LAmom

DISHES I HAVE EATEN RECENTLY

• Sauteed zucchini
• Grilled squash
• Scrambled eggs with shredded zucchini
• Pasta with chunks of squash
• Crockpot chicken with squash
• Chicken and squash soup
• Zucchini walnut muffins
• Stuffed squash

Right now, there's a squash casserole in the oven.

WHY I'M GLAD TO BE BACK HOME: PART IV

Now that we have a backyard again, we've planted a few vegetables.  We tried to pick the shadiest part of the yard to plant peas, but the recent heat wave has left them looking pretty sad.  Similarly, we got no response from the carrots.  But the squash, sunflowers and turnips are looking great!  We went out this morning for our first harvesting.  JG and I got to discuss which parts of the turnip plant we eat and why ladybugs are our friends.  We picked a huge potful of turnips greens which are now in the crockpot cooking with a chicken.  Woohoo!

WHY I'M GLAD TO BE BACK HOME: PART I

After a year and a half of living in the enormous house in Carson, we are back at our old house in Lynwood.  It really feels good.  One of the things I missed the most at the other place was having a backyard.  Previous owners had converted every inch of the backyard space into additional rooms (except for the little patch where the electric meter was, and that was covered with concrete).

When we arrived back at the Lynwood house (or, as I call it, "home"), JG (he's 8 now) and BT (he's 5) returned to their previous habits of going into the yard to observe bugs.  And we have a great spot back there where we get good sun and very little breeze.  Perfect for warming yourself on a winter morning.

And right now there are huge amounts of mallows growing in the yard!  There's some sow thistle as well, and on the side of the house there is wood sorrel and some of the best chickweed we've ever gotten.  At this very moment I'm eating one of those fantastic free organic salads that I've been missing for so long.

More tomorrow about why I'm glad to be back here.

EEWWWWW!!

JG decided that these taste perfect together.  The Sour Punch Bite tastes more sour when it's sandwiched between the Ruffles.

For the record, I don't give my kids candy on a daily basis.  We have one day a week that we call Sweets Day which is when we get candy.  JG will usually get something in the Gummy Worm food group, while BT alternates between that and the chocolate food group.

IF WE ATE WHAT THEY TOLD US TO . . .

UPDATE -- I found a link I want to add: Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

From the American Journal of Public Health we learn that foods that should be in the minority in our diets make up the majority of what is showcased in TV commercials aimed at children.

Convenience/fast foods and sweets comprised 83% of advertised foods. Snacktime eating was depicted more often than breakfast, lunch, and dinner combined.

A 2000-calorie diet of foods in the general-audience advertisements would exceed recommended daily values (RDVs) of total fat, saturated fat, and sodium. A similar diet of foods in the child-audience advertisements would exceed the sodium RDV and provide 171 g (nearly 1 cup) of added sugar.

You know how commercials for children's cereals always include that shot of the bowl of cereal accompanied by a couple pieces of toast, a glass of juice, and a glass of milk, while the cartoon mascot chirps, "Part of this nutritious breakfast!"?  Do any of us really feed our kids that breakfast?  The whole reason you serve cereal is to save yourself the trouble of preparing a breakfast.  If I'm going to make the effort to make toast for everybody, I can give them some fruit along with it and forego the cereal.  When they say "part of this nutritious breakfast," you know full well that the cereal isn't the part providing the real nutrition.

If you happen to live in Seattle, however, you may soon see some advertisements for much better food choices:

This week bus riders in the Highline, Tukwila, Burien, and White Center areas will see original works of art by 120 area students that have been created as part of a bus advertising campaign promoting the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables.

"We were teaching students what advertisements are and how to pay attention to their methods, and what they are trying to sell them. We start the lesson by teaching children about how flowers use bright colors, scents, and even mock female insects to attract pollinators. The students were asked to create advertisements for fruits and vegetables after the kids reported that they have not seen any ads like this. Proud of their own artistic achievements, some of the students suggested it would be cool if these ads could reach the public in their neighborhoods."

Here's a sample of some of the ads.

This illustrates why the profit motive can be so destructive.  Advertising, instead of calling our attention to the things that are best for us, instead wants us to focus on whatever someone can make the most money from.  My favorite example is breastfeeding.  The big problem with breastfeeding is that nobody makes that much money from it.  Some nursing moms buy breast pumps, but those are only a one-time purchase.  How can that compare to formula that you have to buy continually for years?  That's why ads for bottles and formula vastly outnumber the "public service" ads that encourage us to breastfeed.  Our best interests are not the issue.

STARBUCKS CHALLENGE

If I drank coffee (yech!), I would participate.  This is from green LA girl:

According to its own policy (PDF), Starbucks will make fair trade coffee for you, any day of the week, in the 23 countries it is licensed to including: Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, the U.K. and the U.S.

But just how easy is it to get a fair trade coffee in a Starbucks in one of those countries?

We aim to find out.

Join the challenge:

1) Simply visit your local Starbucks and ask: "Could I get a cup of fair trade coffee?"

2) Tell us what happened next. Was it hard or easy to get a cup? You can see our first posts here.

BLOGGERS: simply blog about what happened and tag it with "starbuckschallenge" (all one word) on del.icio.us (put the Starbucks location in the "extended" description). We'll pull all articles into a feed and run that on our site - you can run the feed too, of course, if you'd like. ALSO help us get feedback by telling people about this challenge on your blogs.

NON-BLOGGERS: tell us what happened by emailing City Hippy or green LA girl, and we'll do the rest.

