Chocolate Bonbons Make the Perfect Christmas Gift

‘Tis the season for giving, but it can be a challenge to find an original, inspiring Christmas gift for the perfect someone. Sometimes all you need is a stroll around town to uncover pretty awesome (and delicious) hidden treasures. Today, walking down Dalhousie I was drawn in by a vibrant blue sign “Cylie Artisans Chocolatiers“.

Opening their doors in September of this year, Cylie is a breath of fresh air for any chocolate lover’s palate. Co-owners Cyril Nebout and Leslie Yang (whose combined name makes up Cylie), have created a delectable collection of fine artisan chocolates and bonbons.

I was like a child in a candy store, salivating over the exquisite fine treats. I was especially drawn to their bonbons, which are made of 72% Valrhona chocolate, and filled with a rich chocolate ganache. Can anyone say mango caramel or milk chocolate ganache infused with Organic Apple Crumble tea?

What sets these bonbons apart from others (besides their taste of course), is that each one is individually decorated with cocoa butter-based paints. It takes up to three days to produce a batch of these divine edibles.

Who wouldn’t love a dark chocolate bar drizzled with bacon bits, hand dipped orange peels, or a rich cup of hot chocolate?

 

And if you’re not feeling the chocolate love, Leslie and Cyril complement their decadent chocolate bonbons with fine teas from around the world and stunning Chinese tea sets:

I have to say, it is so nice to see people truly living their dream, and not to mention, finding some great Christmas presents.

Almond milk: why homemade is way better (and easy)

When we discovered that our daughter had a dairy intolerance, we had to find alternatives to milk. I had occasionally bought almond milk, but after getting too familiar with the list of ingredients I was not convinced that this was something I should be putting in my child’s body, let alone my own. For one, commercial almond milk is highly processed. Have you ever tried to pronounce the ingredients listed on a carton of almond milk? It took me months to properly say carrageenan let alone lecithin, or gellan gum. 

I often wondered what these added ingredients are meant to achieve. Carrageenan is a common food additive extracted from red seaweed, and is used as a binder, emulsifying agent or thickening agent in food products, including almond milk. According to a March 2013 report on carrageenan by the Cornucopia Institute,

Carrageenan can also serve as a stabilizer for beverages that separate, and must be stirred or shaken before use to redistribute the particles. Addition of carrageenan allows beverages like chocolate milk or nutritional shakes to be consumed without first shaking or stirring.

I didn’t quite appreciate this until I made my own almond milk (more on this below). I wonder how often food additives are used to preserve the appearance of a product so that we, consumers, are not turned away from picking it up in the grocery aisle. I’ve never been a big fan of carrageenan so purchased almond milk that didn’t contain this additive. However, I’m also not entirely convinced that the “alternatives” are any better.

I recently wrote an email to Silk® asking them what the ingredients in their almond milk are meant to do, namely the “Locust Bean Gum, Sunflower Lecithin, Gellan Gum” that appear on the ingredient list of their Silk Pure Almond® Original. I received the following response from the Silk® Consumer Affairs Department:

Silk® uses emulsifying agents such as Sunflower Lecithin, Locust Bean Gum & Gellan Gum in our foods to keep them at the proper consistency and texture. These ingredients help create the texture and mouth feel that consumers expect from our products. Stabilizers and/or thickeners are primarily used to achieve the expected texture in a product and the type of stabilizer and thickener used varies by product, but the ingredient will be listed on the ingredient panel. These ingredients help maintain the product’s quality throughout its shelf-life, which we feel is important to families. I hope this information was helpful. Have a wonderful day.

The information was helpful. If I want to feed my family healthy food, I need to keep it simple. The only way to truly do so was if I made the almond milk myself. I had decided to start making my own almond milk sometime last year and even went out and bought cheese cloth (that’s what many online recipes called for). And that’s probably why it took me a year to make my first glass of almond milk, because it seemed like such a complicated endeavour.

Then I came across a simple almond milk online tutorial by Danielle Walker. I bought her book Against all Grain in which she provides this short recipe:

1 cup raw almonds
8 cups filtered water, divided (I use tap water)
¼ tsp sea salt, divided
1 small date (optional)

I followed Danielle’s recipe and soaked the almonds overnight in 4 cups of water and 1/8 tsp of the sea salt. In the morning I drained the almonds, rinsed them very well, and transfered them to the blender, along with the remaining water, salt and date, blended it into a fine liquid and voila: real, unprocessed almond milk. I stored my milk in mason jars for a few days. They are perfect for making smoothies, adding to my morning granola, and feeding to my toddler.

