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• 18/21 Rule and Other Advice I’ve Read That Actually Makes Sense

  18/21 Rule and Other Advice I’ve Read That Actually Makes Sense   Health advice is abundant.  While it reflects a worthwhile trend to having access to more information about health, some articles I’ve read are not very helpful.  Ubiquitously, advice in articles frequently say for better health, “Lose weight” and it is given as casually as “Floss Teeth.”  To get ready for bed you should brush and floss your teeth and lose twenty pounds.  Hmm, I’m exaggerating, of course, but such casual advice is not helpful and unnecessary.  In the same type of advice, articles frequently relate how many calories in a meal and how many grams of protein and how many grams of carbohydrates.  I don’t know about you, but my life cannot be centered around perfection and following healthy advice all the time.    However, there are some suggestions that I’ve found are helpful and actually make sense for our less than perfectly ordered lives:   18/21 Rule To explain this rule, here is a personal example.  My granddaughter is a cheerleader for her high school that’s located in Mobile.  During the fall months, ...

• Recipes from the market- Black eye Peas

    The entire experience of using Coastal Alabama Farmers’ and Fishermen’s Market results in using fresh foods as well as using what’s “on hand” in order to create something economical, healthy, and good.  Many times when I come home from shopping at the Market with a head of broccoli, I cut into florets or a bunch of carrots, I dice into bite-sized pieces, and just steaming either or both of these slightly is wonderful.  Add a little salt and/or some flavored vinegar and it’s a treat.  That’s one of the great things about being fresh from the farmers who grow vegetables – most food is picked the day before and nothing tastes better than a really fresh vegetable – something you can’t find in a grocery store.  Fresh steamed broccoli or carrots for lunch with a slice of bread.  Fantastic!   Another advantage of cooking from items selected from the Market is the economic value – both time and money – of using what’s on hand with what I picked up at the Market.  The recipe that follows is based on the ...

• Ain’t it awful? convenience food that is... Try the Recipe of the Week: Summer Vegetable Stir Fry with Pasta

  Ain’t it awful?   Something interesting with a disturbing purpose is going on with refrigerators.  Have you looked at new refrigerators lately?  Do so and you will see that all new refrigerators come with an expanded freezer section and a smaller refrigeration section.  Have you noticed that grocery stores are adding more freezer space?  Also, have you noticed that grocery stores are stocking less frozen produce like fruit and vegetables and are stocking more frozen ready-made meals and frozen meal packages?  Refrigerators are changing in order to hold stacks of frozen ready-made meals purchased from grocery stores that are expanding their inventory of frozen meals.   The Norman Rockwell scene of an All-American family having dinner together is all changed.  Mother, Father, Sister, Brother come into the kitchen, pick out what they want for supper from the freezer, microwave it, and sit down for their particularly selected meal, often straight from the package rather than from a plate.  I’m not making up some fantasy, it’s real.  The worst part of all this is what’s on the back of the packages from which they ...

• What Exactly Are Microgreens?

  What Exactly Are Microgreens?   Statement about Microgreens from Heather Pritchard:  Part of what a farmers’ market can do for farms or other businesses is product introduction. With direct access to the public, vendors can “test” an item and quickly learn what the public likes, which also helps diversify market products.  Microgreens have only recently been introduced to consumers at Coastal Alabama Farmers and Fishermens Market and the response is amazing. Knowing how super nutritious they are coupled with the many flavors and uses, it is no wonder they are popular. Furthermore, it is an example of alternate ways of growing in the home or small spaces.  With all of the stress and uncertainty in folks’ lives, I believe that purchasing and feeding yourself something like this is a reward that most can afford and enjoy.   What are Microgreens? Microgreens are tiny edible plants with an intense flavor, usually vegetable garden plants, that are grown in quantity and harvested while they are still juvenile plants, generally around 10 days.  (www.growingmicrogreens.com) Popular microgreens are red cabbage, cilantro, radish, sunflower, kale, broccoli, amaranth, Bok choy, arugula, ...

• Slow Money - Recipe of the Week: Sweet Potato, Corn, Black beans, Tomato

  Slow Money   Are you familiar with the Slow Money movement?  The movement focuses mainly on the benefits to our economy based on farmers’ markets and similar venues.  Quoting from their website: “Today, people are hungry for real alternatives to faster and faster, bigger and bigger, more and more global. Investing in local food systems is a way to begin fixing our economy and our culture from the ground up.”  “We are building a movement of individuals who … are choosing a constructive, hopeful course of action. Slow Money … is built on the premise that … we need not only new technologies and new policies, but also new sensibilities and new behavior, without which the words sustainable and transparent and accountable and socially responsible and metrics and impact will mean little in the end.”   Principles of Slow Money We must bring money back down to earth. There is such a thing as money that is too fast, companies that are too big, finance that is too complex. Therefore, we must slow our money down — not all of it, of course, ...

• Fourth of July Brunswick Stew

  Overwhelming Information and a 4th of July Recipe Do you feel overwhelmed with information about “healthy eating?”  In spite of all the advice we receive about healthy eating, Americans still suffer from higher rates of obesity and chronic diseases caused by poor eating habits more so than ever before.  One major problem, in my opinion, is that over the years we have received so much contradictory information that we tend to quit listening.  Fats are bad.  No, wait, we need good fats.  We need high carbohydrate diets.  No, wait, carbs are bad.  High protein diets.  No, wait, meat is bad.  Lots of seafood.  No, wait, heavy metals in fish are bad.  So, we give up and go through the fast food drive-in. What we really should be doing is following relatively simple advice: eat a variety of foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables; whole grains; and farm fresh eggs and meats.  Get more exercise.  And watch how much we eat (guilty).  Stripping away some of the advice that I find difficult to believe, I have found some advice along the way that ...