Food Archives - Page 14 of 20

Healthy Food Choices

Everyone wants to be healthy these days. But with all the hype, it’s hard to know what to do.

The labels abound: Non GMO, Organic, Naturally Grown, Clean Eating. What do these mean? How can you make an informed choice? What are we thinking at Five Feline Farm?

Let’s take the labels one at a time as we see it.

Non GMO (Genetically Modified Organism)

Scientists have genetically modified some of our food crops to enhance production. Corn and soybeans are primary cash crops in the Midwest. These have been modified to make them “Roundup Ready”.

What does that mean?

It means the plant is modified at the gene level in such a way that it can be sprayed with the herbicide Roundup and not be affected. Otherwise Roundup kills any plant matter it touches.

Brown. Dead.

Not these corn and beans. These can survive being sprayed with this lethal poison.

Of course, Monsanto, the maker of Roundup would have us believe that the modifications and subsequent spraying are safe for human consumption.

It doesn’t stop with corn and soybeans. Many of our food crops also contain GMO’s.

Organic

Organic food has a special designation and oversight. There are strict standards that must be adhered to if one is going to label a food organic. This also comes at a cost. Organic food producers must meet these regulations and pay fees to label their food organic.

Organic simply means nothing artificial has been done to the seed, plant, soil, water, or fertilizer.

Naturally Grown

This is what we do at Five Feline Farm. We use non GMO seed. There are only natural (read compost) amendments to the soil. Any pesticides are house-made from natural ingredients.

We’re ok with misshapen fruits and vegetables.

Although not organic, we think it’s pretty close.

Clean Eating

This seems to be a relatively new term. The most basic definition is to consume only whole foods that would have been recognized by the generation before World War II. Foods that are not processed from an unrelated substance. Ingredients that can be read and pronounced by a middle schooler.

Prior to WW II and the dawn of the information age, life moved at a slower pace. Families took time to come together over a meal and share their day. People in rural areas grew a lot of their own food, “putting it up” or “putting it by” to get through the cold winter months. City folks shopped at local grocers. Large multi-line stores were non-existent.

People ate local food in that era. Perishable foods would not make the long journey across country or continents. Anything that was shipped a distance was cost prohibitive for the average consumer.

Our Plan

We are into modern retro-food.

Yes, it’s a new term we just made up. Taking advantage of new cooking techniques and the occasional long distance food, most of what we eat is local. Whole foods that Grandma would know. Nothing we can’t pronounce.

We grow and preserve as much as possible here on the Farm. What we do buy gets a thorough label examination. Looking for ingredients we can pronounce or resembles a food more than a lab ingredient. The fewer ingredients the better.

We aren’t perfect in this effort. But each meal and each purchase is an opportunity to make a good decision. In the end we feel better, physically and emotionally.

Your Turn

Join us in this effort to make better food decisions. Take one meal, one food, one day. Whatever works for you.

Eat a whole food. Read labels.

Make one food choice that is closer to the way Grandma used to eat.

Shop local.

Send us a message through email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and let us know what good food decision you made today.

Planning To Plant Garlic

Walk into any decent Italian restaurant and take a deep breath. That warm spicy aroma tingling your nose is quite likely garlic. That incomparable deep flavor that makes Italian dishes sing.

You can bring this into your own kitchen through bulbs of garlic purchased at a box store, but why do that when garlic is so easy to grow?

Now is the time to start planning for your fall planting of garlic. Yes, it is somewhat counter-intuitive, but some plants are designed to spend their winter nestled in the cold earth. Garlic is just such a plant.

There are two basic types of garlic and numbers of varieties within those types. Like any other plant, the specific varieties have different advantages of flavor, storage, etc.

Hard Neck Garlic

These bulbs of garlic are different from the kind you normally find available in the store. The bulb forms a hard center stem that grows up through the bulb to support the leaves. As the bulb is opened, there are typically 6 or 8 cloves of garlic around this center stem. The cloves are full and large. Varieties we grow are: Music, Bogatyr, and German Red.

Soft Neck

This garlic does not form that hard center stem. Softer leaves shoot out of the middle and many cloves form around this center. The outer cloves are reasonably sized with size decreasing as you near the center. Even the outer cloves do not attain the size of the hard neck ones. We grow Inchelium Red

After you receive your garlic bulbs, either through a mail order supplier or somewhere local, don’t peel off the outer papery cover until you are ready to plant. Store the bulbs in a cool, dry place until ready to plant.