A few interesting observations:

• After a day or even a few hours, the almond milk begins to separate, which made me understand the role that carrageenan and other binders play
• The texture of homemade almond milk is not thick like commercial almond milk, again, probably because it does not contain any of the above additives
• It does help to use a cheese cloth to extract the remaining almond meal. I use a fine sieve that also does the trick
• Homemade almond milk does only last a few days
• Homemade almond milk tastes like real almond milk because it contains only a few ingredients, mainly almonds and water.

I don’t need complicated ingredients, especially when it takes under a few minutes (except of course for the soaking) to make my own almond milk. It’s worth it and it tastes great!

The Switch Witch: a new spin on Halloween

It’s been a week since Halloween. Are you wondering what to do with all that leftover candy that your kids can’t seem to get enough of? As a child, the best part of Halloween (apart from the dark, spooky nights and crazy costumes) was the delight in devouring HUGE bags filled with candy. Every year my friends and I would set out at the slightest hint of nightfall with the sole mission of filling our pillow cases to the brim with candy. No house would be ignored, and we would avoid with great care any neighbour who handed out apples or any healthy snack. Those families were eagerly blacklisted and there was a community of children who used sophisticated intel to inform their peers of which houses to avoid.

Today as a parent, I cringe at the prospect of my kids coming home with large quantities of candy. I thought of becoming that house that hands out apples or play dough. For children, an important part of Halloween is enjoying and truly indulging in copious amounts of sugar. So how was I going to curb my children’s enthusiasm for candy, without being a Debbie Downer?

At first I thought I would do nothing. My children are young and probably wouldn’t eat that much candy. I reflected on last year, when my eldest was content on receiving a small quantity of candy every day until her reserve was depleted. I would do the same this year. The only problem was her little sister.

On Halloween night, my youngest who can barely talk pointed feverishly at a small bag of chocolate candies. I gave her two pieces of candy which she inhaled, and within seconds her expression changed. She rarely had the chance to enjoy something so sweet and she insisted I give her more, and by insist I mean she began to scream. To diffuse the situation I handed her the remainder of the small bag which she devoured instantly. She then fell to the floor, screamed and pounded her tiny fists on the ground upon hearing the words “all done!”

I had never seen such a visceral reaction in my little girl, but she was so consumed with the taste of this sweet substance. I had to cut her off. She was too young, and I didn’t want this to turn ugly. But then, what would happen when her big sister came home with a bag filled with the same small packs of this sweet substance? How would we keep her away from all these treats? It’s easier to convince a child that she cannot eat all her candy in one sitting, but hard to communicate to a toddler the same message. I had to find a way to get rid of the Halloween candy. All of it.

The next day a friend asked me about the Switch Witch. She is a witch who comes in the night and “switches” children’s candy with a gift. I loved this idea! I could get rid of our Halloween candy and at the same time preserve contentment on my girls’ faces. First, I had to sell my eldest on this idea.

I mentioned the Switch Witch in passing, asking my daughter if she ever heard of her. She hadn’t, and when I described the clandestine transaction, my child was uninterested. There was noooo way she was giving up her Halloween candy for some lame witch. I let it go. The next day, after she had enjoyed a few more treats, I mentioned that the Switch Witch was doing her rounds in our neighbourhood and was looking for homes to visit, reminding her that she would receive a surprise in return. This time she appeared interested at the idea of enjoying something other than candy. I told her I’d “text” the Switch Witch and let her know that our family was in for the switch. The next night, my daughter left her bag of candies hanging on the door and the following morning, to my daughter’s great delight, there was a gift bag there in its place.

To my pleasant surprise, my daughter hasn’t since asked for her Halloween candies. I think the Switch Witch was a hit for the following reasons:

• We introduced the idea to our daughter, and let her make the decision about whether to invite the Switch Witch into our home. This gave her a sense of empowerment so she would feel confident in her decision;
• We let her enjoy her Halloween candy for a few days before the Switch Witch came so she could still enjoy a few treats and not feel she was losing out when she gave them up;
• The deal was attractive. She loved the idea of someone, a witch for that matter, coming at night into her home and leaving a surprise for her in the morning;
• She had fun! We all did. It was a win-win situation for her since she got a nice present in exchange for her candies, as well as for us parents since we don’t have to deal with sugar-induced tantrums or unhealthy eating.

