way to teach kids about food is to go to farms, and especially to U-pick farm where you can see how vegetables and fruits grow and you can pick them by yourself. This is the freshest produce ever!

Here, in Bellevue, WA, a suburban city near Seattle, there are still a few farms in the city and plenty within 10-20 minutes drive. It is amazing that you can see not only horses, but cows, and pumpkin fields and a blueberry farm in the city! (Not to mention streams with wild salmon. A post about that later on).

This is so much fun…

At a lavendar farm on the Olympic Peninsula, WA





Picking bluberries, and tasting them too.




Learning how to pick ripe, purple, blueberries at the Blueberry farm in Bellevue, WA





We got plenty of fresh, sweet blueberry. Better than any boxed fruit at the grocery store.




Remlinger Farms, Carnation, WA





Some pumpkins are the size of a little kid.

The freshest corn we ever had. From the field to the farm's store, and to the grill.

This is the good life.

Click here to find more U-pick farms in King County.

You might like to read this as well: Green blackberries are red

More posts about this topic:
Kids menu – Is it good for them? Is it good for you?
Stuffed peppers – a picky eater's nightmare?
Encourage good eating
NY Times: Picky Eaters? They Get It From You
Kid-friendly tips
Backyard Vegetable Garden

Enjoy.

Nurit