In Nourishing Traditions, there is one instance that Sally Fallon gives a thumbs up to the increased globalization (and industrialization) of food and that is to the availability of a wide variety of fruits and vegetables year round, which insures that people will eat enough variety of plants. (I’m not sure if she still holds this feeling as so much of her work involves supporting small farmers to provide ecologically grown local food.) Nina Planck also admits that she goes beyond the farmer’s market in winter to have a fresh green salad every day, for her it’s worth it. Ultimately I would probably make the same choice if I didn’t live in a place where lettuce is bright and happy all year, but I wonder if we are “supposed” to eat the kinds of food we are able to find in a given season. Not just to ecological or economic reasons, but because of what our bodies need at a given time.

I’ve tried to explore an intuition that the foods in season are just the foods our bodies need in a given season. That is, could it be that collard greens, broccoli, brussell sprouts and butternut squash, carrots, and yams are all available right now and such timing matches up with my body’s particular nutritional needs in the winter?

It isn’t really an easy thing to answer since people live in such different climates (around the world and different from their ancestry). Apparently, in Traditional Chinese Medicine “the foods that are natural to a particular season carry strong messages of Qi balancing and tonifying for that season.” (more on that here) From my limited understanding of this body of knowledge it seems that winter is yin, and balance is created by consuming yang foods. Yang foods are warming and include crops that take a long time to grow and those that are eaten cooked. This means that the food needed for balance in winter are just those foods that are available in winter, which would make sense

In western medicine terms winter means cold and flu season and SAD (seasonal affective disorder). Both of these issue can be valiantly battled through food, but it isn’t clear to me that the foods available in winter are uniquely rich in immune supporting qualities (for cold and flu) and omega 3’s, Vitamin D, and antioxidants (for SAD). They all have all these things, but not, it doesn’t seem, in special winter abundance.

So, there is some discrepancy on whether foods really appear during the season in which they are best for your body. But even if nature might not be writing me a seasonal prescription I still hold that eating in season is the best way to get the fullest variety of foods over the course of a year. Even though you might be getting less variety in a given season, you get more greens for your green because in-season food is cheaper and over the course of the year the variety is great because you are not just sticking to the veggies and fruits you are comfortable with, but are challenged to try favorite dishes with seasonal alternatives. Sally Fallon may be right that some people wouldn’t eat fruits and veggies at all in the winter if all they had only brassicas and roots to choose from, but maybe that’s only because they’ve never been challenged to go without. (I have to admit that I am still stuck in the naive assumption that fruits and vegetables are the only things that change with the seasons (besides getting venison at hunting season from family, crab for the first (only) time in the year around Christmas, and a limited supply of pastured eggs at the farmer’s market during winter). For a more complete understanding of the seasonality of food, I recommend reading this article from Mother Earth News by Joel Salatin the famous grass farmer.)

There is also the argument that seasonal veggies and fruits are more nutritional because the food is fresher; that is, you eat it closer to the time it was harvested and it was harvested ripe, which is when a plant is also most nutritious to those animals who eat it…clever plants.

In addition to my New Years resolution to eat more greens I am trying not to get too deep into the details of the nutritional profile for a given whole food. Basically, the  clearest way to talk about food in this culture is to use the terms and taxonomy of western science (The Chinese Medicine example above is a refreshing alternative, but unfortunately doesn’t translate as easily). But this view of food I think has obscured our understanding of what we eat, rather than expanded it. Michael Pollan dealt with this issue in his In Defense of Food, basing a discussion of the rejection of Nutritionism with a whole book about nutrition.  Ultimately a healthy relationship with real food will come from people not relying on lab work with fruit flies to tell them what feels good in their bodies. It seems that best place for this research is a kitchen counter or a table with loved ones. That all said though, if you are interested in knowing the nutritional profile (and much more) of a given food  I highly recommend this site (though their data on cholesterol is limited, like most healthy food sites). See what my orange and green winter meals are providing us here and here (respectively).

