Apples That Never Turn Brown?

I recently read a NY Times article entitled "That Fresh Look, Genetically Buffed." A new genetically engineered apple is being marketed. This apple is made so that it won't turn brown when sliced or bruised.

Wait...what?!

Isn't that a huge component of a fresh apple? Maybe I'd actually like to know if my apple has been sitting around for awhile.

One of their top reasons for this developement is this: "A whole apple is 'for many people too big a commitment,' he said. 'If you had a bowl of apples at a meeting, people wouldn’t take an apple out of the bowl. But if you had a plate of apple slices, everyone would take a slice.' "

I'm all for getting people to eat more fresh fruit, but I don't think this is the best answer. Genetically engineered food, no matter whether it's fresh or packaged, all has the same problem. It hasn't been around long enough to test the ramifications it may have on our bodies & on our earth.

As a Christian, I believe the God created everything in His perfect image. This includes apples. He wanted them to turn brown when exposed to air. He wanted us to know whether they were bruised. Why are we messing around with nature?

One of the problems that they are concerned about is that "the Arctic technology might not keep the apples from turning brown for the required 16 to 21 days." Why would we want to eat an apple that has been exposed to air for 16-21 days? That sounds dangerous to me. Apples come in their very own perfect packaging - the skin. Do they bruise if not handled with care? Yes. But the skin protects the apple & the nutrients it contains. As soon as we start cutting it up, packaging it in plastic, & giving it a long shelf life, we lose nutrients, add extra costs, & waste valuable resources.

An advocate of the genetically engineered apple said "the nonbrowning trait would help growers and packers. 'We discard an awful lot of fruit for even minor bruising,' he said."  In that case, why are they discarding the fruit? There are a lot of hungry people in this country/world who would happily eat a bruised apple. Cut away the bruised part, & you still have plenty of fruit to eat. It's a shame that so much food goes to waste simply because American consumers demand perfection.

Next time you have a bruised apple, don't throw it away! Make applesauce, or Apple Pumpkin Beer Bread. Throw the good parts into pancakes or oatmeal. Or just dip the slices in peanut butter! There are many options.

We don't need our apples to never brown. We just need to be willing to accept a few imperfections. In that respect, apples aren't much different than humans. Just because they aren't perfect doesn't mean we don't love them!

Introverts

I have something a little different to post today. No food! No garden! Just a speech & some thoughts.



I hope you'll take time out to watch this. It's a video about the power of introverts & how the world around us is changing.

I don't think about it much, but I know I'm an introvert. Give me a day at home alone & I'm happy as can be. I can bury myself in a book for hours, not realizing how much time went by. My parents used to have trouble getting me to come to dinner & I learned the best phrase ever from them - "Come to a good stopping point." But of course I'd by-pass quite a few before actually stopping...cause really, the only good stopping point is the end.

Hope you enjoy the wise words spoken in the video. Leave any thoughts in the comments - I'd love to hear if you're an introvert or extrovert!

Take a deep breath

This week completely overwhelmed me. Little stuff irritated me for no reason. I couldn't focus on multiple things at once. Everything seemed like a huge monster task, ready to attack.

Nothing bad happened, it was a normal week. I'm not even sure what made me feel this way. It wasn't one of my busiest weeks, by far. I just feel like there's so much to do, to remember, to process, that I can't keep up. Like I'm letting stuff slip through the cracks but can't do anything to stop it.

I hit my wall after lunch yesterday when I was so completely exhausted that I didn't think I'd make it through the afternoon. I got home, wrapped myself in our fluffy comforter, & fell asleep. (This is HUGE for me. I love naps & never let myself take them.) I woke up when the Bup came home, about 30 minutes later, & was completely disoriented. I thought I was late for work. Nope, just for dinner! Slow Cooked Sweet Potato Chili, you are my friend.

I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me.  Psalm 3:5

Apparently I'm not the only one, because I found a post that was perfect for me to read: Let it be Simple. Her "Cures for overwhelm" make me feel comforted. I can do this, too. Each time I do yoga, take time outside, or drink tea, I need to stop & think about all the little comforts that I take for granted.

Right after finishing that much-needed read, I went on to find this from Joy: Pink Raised Doughnuts with Toasted Coconut. Ok, yes, the doughtnuts are beautiful & I'm certain they're delicious. But more than that, her words of wisdom in the first few paragraphs are helpful.  Whenever I'm feeling blah, I need to focus in on what's good & beautiful in my life.