The Switch Witch is a keeper, and has been a great way to slowly transition Halloween candy out of our home.

Related articles

• Does The Switch Witch Come To Your House? (b96.cbslocal.com)

The questionable food labels

A few months ago, I saw a TV commercial for a food product claiming it was “made with real ingredients”. I thought about what this meant. Arsenic is real, and so is mercury, formaldehyde, even dog poop is real. So if I baked chocolate chip cookies and threw in some arsenic, mercury and/or dog poop would I be able to label it “made with real ingredients”? I then imagined what would not be considered a “real ingredient”, and came up with only a few things like pixie dust and elbow grease.

The purpose of that advertisement, or rather the claim “made with real ingredients”, was to suggest something authentic, wholesome or even natural in the food product being advertised. But if one deconstructs its meaning, we’re left with pretty much anything tangible. This is where the success of advertising lies: making claims that will leave the recipient of the message believing in something that may not necessarily exist.

Then there are claims like “natural”. Again, arsenic, mercury, and even lead could also be considered “natural” since they occur naturally in our environment. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s Guide to Food Labelling and Advertising, “[a]dvertisements should not convey the impression that ‘Nature’ has, by some miraculous process, made some foods nutritionally superior to others or has engineered some foods specially to take care of human needs. Some consumers may consider foods described as ‘natural’ of greater worth than foods not so described.”

So what can’t be labelled as “natural”? According to CFIA: “[f]oods or ingredients of foods submitted to processes that have significantly altered their original physical, chemical or biological state should not be described as ‘natural’. This includes such changes as the removal of caffeine.” To read more on this, click here.

There are tons of food products that make claims like “made with real ingredients”, “contains real fruit” or “natural”. I recently noticed a container of Becel margarine with the label “Becel® with Bertolli Olive Oil”. Wow! Margarine made with olive oil!!! I then read the ingredient list which can be found here:

Canola 66%, olive oil 8%, water, modified palm and palm kernel oils 6%, salt 1.8%, whey powder 1.4%, soy lecithin 0.2%, vegetable monoglycerides, potassium sorbate, vegetable colour, artificial flavour, citric acid, vitamin A palmitate, vitamin D3, alpha-tocopherol acetate (vitamin E).

The first ingredient is canola oil (66%) followed by olive oil (8%). However, the main claim being made (from my perspective as a consumer) is that the margarine is made with olive oil, hence the name “Becel Olive Oil”. Even the packaging is different. Instead of Becel’s yellow container, the Becel Olive Oil margarine comes in a green container, which to me, is meant to be associated with olive oil.

Despite the name “Becel Olive Oil” and the slightly nuanced packaging, the margarine contains only 8% olive oil. Why not call it “Becel Canola Oil” since there is more than 8 times canola oil than olive oil? Is it because olive oil is generally perceived as healthier cooking oil?  However, the success of the label is dependent on how well it convinces the reader that this is indeed a product that contains a substantial amount of olive oil, convincing enough to purchase the margarine (if you don’t really read the label).

Food labels can be misleading and it takes a very scrutinizing eye to identify truth from fiction. A few steps I use when buying packaged products are:

1. Always read the labels. The front of the packaging, the back, the large print, the small print because the devil really is in the details.
2. Always read the ingredient list to see the main ingredients. According to CFIA’s Guide to Food Labelling and Advertising: “[i]n general, ingredients must be listed in descending order of proportion by weight, as determined before they are combined to make the food. The exceptions are spices, seasonings and herbs (except salt), natural and artificial flavours, flavour enhancers, food additives, and vitamin and mineral nutrients and their derivatives or salts, which may be shown at the end of the ingredient list in any order.”
3. Always read the nutritional information. Even though a product may only contain one ingredient it can contain a significant amount of other questionable ingredients. I recently purchased coconut flour with only one listed ingredient on the package: “organic coconut flour”. However, 2 Tbsp of this flour contains 30mg of sodium, and according to Health Canada, the adequate intake of daily sodium for adults 14-50 years is 1500 mg/day. One cup of coconut flour contains 250mg of sodium. Why does coconut flour have to have this much sodium? Is it naturally occurring sodium?
4. I always, always question what I read. I never assume that because something is “healthy” or “natural” that it is accurately labelled. I find this especially true with non-dairy products such as almond milks (but more about this later).