Also new this new year I started taking Cod Liver Oil (fermented actually). This is the only supplement I take and the reason is for the difficulty in finding food sources of vitamin D. From another Mother Earth News piece (about SAD actually):

Eat D-licious foods. Only a few foods contain much vitamin D. Sources of vitamin D include cod liver oil (1,360 IU per tablespoon); oily fish such as salmon, sardines and mackerel (about 350 IU per 3.5 ounces); eggs (about 20 IU per yolk); and fortified milk, soy milk and orange juice (98 IU per 8-ounce serving).

                          

No lettuce required for this purely garden salad. Tomatoes and cucumbers have been our most reliable (and hard to keep up with) producers this month. This salad gets through one cuke per person and a handful of cherry tomatoes. Our bigger sized tomatoes haven’t been ripening quickly and coming out mealy so these small guys are a welcome standby. I just dash some olive oil, balsamic, salt and pepper on this and crunch away.

Straight from the source:

Second:

When lettuce is desired. We get our lettuce mostly from the farmer’s market- our garden can’t quite keep up with demand and our greens suffered a dog trample early on. We get one huge head for $1.25. When we get home I chop off the bottom wash the leaves and cut the large ones in half. Then I layer them in a paper-towel lined tupperware. It lasts over a week. No more soggy bags of slimy greens. Cutting down on waste is number one in saving money on food.

                          

The answers to these questions usually lead me to either more whole or bulk foods, which tend to be cheaper (especially with the farmer’s markets) or to something that is more expensive than any of the other choices. This usually happens with dairy products, the best example being the price I pay for milk.

We have chosen to buy only raw milk, which is unpasteurized, from grass-fed cows. The grass-fed milk has Omega three fats and the raw is good for our guts. (see post below)We could decide that because of our budget we could buy twice as much regular organic milk for the price of the raw, and maybe four times as much of the conventional type. But first we prefer to vote with our (few) dollars- I simply can’t support the industry that produces the mass amounts of conventional milk- bad for the land, cows, and me- I don’t really need that much milk that isn’t contributing anything beneficial to me except some protein and added vitamin d (all available elsewhere). We simply buy a half gallon per week. I will also opt for less or none of something else to be able to buy this delicious milk.

This works out for a lot of the products which I choose to pay more for. I can still fit them into my budget by simply buying less. When deciding to put some ground grass-fed beef in some spaghetti sauce I can ask the butcher counter for 1/4 lbs. A whopping buck and a half and plenty of organic meaty sauce for two (Spaghetti sauce is one of the first things I decided I would never buy from a jar)

With nice cheeses I do the same. I ask the cheese counter to cut the cheese down to the price I’m willing to pay- and savor what I get.

This doesn’t mean I just buy smaller amounts more often as we only go to the store once a week. We also only buy one or two non-meal items a week (snacks etc)

If there is hesitation to buy less, and opt for the cheaper less sustainable products, think how much food goes to waste. Is all the food bought actually prepared and eaten? If not, you should buy less regardless of what you buy.

Also, there isn’t much debate on the fact that we eat too much in general. There are more than just personal cost savings in reducing the amount of food we consume.

Cutting down on food waste by using what all you buy and buying less to begin with will save the amount spent on the better food.

                          

Get Rich Slowly has bee great resource for the nuts and bolts on the process for getting out of debt and increasing savings my cutting costs, simplifying spending and getting creative.

For the most part I think many of friends would benefit from the discussions there, specifically the original post on his reviews of books on personal finance. (Which is very well written and much appreciated because I would probably never sit down and read them)

I’ve started on some of the ideas of debt snowball, a high yield savings account, etc. What I felt was missing from the discussion was how to cut spending but ensure that what you do spend your money on is quality (healthy for you, the world, and the people who produce it). Well, it shows it takes a while to get to know a good blog and I found the points I was looking for, both on the general idea of quality and addressing my need to continue to buy expensive organic products while knowing I really can’t afford to (but knowing the world can’t afford not to…that sort of thing)

I have to say that buying organic produce is not the problem. This is does easily and enjoyably at the many farmer’s markets in the area. In fact without my weekly trip to the farmer’s market I would be spending way more on food than I feel like I already do. We take 20 bucks in cash and load up. Last week we made the mistake of spending almost 10 on just wild mushrooms and the rest went to enough veggies to last us just fine.