So as I come out of this little slump, I wanted to share it with you, in case anyone else is going through something similar, whether on a small scale, like mine, or on a larger scale.

I'm blessed in so many ways. So are you. Let's remember that.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.      Romans 15:13  

P.S. The pic at the top is from my run this morning. It doesn't do any justice to the beautiful pinks in the sky, but I had to try.

P.P.S. I'm hoping to have a few red & pink recipes up soon, in the spirit of Valentine's Day!

It's Been 3 Years!

It's been three years since we got married. Three happy years, full of love.

He keeps me sane.

He builds me anything.

He listens to me.

He makes me laugh.

He loves my (sometimes bizarre) cooking.

He tucks me in at night.

He travels with me.

He keeps me safe.

He acts like a little kid with me.

He dances with me.

He tells me I'm beautiful.

He loves me.

<3

I love him.

Thanks for a wonderful three years together! Here's to the rest of our lives.

May God bless our marriage and may God bless yours, be it now or in the future.

Eating Whole Foods: Breakfast

Two of my friends recently asked me about helping them eat a healthier diet. I love that kind of stuff, so I decided to do a segment on the blog about it.

One of the first questions was about breakfast, and since that's the first meal of the day, that's where we'll start. 

Tip #1: Don't skip breakfast. Ever. 

When you wake up, you most likely haven't eaten for at least 8 hours. That's fine when all you're doing is sleeping, but your body needs fuel to carry you through to lunch.

Tip #2: Eat a piece of fruit.

If you really can't handle eating in the morning, at least eat a piece of fruit. No, it's not really a big enough breakfast to tide you over until lunch, but at least you are eating something healthy to start the day. I like to add fruit to whatever I'm eating, like a banana on pb toast or peaches on oatmeal.

Another option is to make a smoothie. They're a great way to get in your daily servings of fruit and veggies. It's easy to make your smoothie the night before and keep it in the fridge to grab on the way out the door in the morning,

Kale Green Smoothies

Tip #3: Learn to like oatmeal. 

For me to talk about breakfast, I have to do an ode to oatmeal. Just hear me out.

I didn't always like oatmeal. My mom ate it for breakfast pretty often and I thought she was crazy. Then one day I thought maybe this was something I should try, so I asked her to get me some packets of cinnamon oatmeal, please!

It was like eating running, clumpy, sugary goo. Back to cereal and english muffins, thanks.

Then one day I had baked oatmeal when we were out. This stuff is incredible, like a muffin and cereal all rolled into one food. I figured maybe I could like oatmeal then, so I kept trying. I made my own baked oatmeal a few times and ate leftovers for a few days, but oatmeal still wasn't part of my daily breakfasts.

When I started reading more blogs, I got some great ideas that looked like they'd make oatmeal better. Making it on the stove or in the crock-pot with old-fashioned or steelcut oats tastes so much better than the packets.

Best discovery ever: top it with peanut butter!

Crock-Pot Steel Cut Oats

Oatmeal for Breakfast (with Wheat Berries)

Tip #4 Aim for whole grains.

No matter what you're having for breakfast, be it pancakes, muffins, bagels, toast, etc., have the whole grain version. If you're buying it, look for the first ingredient on the list to say whole grain. If you're making it, use white whole wheat or regular whole wheat flour in place of all or at least part of the flour. Unrefined carbohydrates give you energy for a longer period of time.

Stacked Strawberry Pancakes

Tip #5: Add protein to the meal. 

As much as it pains me to dwell on protein, since Americans are always hung up on it and actually get much more than is needed, it really does help keep you full longer. If you're going to eat breakfast, it should be worth your while. No one wants to be hungry 2 hours later. My favorite way to incorporate protein is by topping my breakfast with nut butter, but there are a lot of ways to get some protein. 

I like my breakfast to be on the sweet side, but if you like savory, eggs are a great option. They make a filling, protein rich breakfast and they're very versatile. Add some veggies for extra nutrients! 

Yogurt can also be a good way to get in some protein, but watch the sugar content because some of the varieties are full of it!

Dried Cranberry Yogurt

*I am not a nutritionist, these tips are simply what I have picked up through much research and personal experience. Everyone's bodies are different, so listen to your own body's needs.**

Nature as a Reason

When I read other blogs, I love learning about what makes the person tick. Everything from their thoughts on important topics to their reasons for becoming a blogger to their passions (other than food!) to why they chose to eat the way they do, it all interests me. I like getting to know them as a person. The Bup says I get a little too involved, but I truly enjoy connecting with people with similar interests, even if it is only through a blog. I learn something new every day!

