The Perfect Meal

As a wrap-up to Local Food Month, and in conjunction to finishing reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, I proposed trying to create The Perfect Meal.

Unfortunately, I never did get around to actually hunting, collecting or harvesting all my own food, so I let it slide. But last night I think I got about as close to the Perfect Meal as I'm going to get.

It was Sunday Family Meal night and I harvested from my backyard potatoes, beets, carrots, onions, garlic and rosemary for a roasted vegetable dish. I also oven roasted locally grown corn and made (if I do say so myself) some absolutely fantastic Rioja braised chicken thighs (from local, organic chicken) with a plum port sauce, using the Plum Port jam I made last month. I still can't get over how crazy good my creation turned out. I can't wait for leftovers tomorrow. Let me know if you are interested in the recipe and I'll post it on Crunchy Chicken Cooks.

I also wanted to let you all know that Joel Salatin (of Polyface Farms - the farm featured in The Omnivore's Dilemma) has a new book coming out. He was kind enough to send me an advance copy, so I'll be posting a review when it's closer to the book's publishing date. Between that and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I'm in food reading heaven!

Eating seasonally

I know we've been discussing a lot lately about eating locally and little of seasonal eating from our reading of The Omnivore's Dilemma. It's been a bit of a cheat having Local Food Month during July when, for many places, that's when the selection and bounty of fruits and vegetables are available.

But I wanted to discuss a little more about eating seasonally (an extension of eating locally, really) and find out what your favorite eating season is.



Don't forget that The Perfect Meal is coming up soon!

Omnivore's Dilemma book discussion - Section III (chapters 18-20)

This is it! The final installment of The Omnivore's Dilemma book club.

Chapter 18: Hunting - The Meat I found it interesting the description that Michael Pollan gave of the adrenaline rush of hunting an animal. Having never hunted before I can't quite relate. I think the closest I can get to it is fond memories of playing hide and seek, where your senses are heightened and the anticipation is unbearable. Do you believe that humans still hold an evolutionary throwback to this hunting physiology? If you have hunted before, have you experienced this as well?

Chapter 19: Gathering - The Fungi I live in the land of the fungi, yet few people I know are proficient in hunting mushrooms. It's something that we have wanted to do for a while, but just never got around to it. The closest I've gotten to mushroom hunting was when I was wrapping our Dogwood with Christmas tree lights last December and spied this giant fella. I still, to this day, don't really know what the heck it is. Anyone have any ideas? And, no, I didn't eat it. Although it smelled wonderful and I was tempted.

Chapter 20: The Perfect Meal In the spirit of Local Food Month, I'd like to propose a meal similar to the one Michael Pollan enjoyed in this final chapter. The rules are a little looser than his, but the concept is the same - get to know intimately where all the food comes from that makes up one meal. Think of it as an über-local meal.

Here are the rules for "The Perfect Meal":

1. Everything on the menu must have been hunted/fished, gathered (including U-Pick), or grown by you
2. Everything must be made from scratch (this includes pasta, bread, etc.)
3. The menu should feature at least one representative of each edible kingdom: animal (vegetarians can skip this one), vegetable and fungus (only if still available and, since I don't want to kill anyone, just use local mushrooms)
4. Everything served must be in season and fresh
5. You have to cook the meal yourself
6. You have to invite at least a few guests to share this meal with you, preferably those that have helped you in acquiring the foods

You have a couple weeks to plan and work on this one. I'll have you post pictures and a report of this "Perfect Meal" by August 20th. I'll do a follow-up post in the intervening time.

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Also, just as a head's up, I will doing a book giveaway of my relatively pristine hardbound copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma. So, if you don't already own a copy and would like one, stay tuned for this Friday (7/27) when I commence the giveaway.

Local Food Month update

Well, I'll be the first to admit that things aren't going so well this week for Local Food Month. Between the near 100 degree temperatures (yes, I know, it's 20 degrees above normal around here) and my husband's tooth woes, we are sorely lacking in the dinner making department.

Case in point - Wednesday night's dinner consisted of Life cereal with the kid's milk and a banana. It was just too hot to eat or cook. And, as you can see, it wasn't exactly local. None of it. I had great hopes of grilling some local chicken teats and roasting the turnips and beets that are begging to be eaten before they get so big they get up and wander out of the garden. But the thought of turning on the oven and standing in front of the grill just didn't do it for me.

Last night was a bit of an improvement with garlic and herbs from the garden. I hope you all are faring better than I...

Soy - the good, the bad and the ugly

A couple people have mentioned how they have either stopped eating soy or were concerned about eating soy after reading some of the reports that have come out over the last few years.