But all the other stuff, organic shampoo, and local organic butter, and (yes) raw milk. For the most part I think that both living simply by only spending on quality goods will work out to be the easiest, the most effecient, and the most cost saving. The higher quality, non-mass-market products will last longer and keep me healthier. It just seems so obvious. The problem is at the given moment we should be spending the least amount possible. But I just can’t seem to make myself do it. So I’m figuring out how to make it work. With debt, no savings, and barely enough income- when I buy, I’m still going to buy right.

                          

Sauerkraut:

Two of my favorite cookbooks, the Art of Simple Food (Waters) and Farmer John’s Cookbook; The Real dirt on Vegetables, have recipes for homemade sauerkraut, and both tout the health and taste benefits of fermenting cabbage and other vegetables.

(note: both books are excellent resources for a variety of veggie-specific recipes. Very helpful with things that are in season with which you are not so familiar and ways to branch out in techniques, like braising, gratins, unexpected baked-good ingredients etc…I personally really appreciate this format)

The process for fermentation was a little different in each book. I leaned more towards the Farmer John method as it was framed as very traditional and involved pounding, which sounded fun. Waters’ process was simple enough, more about “working the cabbage with your fingers” than pounding and then adding extra “brine” if the working with the fingers didn’t produce enough liquid.

Well, Farmer John didn’t say anything about the amount of liquid, just to pound until you got some. Waters says to add a salt water mixture if there isn’t enough brine to cover the cabbage and even to make sure the cabbage stays submerged by weighting it down with something (a rock or whatever).

So, in the spirit of experimenting. I decided to go only by Farmer John and just see what happened. I started with less cabbage than called for, but sort of thoughtlessly added about as much salt and caraway seeds. So we’ll see. I’ll check on it in a few days and report with the taste. After this batch is eaten or composted, depending on the result I will try Water’s version.

Cabbage cut fine
and fermented in a brine
Made of its own juice, with salt.

(So it seems a little dry, but since the recipe doesn’t specify I am trying it out without my own changes- I will check back in)

Wait! There is more cabbage ahead!

Braised Savoy Cabbage:

From The Art of Simple Food this cabbage dish is sort of perfect; savory, crunch,and open to variations- my favorite. I decided to go with one of her listed variations that browns wedges of cabbage in olive oil. Then add garlic, a bay leave, thyme, salt and pepper. Having just picked up some beautiful fennel at the market yesterday I wanted to try out using the stalks/leaves- so I chopped up one stalk and threw that in too.

Immediately the kitchen filled with an earthy sweet fragrance- I was sort of taken aback actually by how delicious it smelled so quickly. Some glugs of wine go in and it cooks for a little while. Then stock is added (or water, but I prefer stock, and at 4 bucks a box it’s cheaper to just boil a whole chicken).

The cabbage needs another 15 minutes to get tender. In the meantime I pan fried two chicken sausages. I can’t pan fry without ending up throwing in a de-glazing liquid of some kind (usually white wine) and finishing whatever was frying with a quick pan sauce. All sorts of brown bits stuck from the sausage. Waters suggests putting some red wine vinegar over the cabbage when done. Instead I put the vinegar into the sausage pan (after the sausages were done and on their plates. Scraping up the good stuff and hearing that perfect hissing sizzling of the pan sauce, I poured it all over the dished out cabbage. Boy, it really turned out well. The whole process was maybe a half hour.

My fiance had the wherewithal to put some mustard on the table and that was it. Some leftover bread with a little butter served well to soak up the remaining liquid on the plate- too good to let it go to waste.

Indicative of how fast this was to prepare, there are no pictures of the process…and I could barely take a photo fast enough to catch the final product before devoured.