My Food Manifesto.....

Happy New Year Everyone... I know I know January is almost over. Anyway last summer I finally had a chance to watch the show Food Inc. It really inspired me to make some conscious decisions about the food we eat. I say inspire b/c the movie is pretty eye opening. I can see someone watching this show and then becoming a vegetarian outright. For me it just meant lets think a little bit about where we are getting our food and what we are eating. If you have netflix this movies is available on their online streaming site. The concept I really took home from this movie is this:

So here are the three concepts that I adopted....

1. Try to eat local foods whenever we can
I've done this first by joining a CSA (community service agriculture). I will be the first to admit that it is not always easy trying to find ways to cook the different veggies we get. SO for me going in to this with my mother has been infinitely helpful. If there is something I am stumped on or I just don't feel like cooking something I give it to her. I am finding though as I am going into my second year of doing this that I am getting better at it. I also stumbled on to the fact that my cousin who grew up outside of the US knew how to use some of these veggies in some really great ways.


I also am fortunate to live in an area where there are local farms. Including those that sell grain fed beef, whey fed pork, etc. and produce it using sustainable farming. I plan on visiting this farmers market this weekend:

2. Try and buy foods from companies which use sustainable farming practices
Note that I don't say that I buy 100% organic food. Also note that I say TRY... there are so many problems these days with how foods are labeled, what is meant by antibiotic free, even standard labels such as "organic" or "cage free". Honestly I'll tell you I worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 10 years and if we labeled our drugs like the food industry labels their foods we'd be in serious trouble. I will add one last thing that drives me a bit nutty.... chicken labeled as "vegetarian fed diet".... do you know what chickens naturally eat... worms and insects...along with seeds and grains... I am still trying to figure out why a vegetarian fed chicken is desirable.
Anyway... I tend to go for companies who go out of their way to stand by their food label claims. The big one that was highlighted in the movie Food Inc. was Stoneyfields, I buy them whenever I can. We also have this a Korean Fried Chicken place in the Freehold mall called BocBoc chicken (they actually source their chicken from local farms in the NJ/PA area)

I wish I could just say I am going to give up all processed foods 100% but I don't think thats reasonable. Processed food has become such a huge part of our food culture that to just drop all processed food like that is hard enough for me let alone my 3 year old who wants to eat a graham cracker for snack. I'd rather make lots of little changes over time then make huge drastic changes. I think they will stick better. (just like the fact that diets really don't work)

3. Grow my own food
I have to say that I always had an interest in gardening but not really a huge green thumb. I'm getting better at this though. (I'll have to say I am feeling a bit more confident today b/c my first ever indoor sown seedlings have germinated... yeah me... lets see if I can keep them alive till May... that will be the true test). I have found that gardening is really calming for me and a huge stress reliever... so this just gives me personally more of a reason to focus on this.