Neonjade

I’m amazed every time I go to a big box grocery store at the produce and products being sold for our consumption. This past Friday, I wanted some plum tomatoes. My nearest grocery had a pile of them, imported from Mexico and soft as marshmallows. There was only one type, out of the five varieties that they carried, grown in the US, and they were hard as an ambercup squash, without the beautiful color.

This is nuts. I live in Madison, Alabama, within spitting distance of probably 20 farms, and they can’t get a ripe tomato in a grocery store.

I did find one positive thing that trip, though. I had previously complained about not being able to find real yogurt and cheese. Everything is either “low-fat,” “no fat,” or “soy / alternative;” which means it has a ton of non-food additives to it to make it taste edible – or, in the case of cheese, they just leave it tasting like plastic. It seems criminal to me, to take out the natural flavoring in food and replace it with processed who-knows-whatsits.

Yogurt Problem Solved

Anyway, I found a variety of Dannon that was just yogurt, natural full-fat yogurt. It was plain flavored and it came in a large tub instead of a handy cup, but that was fine. I bought a large bag of frozen blueberries and made a 2 cup yogurt to 1 cup blueberry batch in a sealed bowl and I just scoop out a cup at a time when I’m ready for a snack. Great tasting stuff, and if I get a pop quiz, I can rattle off the two ingredients without referring to a chemistry tome.

Fresh Produce and Fresh Meat Problem Solved

My buddy Suzanne, over at Entirely Adequate, posted recently about getting ready for CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and pointed everyone towards the Local Harvest website to sign up. If you haven’t visited this site and done a zip code search for farms, CSAs and farmers’ markets in your area, you should.

I remember visiting before and only finding the markets over by South Parkway for the Huntsville, Alabama area. This time, I’ve found a CSA to stock me with fresh produce for eight months, a poultry farmer to provide fresh, pasture raised chickens for seven months, and another pasture livestock farmer that I’ll be ordering fresh eggs and the meat du jour from, on a weekly basis. Better yet, two out of the three sources deliver to within five miles of my house!

Healthy Fresh Food All Year Problem Solved – And You Can Do It, Too

I’m a lucky soul, who had an awesome grandmother who taught me canning and freezing when I was young. Don’t worry if you didn’t, though. While I knew the basics, I sought out a recipe book for a refresher and to ensure a variety of options when facing overages in my chicken and produce orders. I found the Complete Book of Home Preserving, by Ball – the canning jar and lid people, at Barnes & Noble. It details all the equipment you’ll need, all the basics and science of all types of canning, and 400 recipes. This single book will ensure that you have access to more variety in your cupboard than can found in the finest grocery canned goods section!

Do you live in the US without a source of fresh and local food? Have you tried the Local Harvest site? Share with a comment and, if you say your general area, I’ll try to help with your search. No one in the US should have to eat fake processed food or bland or rotten food that was harvested too early and hauled hundreds or thousands of miles to land in an unappetizing pile at your big box grocer.