Food should be simple and conveying information about what a food product contains should be honest and accurate. Reading labels and being informed are first steps in making sure we have access to truly healthy and nutritious foods.

Gobble Gobble: Where Does My Thanksgiving Turkey Come From?

In a book that changed my understanding of food, Jonathan Safran Foer (author of Eating Animals), describes Thanksgiving:

Of the thousand-or-so meals we eat every year, Thanksgiving dinner is the one that we try most earnestly to get right. It holds the hope of being a good meal, whose ingredients, efforts, setting, and consuming are expressions of the best in us. More than any other meal, it is about good eating and good thinking.

I couldn’t agree more. Thanksgiving and Christmas are my two favourite celebrations of the year, and the turkey which sits as a prized dish at the centre of the table is a symbol of the annual ritual that brings all our loved ones together. Yet Foer’s depiction of our relationship to turkeys seems to speak otherwise:

And more than any other food, the Thanksgiving turkey embodies the paradoxes of  eating animals: what we do to living turkeys is just about as bad as anything humans have ever done to any animal in the history of the world.

Having researched and visited factory farms where he experienced the deplorable living conditions of these birds, Foer asks the simple question: Should we serve turkey at Thanksgiving?

I asked myself the same question when I first started becoming more conscious of the lives of animals on factory farms. According to the Turkey Farmers of Canada, last year alone Canadians consumed 142 million kg of turkey. Thanksgiving and Christmas apparently account for the two largest purchases of turkey. During last year’s Thanksgiving, 3.1 million whole turkeys were purchased by Canadians, equal to 35% of all whole turkeys that were sold over the year. That is a whole lot of turkey, and one can only imagine how these birds end up on our dinner plates.

In a factory farm, thousands of turkeys are housed together in a large space with barely any room to maneuver. They are debeaked i.e. their upper beaks are snipped off with machinery to prevent them, while being confined with thousands of others, from pecking at each other.  Foer describes a farm that he visited, where there were “tens of thousands of turkey chicks … huddled in groups, asleep beneath the heat lamps installed to replace the warmth their broody mothers would have provided.”

Instead of open pastures where turkeys can forage, the factory farm is characterized by “lights, feeders, fans, and heat lamps evenly spaced in a perfectly calibrated artificial day.” Food writer, Kristin Wartman, describes the living conditions of turkeys on these farms:

Industrially produced turkeys spend their first three weeks of life crammed into a brooder with hundreds of other birds. In the fourth week, turkey chicks are moved from the brooder to a giant window-less room with 10,000 other turkeys where bright lights shine 24 hours a day. With the lights constantly blaring, natural sleeping, eating, and fertility patterns are completely disrupted and the turkeys are, for the most part, kept awake and eating non-stop. Turkeys have an instinct to roost, or to clutch something when they sleep, but on the floor of a crowded room there is no such opportunity. If this is starting to sound like torture to you, you’re on the mark.

Like all animals, turkeys are sentient beings. They experience pain and pleasure. In a factory farm they undergo tremendous stress from having to survive in an overcrowded environment and where they are unable to live a free life.

After reading Eating Animals and watching documentaries like Food Inc. I felt the only recourse was to refrain from eating meat. Period. The only problem with that is (a) I LOVE meat and (b) I love turkey at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Fortunately, there are farmers out there who value the lives of animals, and are committed to raising animals in an ethical manner. I started to seek out these individuals. I went to farmers markets, spoke to people, read blogs. One thing I’ve learned is that farmers sell more than what they bring to the market. Steve can sell vegetables at the market but raise sheep, turkeys and chickens that you can buy straight from his farm. So it’s a good idea to talk to farmers because there’s a lot more that they offer than what you see at their stands at the weekend market.

For the past few years I’ve been buying my turkey from local farmers who raise their turkeys in an open pasture, where they get to eat grubs, worms, grass and clover. These animals taste so much better. In factory farms, in the dark light or constant brightness turkeys are fed feed and because they don’t have much room to move around, or obtain natural light, they don’t grow properly. How can a bird living under these conditions ever taste good? How can it be healthy?

There’s always the issue of cost. I saw a Butterball turkey yesterday at the grocery store for $3.30/lb. I buy my turkey for $4.35/lb. The difference in price is not that substantial especially when I consider what I’m getting: a fresh, healthy animal that lived a happy life. Isn’t it worth it?