HT: blogging.la

MAYBE I'M JUST PETTY

. . . but I delight in any little act of defiance that I can interpret as Standing Up To The Man.

F'rinstance, back in the mid-'80s one of our local supermarkets did away with the little handheld shopping baskets that single people (like me at the time) love so much.  When I complained to one of the employees, he let it slip (just as I had suspected) that the management thought that if everyone used the big carts, they would fill them up with more stuff.

I sweetly informed the store employee that thenceforth I would only be buying as much stuff as I could hold in my hands.  I continued to patronize the store, never using a cart.  I don't know if I really had anything to do with their actions, but after a number of months the little baskets were back.  Maybe there were lots of other shoppers besides me who didn't want to push around a cart when they were only getting a few items.

More recently, I have "done battle" with fast food joints that think they don't make enough money off of me already and want to move away from the restaurant tradition of giving free water.  A Carl's Jr. near where I live used to give out their water in cups that had loose-fitting lids that wouldn't stay on.  I would tell them that the lids were a problem because my children would invariably spill water all over themselves.  They still didn't see fit to use the "real" drink cups, or to get better lids for their complementary cups.  So I started keeping a sippy cup in the car.  When they handed me my water I would sit there right in front of them and pour the water from the complementary cup into the sippy cup and hand it to BT before driving off. (Was I holding up the drive-thru line?  Couldn't be helped.)  They have finally started serving their water in regular small drink cups with good lids.  Again, probably not just my influence, but it feels good.

So now there's a place near our church (another Carl's Jr.) that has decided they can only give one cup of water for free.  For any more after that, they have to charge for a small drink.  Believe me, dear readers, I am careful to order water only in proportion to the amount of food I'm buying.  I would never order one meal and ask for several cups of water to go with it, no matter how many thirsty people are in the car.  Considering that I was getting food for three kids, it would not have killed them to give me some more water.  I contemplated this injustice while I was inching my way up to the pick-up window.  By the time I got there, I had decided what to do.  I told them to cancel the large order of fries I was getting for BT.  I got the rest of my food and the water, then scooted down the block to their competition (Jack in the Box) and got BT's fries and another cup of water.  JG and BT still had to share a cup, but it held us over until we got to our destination.

Am I petty?  Am I small?  Maybe.  But holding back on a cup of water is pretty small too.

Fight the power.

GOVERNMENT IN NYC IS TRIMMING THE FAT

From Newsday:

In an effort to fight the city's biggest killer, heart disease, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is urging restaurants to voluntarily eliminate trans fats from their menus.

The New York State Restaurant Association will support the effort, Executive Vice President E. Charles Hunt said in a health department release Wednesday.

I like this!  They're not dictating to the restaurants what they can and cannot do, but they are urging them to take this positive action.  Los Angeles County Health Department, will you follow suit?

The NYC Health Department's anti-trans fats page has some links for anyone who wants to learn more about what trans fats are and what they do.

And here's something else I didn't know:

The Food and Drug Administration has already targeted trans fats. Nationwide, all foods containing the chemically modified oils must be labeled beginning January 2006.

Cool!

NEW STANDARDS FOR ORGANIC FOOD

I like this.  New, more rigorous standards for foods that are labeled "organic."

The U.S. District Court in Maine finalized a court ruling this month that bans synthetic ingredients in products labeled organic. Also, the ruling requires dairy farmers to feed their cows 100% organic feed during the transition to organic.

Here's the point and counterpoint:

Urvashi Rangan, an environmental health scientist at Consumers Union in Yonkers, N.Y., said farmers and consumers will benefit from the ruling in the long run.

"It's a big victory for consumers, as far as the integrity of the organic label and what it means," Rangan said. "This will increase the value of the organic label."

vs.

"We think this will discourage dairy farmers from becoming organic," said George Siemon, chief executive of Organic Valley, a national farmer-owned organic cooperative based in La Farge, Wis. "I think it will slow down supply and buyers will have to contribute more to the cost."

I'm in favor.

THE FARM IS WITH ME

You'll understand that reference in the title after you see this flick about organic food that Tom Campbell found.

Well, the Farm is definitely with me.  I went in the backyard this afternoon to gather a salad, and the garden is absolutely rockin'!  BT came out with me, so I got a chance to teach him about treating the plants with respect (we take care not to step on our weeds)..  The goosefoot that I had seen coming up previously is growing the biggest, fattest leaves I've ever seen on a goosefoot.  And I've got some purslane!  I'd had a little of this a couple years ago, but it was very small and skinny.  The stuff out there now looks really robust.  And purslane is so good for you, too!  Also, the wood sorrel this season is the biggest it's ever been.  Throw in some sow thistle leaves and a few clover flowers, and it was a salad that'll make your day!

I suspect that the bumper crop of weeds is the result of our record-setting rainfall this year.  That means that I could have bigger and better salads all the time if I would get out there and water the yard now and then.  Susun Weed recommends tending your nourishing weeds with the same care as any other plant in your garden.  So I'm going to start watering my weeds occasionally.

I used to think that eating organic meant driving long distances to pay high prices for food that's not available in my neighborhood.  It was so amazing to learn that right at my feet are organic foods that are delicious, plentiful, and free!  Susun Weed also has lots of info about the health-enhancing qualities of many wild plants.  It's a thin line between nutrient-packed herbal foods and the mildest and safest of the natural herbal medicines.  May the Farm/Pharm be with you!