Farmin' food

There's a lovely, new gallery in Kutztown called The Independent Gallery and Co-op.  They host all sorts of different events, like Storytime for toddlers, Market Mondays (when local famers & bakers bring in their goods), open mic evenings, yoga classes, chess club for kids and of course, art shows.  It's right next door to where I work, so I see that there's a LOT going on, almost all the time.  After work today, I stopped in (Market Monday!) to pick up some produce, and of course I was enticed into purchasing a loaf of French bread.  Ready to leave, food in hand, the ladies there and I realized I looked like I was walking in from a movie set, since I was holding a baguette and a bunch of carrots with an enormous bunch of greens atop.  How amusing!!

Well, I was rather enthralled that they had beets available today.  I'm totally excited to make some Borscht; it's the best soup ever!  Perhaps I'll stop by the meat market next for some beef (or chicken!)  Who knows what I'll receive from my CSA tomorrow!

Yes, Greg and I decided to buy into a CSA share for the season.  Our farmer is a young man I worked with last summer, and he's been doing wonderfully this year.  So far, we've received from him shell peas, snow peas, spring onions, garlic scapes, chard, kohlrabi, mustard greens, radishes, varieties of lettuce and several herbs (thyme, Italian parsley, etc).  We've been eating PLENTY of delicious stir-fry dishes lately.  It's been amazing seeing the "seasonal" difference, merely week-to-week, in what types of vegetables have been harvested.  Some plants have a very long season, some (like strawberries) are ripe only for a few weeks.  Greg and I have been receiving all this fresh produce with much gratitude and appreciation for the farming life.

How refreshing it is to see so much local agriculture happening!  New this year in Kutztown is the Main Street Growers' Market, which happens on Thursday afternoons from 3:00 to 7:00 pm.  Local farmers simply set up with their goods on folding tables in the little alley by Trinity Lutheran Church.  I purchased some delicious blueberries there last week, from Weavers' Orchard.  Berks County is such an amazing place!  Despite the pork-enriched diet of many of the locals, organic vegetable farms seem to be thriving.  Next week, the Kutztown Folk Festival will occur:  a great carnival dedicated to quilting, Hex signs and sausage sandwiches.  Yes, we're living in a land of bacon & baloney here in Berks, but amidst the lard and tripe arise fresh, organic veggies.  I'm quite excited about it, and very glad to see so many new farms & CSAs popping up across the map.  Rock on, farmers!!

What to Eat

Currently reading What to Eat by Marion Nestle.  She's a professor of nutrition at NYU.  Cool.

Apparently she's done all sorts of extensive research on what food companies want us to think and buy, who owns food companies, why grocery stores are all laid out the same way, and what goes into genetically modified, organic, conventional, and local foods.

If you've ever been to a grocery store in North America, it probably has either flowers or the bakery section by the entrance [to stimulate appetite by smell], long long aisles of prepackaged foods [to keep you interested while walking along slowly], bright shining bins of produce [waxed over & labelled with various countries & states of nonlocal origin] and all that placed between you and the important stuff [milk, bread, eggs, meats - all located furthest away from the entrances] so that you look at more things they have to offer than you need.

The author states that 70% of grocery store customers create lists before shopping.  10% of shoppers don't buy more than their list includes.

Next time:  Sugar - How invasive it is in our diets.

wealth

i see a t.v. preacher promoting his 'financial breakthrough bible' and the 'four miracles god will release into your life'. before that, he proclaimed God's coming judgement on the u.s. for its inappropriate sex and abortion.

i look once more at this man, shouting into his microphone, wearing a great big red silk tie, an enormous gold ring on his finger, and an expensive-looking suit that covers his enormous body.

my confession:  i eat more than my body needs.  it's true.  where in my caloric intake does ice cream play a part in aiding the nutrition of my body?  it does not.  i call myself out: i'm a sinner who eats more than i need to.

the increasing reality of americans' obsession with food can be clearly seen in their volume.  cars become suvs [for suburban commuters] to accomodate the size of passengers.  rollercoasters now boast rows of larger seats for their guests.  tv channels that once provided science education now air programs about 800+ pound persons' addictions to take-out, their bed-bound lives, their gastric bypass surgeries, and their deaths.

it is easy to point out obese people and their obvious problem: food addiction.  but we must think on our own selves as well.  how much are we eating?  what money are we spending frivolously that could be used to help the poor - as Jesus asks us to?

if one person who purchases a cup of coffee three to four times a week gives up the java and puts that money towards a poor child; that person could sponsor a kid in africa for his or her education, healthcare, food and more... for years.