In a letter to his daughter in 1784 (an excerpt here), Benjamin Franklin questioned whether the bald eagle should serve as the national bird of the United States of America:

I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America…

I wonder what Franklin would think of how we treat the turkey today?

I wish you all a happy thanksgiving this year and for years to come. I also encourage you to think a little more about how valuable Thanksgiving is, and the meaning of appreciation we attach to this important day. Should we not do the same for the animals we eat?

Eating Local and Truly Organic Doesn’t Have to Cost a Fortune

The one concern I often hear about pursuing a local, truly organic diet is the high cost involved in consuming these foods. The truth is that eating pasture-raised meats and eggs and local produce doesn’t always have to cost an arm and a leg. With some creativity, innovation and thinking outside the box I’ve managed to keep our food budget down quite a lot.

Two years ago I would snicker at the suggestion of buying a cow. Why? How? It’s frozen! Where would I put all that meat? Then last year a few friends and I bought a quarter-cow from Dobson’s Grass Fed Beef. We received 152lbs of beef at a cost of $4.30/lb. The total cost of the order was $654.00. We each owed $218.00. The meat lasted us months.

A few weeks ago, a few of my friends and I purchased a whole cow which we split four ways. Our quarter order was $564.00. I then split the order with another friend, and my 1/8 share cost me $282.00. This is what I came home with:

 

There are about 20 packs of ground beef, and enough stewing beef, pot roasts, steaks and soup bones to last our family months.

Creativity and thinking outside the box has allowed us to keep our food budget to $800.00 a month for a family of four (and often six with family staying with us during the week). Some tricks I’ve found helpful:

Mealplanning: ever go shopping on an empty stomach or with no clue what to make for dinner that week? I’ve been guilty of this bad habit and walked out the grocery store with food that only ended up in the garbage because it was wasted. Every week I plan what we’re eating for lunch and dinner and make a list of all the ingredients needed. Meal planning takes a bit of time, but we end up consuming less (just what we need) and, therefore, spend less.  It’s also helpful to write down our meal plan for the family to see. We painted a chalk board in the kitchen for the kids to scribble on. On top, I set out the weekly meal plan for everyone to read. That way, we’re all on the same page about what we’re eating for the week.

Growing our own food: what better way to save money than to grow your own food? Produce like tomatoes become very expensive in the winter (and taste pretty bland too) so growing my own tomatoes, green peppers and herbs in the summer has allowed us to save lots of money. I then freeze the tomatoes or make a huge pot of tomato sauce that I save for those cold January nights to make hearty beef stew. I have to admit that I haven’t had much luck this year with my yields so I’ve found a local farmer who supplies me with a bushel or two of very ripe tomatoes at a bargain cost. I’ve saved money this way.

Shop directly from the farmers: local markets are great. Not only do you have direct access to fresh fruits and vegetables, but you get to meet the people who grow them. Avoiding the middle man brings the cost of food down. Visiting the farm directly has saved us even more money. I spent a morning picking berries at Rideau Pines Farms and for only $15.00 we walked away with two pints of raspberries, black currants, snow peas, a head of broccoli and some other tasty vegetables.

Be creative in the kitchen: yes, I buy an expensive ($35.00) pork shoulder to make pulled pork. But I’ve made it last three meals. When I prepare an expensive cut of meat we eat it with other foods, like legumes and vegetables, that don’t cost a lot. That way our meals stretch over a few days. Thanks to the Internet and amazing food blogs, I’ve come up with recipes that are nourishing, delicious and easy on our budget. I remember the days of coming home after a long work week, not wanting to cook, and ordering take-out. It costs a fortune to feed a family, even once a week, on take-out. On those Fridays where we know we’ll be too tired to cook after work, it’s nice to just pull out a few steaks from the freezer and grill them when we get home. It’s still way cheaper than take-out, and also healthier.

Healthy and fresh food will always cost more. But the added benefits are priceless: health, balance, and longevity. I’m prepared to pay more to eat well because I truly appreciate that what we put into our bodies is more than just fuel. Food sustains us, it connects us, and it gives us life. With a little ingenuity and planning, eating good, wholesome local and organic food does not have to cost a fortune.