These reports claim that there were several health hazards associated with eating non-fermented soy products. Examples of non-fermented soy products are soy milk and tofu while examples of fermented soy products are soy sauce and tempeh.

In addition to the increased breast cancer claims, I have also seen information (see above article) of the dangers of feeding too many soy-based products to children due to the amount of estrogen in these foods. This is a particular concern for growing boys and I'm sure, according to the claims, there are issues for girls as well (pre-pubescence being one).

I did a little poking around at some of these reports. It seems that one of the most quoted articles and books was written by a woman who is a huge proponent of raw milk products. Her PhD is from a distance learning program and is non-nutritionally related. Now, that's not to say that her claims do not have merit. Many of the other articles point out how non-fermented products contain "anti-nutrients". I haven't found any good sources about what this actually means, but it is always considered with a nefarious tone.

Now, I am no research scientist, nor have I spent a great deal of time analyzing the different reports and have yet to find anything concrete in a medical journal, but I do think there is some merit in the issues with soy processing. For example, the chemicals used to process soy into soymilk sound like bad customers. There is also the issue with genetically modified soy or non-organically grown soy products. Not to mention the fact that soy, in some format or other, shows up in a considerable number of processed foods (snack foods, protein products and the like).

So, suffice it to say, I think that if you consume reasonable (read: small) amounts of soy milk and tofu that is either made yourself or without the massive processing you are probably safe. This is more in accordance with traditional Chinese and Japanese diets. In other words, the diets that generally get all the high marks for health and longevity -- the ones that include fermented soy products like tempeh and soy sauce with some modest amounts of tofu and soy milk and lots of green tea.

If you are truly concerned with the health risks raised by soy, then I would encourage you to do some of your own research. If what you find bothers you but you are not ready or willing to give up soy products, then perhaps switch to an organic soy product and/or think about making it yourself.

As for me, I don't consume a tremendous amount of soy - maybe a couple cups of soymilk a week and tofu or okara on occasion and I make it all from organic soybeans. My kids still drink organic cow's milk. I'm sure we still ingest more soy by-products than we know and it's something I may be more cautious of, but it's not something at this point that I'm going to avoid. Who knows, non-fermented soy products may turn out to be the next witch hunt like trans-fats.

In the meantime, keep an eye open for new studies and results. As we all know, health food claims or warnings can change with the tides as new research is done.

Local Food Month begins

Welcome to Local Food Month!

For those of you just checking in you can find out more about the guidelines here.

The gist of it is that for the month of July participating readers will try to increase their intake of locally grown, sustainable foods, while reducing the amount of processed and fast foods they eat. Kinda like the 100 Mile Diet meets the Slow Food Movement, but with a whole bunch of choices and variety.

To start the month off, we made a cherry pie, using local Bing cherries (homemade crust of course). I also tried my hand at making tofu from soymilk that I made at home. Between the food growing in the garden and local farmer's markets, this week we're set. Here's the dinner menu for this week:

Monday: veggie burgers made from okara left over from making soymilk/tofu and turnips from garden; locally made buns; salad from the garden
Tuesday: quesadillas with grilled tofu (handmade); roasted veggies from the garden; handmade tortillas
Wednesday: homemade pasta with greens from the garden;
Thursday: handmade pizza with not-so-local cheese, local tomatoes; salad from garden
Friday: (we usually eat out on Fridays) - restaurant that serves locally grown food

Also, there have been a lot of questions popping up in the comments regarding soy. I'm not ignoring them -- I'll address the soy issue (good vs. bad) in a post this month.

And, remember, it's not too late to join in on the fun!

When is eating local worse?

Sometimes focusing strictly on eating local can be a bad thing. What if your local producer uses conventional methods? What if your local producer is a mega-agribusiness that practices farming techniques that are deleterious to the environment? Think giant hog farms.

When choosing to eat local you need to weigh your options among your local growers. Choosing sustainable or organically grown over conventional is an easy decision if it's grown locally. But what if all you have are conventional products locally? Does it make sense to buy organic products if you have to ship it in from outside your "area"?

This is a decision that everyone has to make for themselves. As discussed in Michael Pollan's, The Omnivore's Dilemma, one farmer argues that buying organic from a giant producer at the very least removes those acres of produce from being farmed conventionally. So, even though that produce is grown in a mono-culture or those chickens have only "access" to the outside (but not truly free-range), it's better than the alternative.

