Eat Local Challenge

September 24, 2012 by 1 Comment

Fall farmers market photo by Tiffany Coggins

A local magazine launched an Eat Local Challenge six years ago. Every year some local businesses and some health and wellness organizations get involved to encourage residents to eat food produced within 100 miles of the city.

I definitely do my best to meet the challenge, but I gotta have my coffee and chocolate. Sorry, that is where I draw the line. That said, the coffee and chocolate are organic and fair trade.

Do you live in a community that has a similar challenge? Do you participate?

There are some very good reasons for eating locally. The reasons range from supporting local economies to reducing your carbon footprint. Your health and wallet can benefit as well. By staying away from processed food, we can save money and get a lot of chemicals out of our bodies. Buying in bulk and planning ahead also help keep costs down and encourage healthy eating.

Why not try your own local eating challenge? You might discover some wonderful, local hidden treasures. If you take the challenge, please share your stories on your new finds.

Filed Under: Environment, Food, Health, Local, Organic Tagged With: , ,

Turkey Time

November 5, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Now is the time to start thinking about your Thanksgiving turkey. I can hear some of the replies now.

“What?! But, Green Girl, that seems way to soon!”

It’s not too soon if you want to get a local, free-range, organic turkey, especially a fresh one. Small, local produces do not operate like huge factory farms. I’m already talking to my local meat guy about which farm has the best product and selection for what I want.

If you want a turkey that’s humanly raised and organic, or as close to organic as you can get, then you need to start checking with your local grocery or meat stores. Plan ahead, I know that can be challenging. As I’ve mentioned before, I am not blessed with the plan ahead gene, so I have to work at it too.

The rest of the meal I find pretty easy to get locally and organically. This time of year my favorite stores carry root vegetables and squash that spent little time traveling to me.  Most all of my ingredients can be found within 100 miles of my home and are produced organically.

Life is sweet. I am always grateful for my wonderful, local, caring producers. That is what the Thanksgiving season is about, counting our blessings.

Filed Under: Food, Holiday, Local, Organic, Sustainability, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

High Fructose Corn Syrup Everywhere You Look

August 7, 2010 by 2 Comments

Yesterday I wrote about the new study which confirmed what many of us have thought for a long time: high fructose corn syrup sucks.  Now, what do you do about it.  I’m sure you’ve all gone through your cabinets with a fine tooth comb to rid your home of this scourge.  There are two ways to avoid HFCS: don’t eat processed food, including most restaurant food, and/or shop the natural food section.  But remember, you always have to read those labels.  I really think HFCS and trans-fats have a lot to do with our countries weight and health issues.  Eat real food, eat organic food, shop your local farmers market, frequent stores that carry locally produced food and eat at restaurants that use local ingredients.  Changing habit is hard, but it can be done, and you’ll be glad you did.

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Dehydrators to Go Green?

July 21, 2010 by 7 Comments

Sure!  What better way to take advantage of local, seasonal food than by dehydrating the bounty of the season.  That is what I recently decided to do.  Our family LOVES dried blueberries all year.  We put organic blueberries on sunbutter and toast.  Oh so yummy, and healthy too.  The downside is that organic dried blueberries are very pricey.  We have a number of local growers who don’t use a bunch of nasty pesticides.  Even better, to save money, you can go and pick your own.  That’s what we did the last weekend.  The blueberry recipes are flowing out of my kitchen.

I decided to invest in a dehydrator.  Well, I can’t just go buy a dehydrator, I need to research.  I started thinking about the material used in dehydrators.  With all the buzz about BPA, I decided a dehydrator made from polycarbonate might not be the best health or eco choice.  As a matter of fact, I decided to avoid plastic dehydrators all together.  I’ve gone with a stainless steel case, and stainless steel racks.  It is the closest to an inert material next to glass.  Stainless is as close to leach-free as you can get, again, next to glass.  The stainless is more expensive, but there is a long warranty, so I hope it will be the last dehydrator I buy.    I also figure it will pay for itself in dried blueberry savings alone: wink, wink. Much of the stainless steel on the market is recycled, plus stainless is infinitely recyclable.  There are a number of stainless dehydrators on the market.  I did  find one dehydrator where the case was BPA, but the trays were polypropylene.  Polypropylene is considered a food safe plastic.   The dehydrator I decided on is rectangular with the drying element in the back.  The research and reading I did convinced me this is the most efficient shape and process.  I also ran across non-electric dehydrators, which would be the greenest, but some of the reviews moved me to an electric one.  I expect the dehydrator by the end of this week.  Once I get it, and try it out, I will write a review.

Here are some of the websites I looked at:

Sausage Maker-Dehydrators

Harvest Essentials

Plastic vs. Stainless

Dehydration Nation-Hanging Dehydrator

National Center for Home Food Preservation

Filed Under: Food, Plastic, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Happy Independence Day!

July 4, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Happy 4th of July! I hope you are having a great holiday, and doing your best to keep it green. I know it can be hard around holidays, but little changes add up to a big difference. If you do fall off the green wagon today, just work a bit harder tomorrow or the next holiday. Some easy ideas are organic berries, local food and reusables. Today is also a good day to think about energy independence: liberty from polluting fossil fuels, and liberty from foreign sources of energy. Let’s take this Independence Day to heart.

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Grocers Buy Local

March 9, 2009 by Leave a Comment

I have some great local news. It should now be easier to find locally produced food in Eau Claire and Wisconsin. There is a new website http://www.grocersbuylocal.com/
that has been set up to help grocery stores in Wisconsin and local producers find each other. I know locally Hahn’s, Festival, Mega Foods and Ron’s Castle Foods are participating with this new program to buy locally grown and raised food. This site was started by the Wisconsin Grocers Association. You can go to the site and look at your county to see who is participating in this program. Buying locally is a fantastic way to reduce use of fossil fuels due to shipping and support local economies. Buying local also means your food is fresher and has more nutrients. So, get busy and buy local.

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