Berry Picking at Rideau Pines Farm

I’m thinking back to our cold and long winter months when any glimmer of summer would lift my spirits. A trip to the grocery store would sometimes give me a boost. What’s not to love about mangoes, strawberries and cantaloupe when it’s -40^oC outside? Then it happened. I walked into my local grocery store one cold January evening and saw this:

My first thought was that we’re in one of the coldest capitals in the world and someone is trying to recreate a tropical paradise for me. Great, except the longer I stared at this set up, the less I actually felt convinced by the dull lighting, the fake straw and leis that dangled around each sign. My frozen feet and fingers were still numb from the blistering wind outside.

I’ve become so accustomed to eating tropical fruit during winter. I’ve justified it with the idea that if I didn’t have access to the vitamins and other rich nutrients from these fruits, I’d have no other way to fill my diet. And my kids! How can they survive on legumes, squash and potatoes all winter long? My baby loves bananas and avocados, important first foods for growing babies.

On the other hand, I feel so disconnected from these foods. Where do they come from? How are they grown? I didn’t even know that pineapples grow from the ground until I read this book. I always thought they grew on trees. I’ve eaten pineapples my entire life, and I had no idea how they were grown.

What better way to connect to food than to pick it myself. So this past week, I packed up the kids and we headed out to Rideau Pines Farm near North Gower in search of raspberries. Strawberry season is coming to an end, but raspberries are plentiful. And, apparently, so are black currants. These are the things I’m learning about food, when they are in season, what they look like, and how they grow.

It was quite an experience walking through the farm fields lined with thick raspberry patches. My little one was mesmerized by how easy it was to just pluck the berries from the leaves and put them in her basket. We were surrounded by rows of fresh raspberries and black currants:

Rideau Pines Farm was more than we expected. The Vandenbergs are so inviting and took the time to explain how their farm operates. They don’t use pesticides, but rather ash fertilizer. I have no idea what this means, but kinda like the idea of pesticide-free berries. Not only did we get to pick berries, but there are sugar snap peas for picking and all kinds of other goodness. Plus, you can pick up fresh garlic, kale, cauliflour and jams in the barn store where they are for sale.

An added treat: the “village” that the Vandenbergs built. A wooden structure surrounded by trees which makes for a perfect spot to land a picnic.

I’ve never picked my own food, except from my garden. It was an experience that I will treasure especially because I was able to share it with my daughter. At least she knows what a raspberry batch looks like, an asparagus plant, and cauliflower blooming in the ground. Hopefully this will give her an added appreciation for food and where it comes from.

She’s packin

Who would’ve thought July would bring such bounty. The last time I visited the local farmers market there was some variety of fruits and vegetables. Yesterday, there was a plethora of delicious goodness which wasn’t even a possibility a few weeks ago. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

The other night I overheard my daughter complain to her dad that she wants to bring her own lunch to summer camp. She’s never complained about the food, but suddenly she was “tired” of always having to eat “alphabet soup”. For someone who prefers to pack her own lunch, I couldn’t have been more pleased (although the real reason for wanting to bring her own lunch was to be like the big kids who pack their own lunches).

The down side: I hadn’t packed a kids’ lunch in years … since I myself was a kid. So as I grazed passed the different vendors yesterday I was amazed by how much selection I had to fill an entire week’s worth of lunches.

This is some of the delicious goodness I picked up at the Ottawa Farmer’s Market yesterday at Brewer Park. My absolute favourite: pesticide and herbicide-free strawberries. A few years ago at the market I asked a vendor if he sold organic strawberries. “There’s no such thing as organic strawberries,” he scoffed because, according to him, all strawberries need to be sprayed with pesticides. Well, these ones didn’t, which means it is a possibility. And while they aren’t organic, I take comfort in the fact that they haven’t been sprayed with any chemicals (at least pesticides and herbicides). That’s particularly important to me since strawberries are a listed dirty dozen, alongside apples, grapes, celery and peaches.

Kids can be picky eaters and it can be hard to convince them to choose healthy snacks and lunches over those filled with salt, sugar and fat. So creativity is essential. Those fava beans! Well they’re actually seeds from Jack and the Beanstalk. The colourful stems from the Swiss chard were picked at the end of a rainbow. A little imagination, I’ve found, can go a long way in making my little muffin enjoy new foods.

Crazy Organic Mama

Crazy!

