In the last several years, many have dreamed about chucking city ways and living on the land as a small organic farmer. Here’s the story about Michael Paine, a man who went to college in the Bronx, then joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Lesotho to grow trees.

He concluded that growing food was more pertinent than forestry and when he came home he decided to be a family farmer. The bank wouldn’t lend him money to buy a farm, but based on his wife’s earnings they would lend money to buy a country estate.

It’s an inspiring story and while most of us won’t end up as small farmers, we can appreciate those who do.

Don’t put your veggies and your fruit together in the same drawer in your fridge. The taste of many vegetables can be degraded by the ethylene gas given off by many fruits and a few vegetables.

It’s best to store the vulnerable veggies in a paper bag in a separate drawer. This 60- Second Solution video from Prevention Magazine tells you which is which.

Now that warmer weather is here, seasonal eating has become easier with more and more items coming into season each week. Seasonal eating is based on purchasing foods during their natural (or seasonal) growing times. This means you are eating them when they are at their freshest. Not only are they fresher, but they are tastier too.

Seasonal foods also pack the biggest nutritional punch. That’s because they don’t lose nutrients like fruits and vegetables that are stored or have to travel a long-distance to get to market.

But, did you ever realize that eating fresh, in-season foods actually saves you money?

If you buy items that aren’t in season, you pay a premium for them. How so? That basket of peaches you buy during winter can cost twice as much as it would if you buy it when peaches are in season locally. Having those South American peaches transported halfway around the world shows up in your food bill, not to mention it is very environmentally unfriendly.

And, if you take a look around your local supermarket, you will see that in season, fresh fruits and vegetables are the most inexpensive things there. In fact, just a quick glance at a store’s sale ad usually lists “fresh produce” on sale each week. Those sale items are usually prominently located right at the front of the store’s produce aisle.

While the supermarket is a great place to get a few of the most popular seasonal produce items on sale, the best place to buy what’s in season is at your local farmers’ market.

Not only is shopping at a farmers’ market one of the easiest ways to find in-season, locally grown fruits and vegetables, it can also save you money. Unlike the supermarket, at a farmers’ market you have the option of walking around first and checking out all of the stands to compare quality, selection and price before you buy.

One way to get the best deals at the farmers’ market is to shop the market right before they are getting ready to close. If it’s their last market of the day, most farmers don’t want to have to take produce back to the farm and are more than happy to let you have it for a bargain price. Many farmers will negotiate on price at any time the market is open.

A great resource for finding local farmers’ markets is Local Harvest. Before heading off to the farmers’ market check out Sustainable Table to find out what’s in season in your area. The Natural Resources Defense Council lists food miles and local food availability for every state and every season.

Judi Gerber is a University of California Master Gardener with a certificate in Horticultural Therapy. She writes about sustainable farming, local foods, and organic gardening for multiple magazines. Her book Farming in Torrance and the South Bay was released in September 2008.

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Image Credit: cizauskas on Flickr.

We try to shop organic as much as we can, and sometimes organic produce is considerably pricier than conventional. When you pay a premium for organic food, you want to get your money’s worth! Before you throw those fruit and veggie scraps into the compost bin, check out these ways to use the bits and pieces that you’d normally toss.

Swiss Chard

Chard leaves are the star in lots of tasty veggie dishes, but after chopping up all of those greens, you’re left with a pile of stems. The stems, or ribs, are actually great in recipes, too! They’re crunchy and slightly tangy. You can treat them like celery or onions and add them to stir fries, casseroles, soups, and stews.

Celery Leaves

Margie, the woman who operates the local Atlanta CSA Vegetable Husband, has a great suggestion for the leaves on the top of celery. She adds them to soups and stews for a deep, celery flavor. Celery leaves also work really well in salads of both the greens- and mayonnaise-based varieties. Just chop them up finely and mix them right in to add a little kick!

Mushroom Stems

Many stuffed mushroom recipes call for chopping the stems right up into your filing mixture, but these tasty leftovers have more uses than just that! Once you remove the tough part at the very bottom of the stem, try adding them to everything from soups and casseroles to salad dressings. You can toss your dressing into a food processor with some mushroom stems and process until smooth to add a nice, earthy taste to your salads.

