Blog Archives
Summer time – Farm fresh food
So I love the start of summer and all of the delicious fruit that starts being in season.
I don’t really eat much fruit during the winter so when summer comes around and the farmers market is loaded with fruit, I feel like a bear coming out of hibernation that sees a berry bush and just devours the entire thing…and then lays out in the sun just relaxing…(Not really sure if this analogy even makes sense…Didn’t look up if bears eat berries….)
But anyway, I love when certain fruits are “in season.” And I love it even more when those fruits are local and organic.
So I won’t go on about fruit and I won’t even spend a long time RAVING about farmers markets and how much I love them, BUT I do just want to clear up a few misconceptions about farmers markets that I’ve encountered when talking to clients about them.
For one, THEY ARE CHEAPER THAN REGULAR STORES especially if you were to try to get the same quality product. Everyone seems to think that farmers markets are super expensive, but they aren’t. And what you get at the farmers market is extremely fresh and naturally raised. (Shoot we even get way cheaper fish at the farmers market than we do at any other market and it is caught fresh that day!)
Two, I’ve encountered people who say they only buy ORGANIC and therefore won’t buy from the stands without the label.
UHM…ORGANIC is a label you have to BUY! Many small farms can’t afford to do that but follow all organic processes! So at a farmers market, don’t worry about the label unless you are going to a super commercial one.
Three, local matters most. If things are local that means everything was picked at the peak of freshness. It is honestly better to buy something local and fresh than it is to buy organic from a foreign country. That organic produce has to be picked and shipped a far distance, which means it can’t be picked at the peak of ripeness – AKA it isn’t going to have near the nutrients that a local piece of produce has!
Doesn’t get any more local than that! Like 5 minutes away!
So honestly, if you can, support your local farms and get the best possible quality food for a very reasonable price! Your body will thank you!
Do you shop at a farmers market? What is your favorite food in-season right now!?!
Fall Eating
So since moving to Cali, fresh, wild caught fish has become more a part of our diet. So has local, seasonal produce. We been buying all of our fish and produce at the farmers market. For one, it is all local and usually organic. Two, it is actually cheaper.
Better, HEALTHIER food that is CHEAPER! Win, win, right!?!
We also added in more carbs. We’ve made corn tortillas with non-genetically modified corn. We’ve also used some rice (of course my preference is toward white rice). We usually cycle in days of higher and lower carb. I’ve been doing higher carb on days when I workout to replenish my glycogen stores and lower carbs on days when I don’t since my stores don’t get depleted.
I still focus on keeping my carb intake below 150 grams per day. (Although there is the occasional day I go above when I really feel depleted. I also know over the course of the week, my carb intake will even out to way below the 150 gram limit.)
Anyway, here are some delicious meals we’ve made recently that haven’t taken very long at all! (Especially fish…it cooks up in no time!)
Wild salmon with a balsamic sauce and an arugula, kale salad with a bit of blue cheese and a balsamic and olive oil dressing
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Grass-fed lamb in a chipotle chili sauce with white rice and a mixed greens salad and balsamic dressing.
Ribs with a spicy tomato/mustard bbq sauce and a fresh salad of local, organic tomatoes, avocados, arugula and green onion in an olive oil and pepper dressing
Recipes to come! Hopefully this inspires some great weekend meals! What are you cooking!?!
P.S. Saw this guest post on Mark’s site the other day and thought it was very interesting. It is definitely something to think about when planning out a diet program. There are certain times of the year when losing weight can be more difficult…be those times when we know we will be traveling and partying or be those times when our body tells us that it wants more food!
Also this is a great article to get you thinking about carbs from Man Biceper Polly!
Farmers Market
So off course not everything is healthy at the farmers market.
There are people selling baked goods and chips and popcorn. But at least everything is fresh, local or homemade!
Ryan and me at the farmers market today with his dad.
Most of the food is from no further away than a few hours. And a lot of it, like the peaches, was literally just picked yesterday. No pesticides. No preservatives. Straight to from the farm to your table (or your belly if you are like me and want to eat it all right away).
I love the fact that everything is so fresh at the farmers market. I love that everything is local. I love that everything is grown without chemicals and evil farming practices. I love that everything is as natural as can be.
But most of all I love that everything tastes so darn good and is picked and sold exactly when it is in season.