Jesus calls us to love God and love our neighbor.  more specifically, He calls us to do three things to honor God:  pray, give, fast.  i admit, i struggle to do all three of those.  it may be difficult because of the implications our western society puts on us as its citizens, fueling our selfish, sinful nature.

1. pray - prayer constitutes the simple act of quieting the mind and communing with God. listening to Him, and speaking with Him [beyond asking for trivial things & saying thanks for dinner].  how do we achieve quiet?  put down the crackberry, hush the tweeting, log off of facebook.  turn off the mobile phone, step outside, lie down in the grass and be quiet.  do that for more than 10 minutes and find out how much you hear.

2. give - God wants us to take care of the misfortunate because it brings honor to His name.
  instinct tells us that the man on the street asking for change will use it the next minute to buy booze or crack.  does Jesus ask us to judge what he'll do with that money?  if we're honest with ourselves, as much as we think we work hard to "earn" money, we can't deny that God gave us the skills... and provided education... and put us in the job... and He's the one who truly earned us our paychecks.  the earth is the Lord's, and everything in it.  even two dollars in your pocket belongs to God - let His will be done when we give to strangers.

3. fast - this one is the most oft ignored among american Christ-followers.  we don't think about *not* eating, mostly because we have in our country a ridiculous abundance of food.  God spoke to the prophet isaiah, telling him that He wants a fast that's pure - a heart that wants to give up food so it can give that food to the hungry.  He says if we do this, "then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear.  then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard."  awesome, awesome things happen when we choose the righteous path.  what's holding us back?

Two things

There are two things I wish all Americans would do. The world's cost of food has been rising because North Americans have been using corn for non-food purposes. If I could broadcast myself in the national media, I would ask folks to:

1. Stop using corn-based ethanol to fuel your cars. Sure, it may be a tiny bit more environmentally sound, but it still pollutes and it's wasting food that could be used to feed hungry kids in Africa/Asia/South America. Carpool. Ride a bike. Take a hike.

2. Eat less meat. It takes 5 months of feeding a pig 8 pounds of feed per day to get it to full size - 265 pounds. (http://www.pork4kids.com). 1200 pounds of food (say, corn) create only 265 pounds of meat (less the inedible parts of the animal). Those 1200 pounds of corn can feed a LOT more people than ~265 pounds of pork. Additionally, more energy and vitamins & nutrients are absorbed through eating corn - because the pig has already digested & used much of that energy by the time you get to eating the pork. Seriously, beans & rice will save the world. If we allow it.

Every day, I'm more and more appalled by the wasteful gluttony I see here in this country. I may just learn Spanish and move to a monastery in Peru.

On a more fun note, my friend Matthew has made a fun video to share:

Obesity contributes to global pollution

Check out this article:

Should Overweight Consumers Pay Extra for Services From Southwest Airlines & Other Businesses?
A number of companies and consumer groups think that overweight adults should pay extra for their services. Do you?
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/95247/should_overweight_consumers_pay_extra.html

Excerpt:

Statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics indicate that the American population's weight has been creeping up since the 1990's. More than thirty percent of American adults over the age of 20 are obese. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention states that the average weight of American adults has ballooned by 10 pounds.

The extra weight of these chubby vagabonds has translated into an additional $275 million dollar expenditure to burn more than 350 million additional gallons of jet fuel resulting in 3.8 million extra tons of carbon dioxide released into the air.


your thoughts?