interesting videos and posts on food

I watched Food Inc tonight. I knew a lot of it but quite powerful anyway. Got to it from this article which led me to these TED videos.

And then a friend sent me this cool site to look at.

I continue to think about food more and more. I was blessed to grow up going to my great aunt and uncle’s farm. I realize what an impact it had on me. I remember picking beans and blueberries and watermelons. I remember shelling butter beans on the back steps of our house. My  mom froze an awful lot of butter beans. And they were always good. My mom froze lots of food. It seemed normal to me. I remember roaming this farm with my brother and the fun we had going off and exploring. The broken rusty farm equipment, the horses, the geese. The barn, the chickens. Getting the eggs. Simple things but oh so fun and unusual for us. Food had value in our house. And I still value food.

The interesting part of having to become gluten and dairy free and then soy free and reducing many other foods because of my children’s reflux is that I rarely if ever eat fast food, we do not eat out a lot and we make most meals from scratch. Our children see that we value food because my husband spends a lot of time preparing really good food and I spend a lot of time growing food from seed. I have taught our children that foods are powerful, that they are “grow” foods. We need a balance of grow foods to grow. They understand treats are not a “grow” food and so therefore, we do not need them. Since we do not need them, we only have them on special occasions (birthdays and some holidays). And they understand it. A woman in the grocery store stopped me yesterday when I was talking to my five year old about which chard to buy. She wanted to know how on earth I got my children to eat chard and how do I cook it, what do I do to it? I said I chopped it up and lightly sauteed it with some water and a bit of coconut oil and sometimes added pepper. I told her my children have to eat three bites of everything on their plate and I do not put large servings. If they want seconds of their favorite food, they have to eat three bites of everything else first. I think one or two of my kids wanted to be picky eaters but our rules are firm and there is no drama about them. They know I would let them go hungry if they do not at least try it. And they have tried things so many times they have come to love them. My five year old? She wanted rainbow chard because she liked the pink color and all the other brights. She chose it and then gladly ate it for dinner. My kids do not have the option of eating lots of processed foods or foods with sugar because I do not buy it. So they eat what I do have and generally and for the most part they are really happy about it. And they are rarely sick and they have lots of energy. I am motivated to grow even more this year and move towards year round growing. I hate having to go to the store right now to buy greens because mine are not big enough. It is a good goal to move forward to.

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