I’m crazy about three things: family, friends and food. And I’m crazy about food labels, what they say, and, quite frankly, what they don’t say. I just may be crazy for thinking that cows are happy. But I may not be crazy for thinking that cows raised on open pasture make for healthy animals. And healthy animals make for nutritious (and very delicious) food, and I’d like to think, healthy humans.

So I decided to blog about my crazy aka unconventional thoughts about food. How food is meant to connect us to each other, the animals and produce we eat, and the environment at large. I question everything about food, especially food labels, like why is it “free run” when the chickens may never have seen the light of day, how it is “made with real fruit”, when only a tablespoon of fruit juice has been added, and what exactly is an “access mom”?

I’m going to try to answer my own questions, and more importantly, try to see if I can connect to family, friends and food through a diet that is kind to animals, the planet and my budget.

Organic

Traditional agricultural practices that evoke images of the pastoral scene have been replaced by feedlots, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), and increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

The irony is that the images of the happy cow grazing through the open meadows, the eggs freshly picked by old Macdonald, and the piglets blissfully feeding off the sows are portrayed as modern farm life. A television commercial selling eggs from the farm depicts the farm to fork process. We see the beautiful, spacious, barn, the eggs gently rolling off the conveyor belt, hand selected and inspected, and the farmer standing proud that he is feeding our nation’s families. But the protagonists, the chickens who lay the millions of eggs that are sold across this country every year, are completely absent from the scene. Are the egg producers concerned that consumers would be turned off by images of chickens in battery cages, debeaked and living in their own waste?

Indeed these images that were described in documentaries like Food Inc. has led many people to turn to “organic”, “free range”, “free run” thinking these “labels” are a sound alternative to the large-scale agriculture. Do these terms carry any substantial meaning? For instance, beef can be labelled “organic” when it is “grain-finished” i.e. the cow is fattened on grain before it is slaughtered. Yet cows are meant to digest grass. They are not ingrained to digest grains (pardon the pun, but I couldn’t resist), which may cause them all sorts of digestive problems. It’s almost counterintuitive to the whole concept of organic that we feed animals diets that are inconsistent with their anatomy.

Which has led me to the conclusion that while “organic” does pack some punch, I approach the concept with a grain of salt. I appreciate many things that come with the label “organic”: cannot be produced from genetic engineering, no use of synthetic pesticides, ionizing radiation or forms of irradiation are mostly prohibited, but I’ve had to dig deeper to truly appreciate the meaning of organic.

Enter the happy beef. The argument against pasture-raised farming is that it’s near impossible, too expensive and cannot cater to large-scale consumer demand for cheap meat. So it came to a surprise to me a few years ago when I came across a farmer who sells 100% grass-fed beef with the tag line, “our cows are on grass, not drugs”; something that is foreign to those who are only familiar with grain-fed “organic” beef. Yet, this farmer delivers on the best tasting, most succulent meat I have ever enjoyed. While many fine things in life come with a price, I’ve tried to reconcile the high price of pasture-raised beef with two trade-offs. First, I’ve had to reduce my meat consumption, or I’ve bought in bulk bringing the cost of my meat to less than the cost of conventional, grain-fed beef from the grocery store. Second, in the words of the infamous Joel Salatin, “if you think the price of organic food is expensive, have you priced cancer lately” basically sums it up for me.

For over three years I’ve served only pasture-raised meat to my family and learned a few things: it tastes better, it’s healthier, and if I plan well it’s not that much more expensive that what I used to buy at the grocery store.

Mama

I’m a mother to two amazing little people. When I started becoming more conscious about food I realized that what I put on my children’s plates is far more important that what I put on my plate. Not just because nutritious food helps children develop and grow, but because they have very limited control over what they eat.

So instead of watching soap operas every day, we became obsessed with cooking shows. Now we cook together, visit markets together, and experiment with new recipes together. My children love to eat. Almost anything.

I once walked into an Italian pizza joint in China town that was serving Indian food. And who says food can’t be imaginative? If I can have access to that kind of culinary variety in Ottawa, I can definitely have access to a wide range of wholesome, fresh local food. So for the next five months, I will visit a local farm in my region that is committed to truly sustainable agricultural practices, where the cows, pigs, yaks, elk, and chickens are happy and the pasture truly green. Because, as I have come to experience, there is nothing more refreshing than being on a first name basis with the man or woman who is responsible for helping to feed my family. It’s a connection that I want to cultivate for myself, and more importantly, for my children.