Citrus Peels

After peeling that orange or juicing a lemon, you can take advantage of the zest before composting the rest! Citrus zest is the dark-colored part of the skin, and it’s perfect for adding a citrusy flavor to baked goods. You can remove it using a paring knife or vegetable peeler. Just wrap the zest in wax paper and put it in a container in the freezer. It should last a couple of weeks.

Broth

Home made, organic vegetable broth is a great catch-all for your scraps! You can save veggie leavings - like onion and garlic peel, carrot ends, mushroom stems, and stems from fresh herbs and spices - in a container in the freezer. Once you have enough, just put them into a pot with enough water to cover and bring to a rolling boil. Lower the heat and simmer for an hour, then strain out the scraps. What’s left is a wholesome, tasty veggie broth that’s just as good as (if not better than) the store-bought sort!

Becky Striepe is an indie crafter living in Atlanta, GA with her husband, two cats, and her trusty sewing machine.

She runs a crafty business: Glue & Glitter, sewing handmade housewares from vintage and revamped materials. Her mission is to use existing materials in products that help folks reduce their impact without sacrificing style!

1. Fertilizer in Subway Sandwich Rolls

While chemical fertilizers inevitably make it into our produce in trace amounts, you would not expect it to be a common food additive. However, ammonium sulfate can be found inside many brands of bread, including Subway’s. The chemical provides nitrogen for the yeast, creating a more consistent product.

2. Beaver Anal Glands in Raspberry Candy

The anal glands of a beaver, conveniently euphemized as castoreum, are a common ingredient in perfumes and colognes but are also sometimes used to -- believe it or not -- enhance the flavor of raspberry candies and sweets.

3. Beef Fat in All Hostess Products

While this may not bother the most ardent omnivore, others are shocked to discover that their favorite childhood treats contain straight-up beef fat. The ingredient comes included a list of other oils that may or may not be used, so it is always a gamble! It is enough to make some of us want to go vegan.

4. Crushed Bugs as Red Food Coloring

After killing thousands at a time, the dried insects are boiled to produce a liquid solution that can be turned to a dye using a variety of treatments. Some people worry that the coloring -- often called carmine or carminic acid -- could be listed as a “natural color,” disguising the fact that there are bugs in the product.

5. Beetle Juice in Sprinkles and Candies

You know that shiny coating on candies like Skittles? Or the sprinkles on cupcakes and ice cream sundaes? Well, they get that glaze from the secretions of the female lac beetle. The substance is also known as shellac and commonly used as a wood varnish.

6. Sheep Secretions in Bubble Gum

The oils inside sheep’s wool are collected to create the goopy substance called lanolin. From there, it ends up in chewing gum (sometimes under the guise of “gum base”), but also is used to create vitamin D3 supplements.

7. Human Hair and/or Duck Feathers in Bread

What’s in your morning bagel? If you get it from Noah’s Bagels, it contains either human hair or duck feathers, and it’s your guess as to which. The substance, called L-cysteine or cystine, is used as a dough conditioner to produce a specific consistency. While artificial cysteine is available, it is cost prohibitive and mostly used to create kosher and halal products.

8. Coal Tar in Red-Colored Candy

Coal tar is listed as number 199 on the United Nations list of “dangerous goods,” but that doesn’t stop people from using it in food. The coloring Allura Red AC is derived from coal tar and is commonly found in red-colored candies, sodas and other sweets.

9. Calf Stomach in Many Cheeses

In the UK, all cheeses are labeled as either suitable or not suitable for vegetarians because in Britain -- and everywhere else — many cheeses are made using rennet, which is the fourth stomach of a young cow. In the United States and most other countries, people are left to guess about the stomach-content of their cheese.

10. Sand in Wendy’s Chili

Sand is hidden in Wendy’s chili as a name you might remember from high school chemistry class: silicon dioxide. Apparently they use sand as an “anti-caking agent,” perhaps to make sure the chili can last for days and days over a heater. Skip it, cook yourself a quick vegetarian meal instead this Thanksgiving.

Source: This article was originally published on WebEcoist.

Photo Credits: wkrantz, high hopes gardens

Food waste and food-soiled paper make up about 25 percent of a typical household’s waste. If you aren't into gardening, your probably don't have a compost pile out back and if you live where we live, food scrap recycling isn't an option yet. Most of us just toss our food scraps into the trash or down the garbage disposal.

