Tag Archives: organic food

Try the Slow Food $5 Challenge

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If I had a penny for every time I heard someone say, “but fresh, organic food is so expensive” in response to me waxing euphoric about a nourishing dish, I could afford dinner at Cyrus. So I was thrilled to see Slow Food put out the challenge for slow-food-5-dollar-challengeAmericans to “take back the value meal” (love the double entendre) on Saturday, September 17th by cooking up a meal of fresh, local foods for under $5.

So let’s get cooking! You can join a grass roots potluck near you. You can buy this week’s Nourish Weekly Menus (we took the $5 challenge to heart–pricing by non-pantry items–and wrote this post from the strategies we used to save money) for a whole week of delish budget fare. Or you can come up with your own by using our six tips below. If you DO make your own meal, please snap a pic and post it on our Facebook page. I’d love to do a follow-up post with a collage to show everyone how beautiful affordable food can be!

  1. Use seasonal produce.  This is like a “free gift with purchase.” It’s a proven fact that the tastiest, most luscious, peak-of-season foods are also the cheapest. It makes sense. Foods that are in season near you have far less distance to travel, which means lower transportation costs (and smaller carbon footprint!).
  2. Make use of healthy, cheap “filler” ingredients.  No, I don’t mean the creepy corn products that you can’t pronounce that make up the bulk of processed foods. I mean inexpensive ingredients–like cabbage and bulgur–that bring a natural heft to a dish. For instance, in this week’s menus, we beef up our Corfu Koftas with bulgur and use about 1/2 the beef. And we stuff Spicy Fish Tacos with a tangy slaw so you don’t rely on the fish (a relatively expensive ingredient) to dominate the dish.
  3. Venture outside your box.  So many of us have our standard go-to’s … steak, shrimp, salmon, chicken breast, etc. But, ironically, many of America’s traditional go-to’s are the priciest items at the market. All the more reason to explore the unknown. Different cuts of poultry (chicken legs and thighs are my favorite, and about 1/2 the price of breasts), meat (braising cuts are especially affordable) and different types of seafood. Our Curried Mussels, for instance (another dish featured this week), feed four for under $10 and are finger-lickin’ good.
  4. Buy in bulk.  Buying from the bulk bins can cut cost by two, three, even five times. Whole Foods, which can be pricey within the aisles, stocks an incredible array in their bulk bins. So explore different types of rice and grains, various flours and nuts, even pasta and dried fruit.
  5. Buy whole.  Whether you’re talking a chicken or a head of lettuce, you’re going to save significant dough by buying whole. I recently comparison shopped head lettuce versus pre-washed bagged for a television segment and even I was shocked: the gorgeous, ruffly head of organic, locally grown lettuce was FIVE TIMES cheaper than pre-washed, bagged lettuce ($1.95 for a 1-1/2 pound head versus $4.99/pound for pre-washed).
  6. Plan ahead.  There’s no disputing that planning ahead helps you save money. It keeps you from making impulse purchases (which can be expensive). It keeps you from dashing out for extra ingredients. It helps you use what you already have on hand. And it cuts down dramatically on food waste (up to 35% of America’s food goes to waste!). Insert shameless promotion here … hmmm, I wonder what kinds of resources are out there for helping you plan your meals ahead? Yep, you got it.

Remember, if you make your own meal–either from this week’s menus or on your own–snap a pic and post it on our Facebook page!

3/17/11 Nourishing News Roundup

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Our weekly roundup of  links to tasty headlines and other tidbits we think you’ll want to read and watch…

No More Cheap Food

Americans have enjoyed cheap food for a long, long time. The Los Angeles Times‘ P.J. Huffstutter explains why that party may be over. She reports that food prices have shot up in the last year and are likely to remain high, due to diminishing crop yields, a week U.S. dollar, unrest in the Middle East and natural disasters like last week’s devastating earthquake in Japan, floods in Australia (which wiped out much of that country’s wheat crop) and drought in China. All of this is heating up the debate between supporters of sustainable farming (check out the United Nations in its new agro-ecology report) and biotech.

Organics on a Food Stamp Budget

Organic on Food Stamps? from Jennifer Grayson on Vimeo.

Of course, one of the big misconceptions about organics is that it’s too expensive for shoppers on a tight budget. Watch Jennifer Grayson of The Red, White, and Green as she puts demonstrates how $33.40 average person on food stamps receives. Her tips are good for anyone on a tight budget and include:

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

We can’t think of a better way to celebrate than with our Colcannon Soup with Oven-Roasted Kale. All you need is a handful of fresh ingredients to turn out this pot-o’-gold-hued soup with a bright green cap of gold. Erin go Bragh!

Do You Call Yourself a Locavore? … Why?

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My, my, my … there’s been a tizzy of discussion as of late about how misguidedly futile it is to be a locavore. Which, I’ll be quite frank, annoys me a titch. I think one of the downfalls we face time and again in America is that we jump on bandwagons and ride them hard to the end of the road until they fall apart in a heap. We don’t seem to learn that what starts out as something inherently positive—buy organic, buy local, buy wild-caught—turns sour when all other options are ruled out as blasphemy.