In season….that isn’t really a word that concerns us much any more when it comes to foods.
I mean something is in season somewhere right? So we can always have it.
I do wonder though how much better off we’d be if we only ate foods that were in-season at that time. Granted it would stink depending on where you live, but still.
They do tend to taste a whole heck of a lot better when they are in-season and local. Just look at those peaches and strawberries. I can tell you for sure they are sweet and juicy and delicious!
What do you think? Do you try to eat fruits and veggies that are in-season? Or do you not care? And are you as obsessed with your local farmers market as I am?
Happy Saturday Man Bicepers! Sorry that I’ve been missing in action. Back to more regular posting this week!
Vanishing of the Bees
Ok so sometimes I’m really glad that Ryan picks out the TV shows and movies that we watch because I would never have watched this documentary on my own (of course this also has a downside…sometimes I’m forced to watch movies like Step Brothers BLEH).
Anyway, yesterday we watched Vanishing of the Bees. The documentary talks about the fact that honeybees have been literally disappearing from their hives…just sort of dying off.
Which may leave you thinking…who cares all they are used for is honey…BUT THAT IS FALSE!
Honeybees are the reason that we have most of our vegetable and fruit crops.
Commercial honeybee operations pollinate crops that make up one out of every three bites of food on our tables.
So without the honeybees, we would be EXTREMELY dependent on foreign crops.
So of course…scientists began trying to figure out ways to SOLVE the problem…let’s be clear here…not ways to PREVENT the problem…but ways to SOLVE the problem.
They tried dividing up the hives to repopulate the abandoned ones. They tried antibiotics. But nothing was really solving the issue of the disappearance of the bees (or as they call it Colony Collapse Disorder). Hives were still being abandoned and droves of honeybees were still dying off.
The farmers then find out from their European colleagues that the disappearance of their honeybees may have something to do with the pesticides being used on some of the crops that the honeybees are pollinating.
The pesticides may be killing off the bees! But does the government respond by pulling the product off the market? NOPE!
Why? Because we would rather solve a problem with a new product rather than prevent it by not using an old one.
We would rather create drugs for ailments and disease than prevent them by educating people on healthy eating.
We have the attitude of we can SOLVE any problem so we don’t need to worry about PREVENTION.
BUT PREVENTION IS KEY!!!
Prevention will help us keep this planet healthy. Prevention will help you keep yourself healthy!!!
It’s like I tell my clients, you invest in your health now (prevention) so you don’t have to spend more money later dealing with all the medical bills (trying to solve the problems).
The same applies to almost every aspect of our lives, including the fact that it is worth spending more money on grass-fed beef and organic vegetables to save our environment and our health.
I mean…think about it…if pesticides are killing the bees…they’ve got to have some effect on us. Not to mention if the bees die off so do most of our fruits and vegetables!!
So stop believing there will be a solution to any problem and start trying to PREVENT the problems!!! Start eating well and buying organic and taking care of yourself!!!
PREVENTION may be the BEST SOLUTION to any problem!
(DISCLAIMER: I’m really not a hippie…not that there is anything wrong with being one).
Is eating well expensive?
Nope.
Don’t make up excuses as to why you have to buy chips and soda instead of fruits and vegetables. Eating healthily isn’t expensive.
Of course, companies would like you to think that their processed crap is the only thing you can afford – they would love to make you believe that buying whole, healthy foods will break the bank.
BUT IT WON’T!!! For $75 Ryan and I bought over a week’s worth of food at Trader Joe’s AND NONE OF IT WAS PROCESSED! We even splurged on all ORGANIC vegetables and grass-fed beef!
AND we are two people that eat A LOT! We can easily each eat over a pound of meat for dinner. We got somewhere around 10lbs of meat (grass-fed ground beef, steaks, pork, nitrate free bacon, an organic whole chicken…), organic vegetables to last throughout the week (lettuce, spinach, bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, diced tomatoes..), kefir, some diet soda (not perfectly healthy but hey a small cheat!), organic salsas, nuts and a couple of other things I can’t remember right now…
So you can easily afford to eat healthily! Don’t be fooled by articles like the one written by Sheila Steffen that question whether or not you can live on $30 a week. You can and you can eat well while you are doing it!
Don’t believe me? Try it! Next time you shop for the week only buy whole foods and see how far your dollar goes!
Man Bicep 