However, in some places like Alameda County in California and Bellevue, Washington you can now recycle food waste and food-soiled paper, fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grinds and paper filters, tea bags, meat, cheese, bones, pizza boxes, paper plates and napkins in with the leaves and grass. San Francisco even has a mandatory composting and recycling ordinance in place.

In an article called Recycling Food Scraps in this month's issue of Time Magazine, Bryan Walsh writes:

Food to Fuel
Want fries with that fill up? With Pacific Biodiesel you can. Hawaii-based Pacific Biodiesel, Inc. converts recycled cooking oil into fuel that powers generators, commercial equipment, vehicles, and marine vessels. Biodiesel production diverts cooking oil from landfills, while its use reduces emissions of major greenhouse gases and substances such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds, hazardous diesel particulates, and the acid-rain-causing sulfur dioxide.

Rockin' to Fight Hunger
Rock and Wrap It Up! (RWU) is a nonprofit program that arranges the collection and local donation of leftover food from rock concerts, sporting events, political rallies, and college and school cafeterias. There’s a lot of food leftover from these venues—as a rule, caterers prepare 10 to 15 percent more than they need for an event—and RWU makes it simple and satisfying to donate the leftovers.

Shopping for Change
Recycling food scraps is good for the environment and business! Supermarkets in Massachusetts are reducing, recovering, and recycling their food waste and saving money by participating in the state’s voluntary supermarket recycling certification program.

Food Scraps Go to the Animals
Don’t throw away your food waste! Barthold Recycling and Roll-Off Services picks up food scraps from commercial businesses and feeds the scraps to pigs and cattle.

Haagen-Dazs's new line of ice cream, Five, doesn't hide the ingredients in tiny type on the back of the carton. Ever=y one -- milk, cream, sugar, eggs and vanilla bean -- is prominently displayed in bright-orange capital letters. The fact that the brand's regular vanilla bean ice cream also has just five ingredients is beside the poin t. Food marketers have come to realize that simplicity sells.

Advocates for healthful eating have long tried to steer Americans away from highly processed foods that contain dozens of unnatural and unpronounceable ingredients. Now, driven by a drumbeat of food recalls -- ground beef, peanuts and, most recently, pistachios -- consumers may be more inclined to heed the call.

Last week, Snapple Beverage unveiled a reformulated line of drinks and an eight-figure marketing campaign emphasizing that its iced teas are made from green and black tea and "real" sugar. Frito-Lay is boasting that its potato chips, tortilla chips and even Fritos are each made with just three ingredients. The hope: that consumers will equate fewer ingredients with healthfulness, even when it comes to ice cream and chips.

"It's a convergence of health, food safety, taste and traceability," said Phil Lempert, a food and consumer behavior analyst who calls himself the Supermarket Guru. "People are reading labels more carefully than they were previously. When they pick up a product and it has 30 ingredients and they don't know what half of them are, they are putting it back on the shelves."

The message of simplicity and purity is just the latest in a long line of marketing strategies employed by food manufacturers. In the 1980s, product labels trumpeted low-fat credentials. In the 1990s, even packages of bread crowed about low levels of carbohydrates. "We've reduced fat and calories; that's reductive," said Aurora Gonzalez, a Frito-Lay spokeswoman. "Now we look at how can we add pluses. Whole grains are a good example of that. Another part that is complementary is the simplicity of ingredients."

On one hand, the move is a victory for those who have long preached the glory of simple, less processed foods. In his best-selling book "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" (Penguin, 2008), Michael Pollan writes that the first rule is to avoid any food products with more than five ingredients and those that contain unfamiliar ingredients (or high-fructose corn syrup).

But such advice was not meant to suggest that anything that contains a large number of ingredients is bad. A home-cooked stew or a Spanish paella, for example, has dozens of ingredients but is what Pollan and others deem "real" food. Sugar, in contrast, is just one ingredient but can be harmful in large quantities.

"It is better that the food be simpler than more complex," Pollan said in an interview. "On the other hand, this is another case of food manufacturers reformulating to reflect whatever the latest critique of their food is and turning what it is a criticism into a marketing strategy to sell more food."

Five is not a great departure for Haagen-Dazs, which has always catered to consumers who value high-quality ingredients. But it approaches the message in a new way, stressing wholesomeness and purity over indulgence.

Source: Jane Black,Washington Post