Which is what I feel is happening with the organic versus local versus (now) low carbon footprint discussions. First of all, not everyone who sources their food locally is doing so because they think it will save the planet (as we found out when we asked you to weigh in, both here and on Facebook). That, in perfect bandwagon style, is lopping off big chunks of the big picture.

Many people I know, myself and other NOURISH Evolution members included, buy food from local growers because it fosters community and connects us deeper to the place we call home. We also do it because we can ask farmers how they’re growing their food, and ranchers how they’re raising their livestock. Not to mention the fact that a locally-based food system (bear in mind this could mean regional sourcing … it doesn’t need to mean Farmer John down the street) may just be safer too.

So how do you keep from swaying from ‘got to buy local’ to ‘got to buy organic’ to throwing your hands up in exasperation? Ask yourself what’s important to you.

Is a low carbon footprint top on your list? Then you should probably start a garden of your own and, while you’re at it, seriously consider cutting down on how much meat you eat. Are chemicals and genetic modification what concern you most? Then you’ll want to stick with certified organic, or buy from farmers directly—organic or not—so you can ask them how they grow their food. Is supporting your community what excites you? Then suss out farmers markets and give a few CSAs a try.

This isn’t to say that you can’t challenge yourself to move in other areas as well. I’m awfully dialed in on sourcing food that’s free from conventional chemicals and manipulation, but I could certainly grow in the lowering my carbon footprint department. I drive to town all the time, for example, when I could easily bike the few blocks to market (I even bought a basket and pumped up my tires … now I just need to do it).

The important thing is to make an informed choice of your own, not blindly follow what someone else says … no matter how virtuous it may sound.

Time For a Gut Check on Organic?

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Fifteen years ago, I got the kind of call from my doctor that began with, “I have some news.” The kind of call that resulted in a hastily scheduled visit with an oncologist and two surgeries less than two weeks later. The kind of call that saved my life, and at the same time changed it forever.

A year later, Christopher and I packed up everything we owned (almost) and drove down to Costa Rica. It was an incredibly intense time for me, of being angry at and grateful for and in awe of my body for the first time. Before, I’d taken it for granted. But now I had an intense, almost motherly, instinct to nurture it.

I became more aware of how much my body hurt when I didn’t get enough sleep. I could discern a calm confidence when I practiced yoga regularly. I noticed how fresh foods made me feel clean and balanced and energized. And I felt, in my gut, a strong conviction to switch over to organic food. Something just felt wrong about putting chemicals—even if I was told they were safe—into my body.

Why do I bring all this up? Because in the last two weeks a couple of reports have come out that make my decision look not just intuitively right, but scientifically sound too.

The first, a report on reducing environmental cancer risk released by the President’s Cancer Panel (which was appointed during the Bush Administration), found that “the risk of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated.” It goes on to give several recommendations for reducing exposure, including choosing organic food. The second, a study by researches from the University of Montreal and Harvard, found a link between ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and organophosphates (i.e., agricultural chemicals). Nothing definitive, but enough to make my ears perk up on the heels of the cancer risk study.

Gary Hirschman, former president and CEO of Stonyfield Farm suggested yesterday at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Cooking for Solutions that organic isn’t really the “new–”organic practices have worked for thousands and thousands of years–the chemicals used in agriculture are what are really unproven over the long haul. We are, in essence, in the midst of a 60-year experiment.

It seems to me that this is a good time for a gut check. Not an extended analysis or time spent poring over the latest studies—we’ll forever be inundated with contradictory data from varying sources—but a simple, 30-second reflection on what feels to you like the right thing to do.

What feels right to you?

Know Why Organic Matters

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As farmers’ markets shutter for the season and backyard gardens go to seed, many of us will retreat to the grocery store for the bulk of our food purchases. The question is, when “local” options dwindle, will you opt to buy organic?

There seems to have been a sort of backlash against organic in recent months. Some people say it’s too expensive, that in this economy organic food just isn’t relevant. Others say the complex bureaucracy of USDA Organic Certification shuts out small farmers who can’t afford the manpower to keep up with the paperwork. There’s some truth to both of those arguments.

But there’s another fact that’s been left out: The organic label is still consumers’ only institutionalized way of having a say in what kind of food they buy. When I buy organic carrots, I know at the very least they’ve been grown without chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers and that, ideally, they’ve been grown in a way that nurtures soil, surrounding ecosystems and community. When I buy organic cookies, I know they don’t contain genetically modified ingredients. When I buy organic meat and milk, I know they don’t contain synthetic hormones or come from cloned offspring. Whether any of these things factor directly into our health is still being debated, but there are enough reputable studies saying yes–or even maybe–to make me dubious of putting blind trust into the conventional food system.

Does an organic sticker mean that something is going to taste better? Not necessarily. Are organic standards the end-all be-all answer to fixing our food system? Probably not. Sure, “organic” may be flawed, but until there is another structure in place that consumers can trust, organic does matter.

This week as you shop, whichever way you pick, be aware of the role the organic sticker plays in protecting our rights to choose our food.