So today I'm going to share something I care deeply about.

Nature.

I want fresh air and nature's beauty to still exist decades from now. I love to be able to go into the woods and hear only the wind, the birds, and the scurrying of the chipmunks.

To look up and see a bright blue sky, framed with green, each leaf a unique shape that stands out but also blends into the whole picture.

To climb high and peer out over the tree tops from the edge of a cliff. To see woods and hills in the distance and imagine what's going on there.

To stand on the slippery rocks of a stream and inhale the fresh air, damp from the moss and foliage.

To see daisies everywhere I go, just littering the gardens and fields with their sunny faces.

And so I try my best and do all that I can to keep peace with nature.

Sheena captures my feelings in both photos and words. Check out her post on taking her family into nature! Her photography is amazing. I'd love to do this with my future children just like my parents did it with me.

Question:  Does nature make you relax?

Homegrown Tomatoes & A Quick Sauce Recipe

Twitter is always teaching me something. Someone that I follow always finds a great article or picture that interests me. I can't get enough of it!

Usually the things I learn are interesting and useful, maybe funny or slightly alarming, but it's rare that I read something that shocks me to the core.

This article about industrial tomatoes by Barry Estabrook from GiltTaste did. It shocked me like reading Skinny Bitch and watching Food, Inc. did. This is the factory farming of vegetables and harmful to all numbers of people. I'm pulling some (okay, a lot) of quotes from the article to share with you so that just in case you don't want to or have time to read it, you still know.

"Of all the fruits and vegetables we eat, none suffers at the hands of factory farming more than a tomato grown in the wintertime fields of Florida."

**I would love if you would read this information with an open mind. But if you don't have time or just aren't interested, there is a recipe at the end, so don't miss that!**



You're eating hard unripened tomatoes and paying for juicy ripe ones. Those lovely green tomatoes that you pick off your vines because you just can't wait another day are forced to turn red and then sold like they're the real deal. Fact: they're not going to drip with juice like the ones you wait for from the garden.

"It takes a tough tomato to stand up to the indignity of such industrial scale farming, so most Florida tomatoes are bred for hardness, picked when still firm and green (the merest trace of pink is taboo), and artificially gassed with ethylene in warehouses until they acquire the rosy red skin tones of a ripe tomato."

Why are we wasting so much money on something that tastes nothing like what it should? We don't buy unbaked brown bread and expect it to taste like a bake loaf. Tomatoes are no different.

"Americans bought $5 billion worth of perfectly round, perfectly red, and, in the opinion of many consumers, perfectly tasteless fresh tomatoes in 2009"

All that money for less nutrients and more sodium. What a deal!

"...fresh tomatoes today have 30 percent less vitamin C, 30 percent less thiamin, 19 percent less niacin, and 62 percent less calcium than they did in the 1960s. But the modern tomato does shame its 1960s counterpart in one area: It contains fourteen times as much sodium."

Just in case it wasn't a good enough deal, they're throwing in plenty of herbicides & pesticides for us, too.

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture has found residues of 35 pesticides on tomatoes destined for supermarkets."
"And although Florida's sandy soil makes for great beaches, it is devoid of plant nutrients. To get a successful crop, they pump the sand full of chemical fertilizers and can blast the plants with more than one hundred different herbicides and pesticides, including some of the most toxic in agribusiness's arsenal."

 Yikes!!

"Florida's tomato fields provide a stark example of what a food system looks like when all elements of sustainability are violated."

If we can get past the horrible taste, the money, and the pesticides, then we're hit with the poor treatment of the workers.

"Paid on a "piece" basis for every bushel-sized basket they gather, tomato pickers are lucky to earn 70 dollars on a good day." And apparently, these "good days" are very rare."

The Civil War was centuries ago. Those men fought and died to set things right in this country. We have no right to go back on that because we want a rock hard, tasteless tomato.

"When I asked Molloy if it was safe to assume that a consumer who has eaten a fresh tomato from a grocery store, fast food restaurant, or food-service company in the winter has eaten a fruit picked by the hand of a slave, he corrected my choice of words. "It's not an assumption. It is a fact.""

The Land of the Free.

"I began to see that the Florida tomato industry constitutes a parallel world unto itself, a place where many of the assumptions I had taken for granted about living in the United States are turned on their heads."

Not only do the companies not pay their workers proper wages & subject them to slave labor, but then this...