Does this same line of thinking hold for conventional and local versus organic and distant? When it comes down to it I think each situation will depend, but my yardstick will be organic and distant over local and conventional. Of course, when choosing a U-Pick farm or facing down the options at the local farmer's market, this may just waver a bit. Sometimes I forget that just because I'm at a farmer's market doesn't mean that the grower is practicing sustainable farming. I have to remember to ask.

One of my readers brought up a book that addresses these issues: The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter. I haven't read it yet, but it looks like it makes for a good read along with The Omnivore's Dilemma.

What about you? How will you decide? What do you do now?

Local Food Month poll

Well, it sounds like the almost 30+ people (so far) that will be participating in Local Food Month are already buying a lot of local, sustainable foods and are looking to up things with the challenge.

What better than to get a baseline of things but with a poll?



Also, if you haven't yet "signed up" and want to (if you are, you'll see your name/link on the sidebar to the right), let me know and I'll add a link to your blog so we can follow your progress!

One of the issues that has come up has been when to decide whether eating local is actually worse than buying something sustainably produced, but shipped in from elsewhere. Look for a post this week discussing this...

Homemade tofu

Well, I made my first batch of soymilk from my brand-spankin' new Soyabella machine. It's a relative breeze to do. The only time consuming thing is soaking the beans for 6 hours. Since I can get organic soybeans for about $1.50 a pound and you only use a little cup worth, my soymilk is going to be pennies per gallon. You can also make raw nut milks (like almond) in it too.

Anyway, another fun thing you can do with your homemade soymilk (I suppose you can do the same thing with store bought plain soymilk) is make your own tofu. I'm guessing that this will result in another super-inexpensive homemade item.

Once you've cranked out your soymilk, all you need to do is add a coagulant (like nigari), let it sit for 20 minutes and then put it in a press. Et voilà! Tofu. Again, for pennies on the dollar.

Now, I just need some good tofu recipes...

Local Food Month challenge

So, you've done Low Impact Week and you're still continuing with some of the things you tried out. You feel good about reducing your energy and water consumption and your garbage output. What's next? Well, let's focus on the food now.

There's so much energy expended in buying food not grown, produced or packaged locally. For those of you following along with the Omnivore's Dilemma Book Club, you've read the statistics. You may still be troubled by the idea of eating organic versus local. Either way, you can't deny that buying fruits and vegetables from thousands of miles away consumes a whole lot of petroleum products.

Now, here's the challenge:

During the month of July you're going to increase your consumption of locally and sustainably grown food and decrease your consumption of imported and packaged food. You choose the level of participation you want to do.

Think of this as an a la carte menu - you can pick as many or as few items to focus on.

Eat local:

• produce (fruits and vegetables)
  
• dairy (milk, yogurt, cheese)
  
• meats and seafood
  
• breads and grains

Limit:

• pre-packaged food
  
• frozen food
  
• fast food

Make your own:

• cereals
  
• pastas
  
• breads
  
• soymilk
  
• yogurt

FAQs
What about beer, wine and spirits? Well, that's up to you. You can continue buying your regular brands of beverages or you can see if you can find a local equivalent.

What is considered "local"? Again, you have a choice. You can follow the "100 mile" yardstick, but I know a lot of you don't have growers in your area. So, for those that have few resources, you can choose your "region", whether that be your entire state or including neighboring states. One thing to do to see what's available in your area is to check out the list of farmer's markets nearest you.

Does this mean all day, every day? It's up to you. If you want to have Saturdays off, go for it. Do you want to limit it to dinners only, that's great. Set up something you think is workable for you. I want you to think about what you are putting in your mouth, but I don't want to make it so onerous that you give up. Each individual is different, so decide for yourselves how far you want to take it. Or start slow and work your way up to being more involved by the end of the month.

What else? Take into consideration how things are grown. If possible, opt for food items that are grown organically over conventional methods. Or at least without chemicals. Find out if your meat producer practices rotational grazing. Make sure your fish is acquired from a sustainable fishery and only buy farmed seafood that is sustainable.

Considering it's summer and there's lots of food in season, the produce part shouldn't be too hard to do. However, if you still must have that avocado for your guacamole and the limes for your margaritas, well, it's up to you.

The goal is to try and to let you see how easy it is to add local products to your diet and, hopefully, get you in the habit of shopping at those farmer's markets and farmstands. In addition, depending on what level you are doing, you will become more aware of where your packaged foods come from.

Like during Low Impact Week, I'll be adding a list of links to fellow bloggers so we can see what everyone else is up to. Go ahead and grab the graphic if you want to co-sponsor this or participate on your blog. I hope that with the encouragement of each other we can keep the momentum of Low Impact Week going!