"Pesticides, so toxic to humans and so bad for the environment that they are banned outright for most crops, are routinely sprayed on virtually every Florida tomato field, and in too many cases, sprayed directly on workers, despite federally mandated periods when fields are supposed to remain empty after chemical application."

Change this. Of all the big tough decisions in life, it's easy to decide never to buy a grocery store tomato. Such a simple choice.

It is yours.

"...a real tomato's taste is the distilled essence of sun, warm soil, and fine summer days."

If you made it through all that, thank you for reading! This is something that is important to me and I want to be able to share my thoughts with you openly. I'm sure all this serious talk made you hungry (I am!), so I'm offering you a recipe for a quick sauce, easy to throw together after a day at work, especially when company is coming. It's also great for lunch leftovers throughout the week.



Quick Tomato Veggie Pasta
Serves 6-81 large yellow onion, chopped
1 medium patty pan squash, chopped
4 mushrooms, sliced (optional)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 c fresh basil, chopped
6 fresh tomatoes, any variety (I used long johns from our garden)
28 oz. canned crushed tomatoes (either home-canned or organic)
1/4 c ricotta cheese (optional)
1 lb. whole wheat rotelle (spiral) noodles

In a large non-stick pan, cook onions over medium-high heat until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add squash and cook 3-5 minutes more. If using mushrooms, add them now. Once squash starts to become translucent, add garlic, salt, pepper, oregano & basil. Stir to combine and then add fresh tomatoes. Cook until the juices from the tomatoes are bubbly. Add canned tomatoes and let simmer while preparing the noodles according to package directions. Stir occasionally. When noodles are done cooking, stir ricotta cheese, if using, into sauce. Drain noodles, combine with sauce and serve.

*Feel free to add other veggies, too. Eggplant or zucchini would be good substitutes for the squash. Bell peppers or hot peppers would be a great addition. Just throw them in with the onions.



Quick Tomato Veggie Pasta

Cute little chick

I don't want to get too serious here, but I had a conversation last night that got me thinking.

My grandparents live on a farm about an hour from me. Growing up, we would go down to visit and help out. I remember driving the Farmall tractor with Mommom and sitting on the piles of hay bales while Poppop and Dad  loaded them from the baler onto the wagon. We'd bring lemonade out to Poppop when it was super hot. I loved exploring the barn and searching out the newborn kittens when the mommy cats hid them away safely. We'd ride the bale elevator to the upper level to store the hay and straw for the winter. Poppop and I would go outside after dinner and let the sheep into the barn for the night. That's an amazing sight - all the sheep running like crazy for the open doors of the barn!

Mommom would take me into the chicken coop and show me how to gather the eggs. I'd go out to the steer pens and feed the babies out of my hand. One year, a friend and I named the two steers Peaches and Cream. Of course, being a farm, these steers were being raised for one reason - food. That was the first time I really remember truly knowing what beef was: Oh! I'm eating Peaches and Cream. Mom!!!!! How could you let them do that to them? 

(Disclaimer: The next paragraph might be a little gory.)

We went down on several occasions to harvest the chickens. Poppop got them in as baby chicks that he'd keep in the incubator and then he raised them for food. I was too young to be much help, but I vividly remember the process. Poppop would use an ax to swiftly cut off the heads and then the chickens would be left free to roam the yard. Headless. The chickens weren't in pain. They weren't scared before they died. They lived happy lives, pecking away the barnyard like chickens were born to do. But the truth was, they were being raised for slaughter. After they died, Mommom and Mom would hang them up to drain out the blood and then dip them in scalding water and pick out all the feathers. It was a full day's worth of work, but rewarding, too. Fresh, humanely raised, free range chicken! 

I think that was when I decided chicken is gross. Since then I've gone back and forth between eating and not eating chicken. Now I'm at the stage where I don't eat it. I disagree with the inhumane treatment of chickens in factory farms. I don't want those pesticides and antibiotics and whatever else in me. 

The conversation last night was with Mommom and Mom. Dad made chicken cacciatore for dinner and I asked whether they got the chicken from the Amish farm stand. They had, thankfully! Mommom remarked that no matter what brand she buys in the grocery store, there's always blood around the bones. She was upset because that means that they didn't properly drain the chicken before packaging it up. For a woman used to eating her own farm-raised chickens, this was the ultimate insult. I suggested that she try buying free range, organic chickens and see if it made a different. I'm anxious to see if it does!

Since you made it through this super long post, I thought I'd share a funny picture of the Bup and Dad loading bags with sheep manure to bring home for our gardens. Aren't they cute? :-)