At this point you should also plan where you will plant your garlic. Choose a sunny location that is well drained with rich soil. You will need 6-8 inches of space per plant.

This post is the first in a series about home grown garlic. Our next post will cover the characteristics of the garlic varieties we grow. In the meantime, check out this post about how to use garlic bulbils.

Come back for the next installment or sign up for our email list to have these posts delivered to your inbox. You’ll also get a free ebook. How cool is that?

In Defense of Butter

I love butter. Smooth, silky, creamy butter. There is nothing like it to transform pan sauce into a glistening, slightly thick, lip-smackingly rich perfection.

The butter at my house can be found in not one, not two, but three locations.

Butter on the Counter

Softened butter occupies a place of honor on the counter. Kept fresh in a butter keeper, ready to spread at a moment’s notice.

Butter in the Fridge

There are packages of butter awaiting use in the refrigerator, stick by glorious stick.

Butter in the Freezer

And there is always butter in the freezer. Usually purchased 16 or 20 pounds at a time. Butter stores perfectly well in the freezer. I can’t chance running out.

I preserve herbs in butter, making logs of rich herb butter to freeze. Later sliced and added to everything one can imagine. See how that process works in Making Herb Butter.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking.

“Her arteries are so clogged with all that butter fat, there’s no oxygen to her brain.”

“Bet her blood flows thick as frozen butter.”

“Cholesterol must be off the chart.”

The low-fat movement is surely having a stroke about now.

Yes, I use a lot of butter. Along with all the other full fat ingredients.

I’ve stopped using canola oil, shortening, corn oil, butter substitutes, reduced fat milk and cheese. In my opinion these options are not healthy, whole food. Many are GMO laden or composed of unrecognizable ingredients. These are not the food that my grandparents knew and used. I have stocked my kitchen with organic coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, full fat milk and cheese.

And butter. Lots and lots of creamy butter.

By the way, my cholesterol is down.

Our Manifesto-Natural, Simple and Reclaimed

Here at the Farm we are about three things: natural, simple, and reclaimed. These tenets are the overarching guide for all our Farm endeavors. Most of these manifest in food. Growing, preserving, buying, selling, cooking, and of course eating food. But it’s also a lifestyle.

First an explanation of the name. Five Feline Farm is not a cat rescue. The name is an homage to the five charter cats who moved with us to the five and a half acres we call home. It is also a glimpse of our sense of humor. Who names a market farm Five Feline Farm only to explain ourselves over and over? Wait until you find out what we name our products.

I digress.

Back to our focus on food.

Natural and Simple

So much of our food supply is heavily processed, loaded with ingredients that sound more like a chemistry lesson than a food label. I can only conjecture that the rise of these artificial ingredients is correlated to the rise of disease and lack of well-being in our society.

We strive to use whole ingredients wherever possible. Not only whole but a direct connection to the source. Our vegetables come from our farm or local (within 100 miles) sources. Sometimes this is difficult and exceptions must be made. We can’t grow coffee in Central Illinois but we certainly drink it.

In addition to the gardens, we are beekeepers. Our honeybee colonies provide enough honey for our own use, some to sell and wax for value added products. The more we learn about the benefits of honey, the bigger a proponent we become. Honey is an all natural, non-spoiling food that can also promote healing.

You may call it recycling or repurposing. Whatever the nomenclature, it is a way of life. Even the farm we live on is reclaimed land. The property had been left to it’s own devices. Covered in wild grape vines and multiflora rose. Smattered with old appliances, rusty fencing and dilapidated buildings. Think ancient outhouse, rodent infested outbuilding, termite and dry rot compromised barn.

In the midst of these horrors we found treasures.

Wild blackberry and raspberry brambles for food. A vacated basement transformed to a goldfish pond. Garden art from a rusty iron drill press. Barn wood graces the fireplace mantel in the house, logs form garden bed edging.

Acres of open land perfect for a house, gardens, orchard and apiary.

Reclaiming happens in the kitchen too. No, we don’t forage in dumpsters, but we do make every effort not to waste. Leftovers are creatively combined into new dishes and branded “New Leavin’s”. If something can’t be used, into the compost piles it goes. Enriching the soil for next year’s crop.

As we reclaim the land, we reclaim ourselves.

There are outlets to try new things and expand our abilities. We often learn by trial and error. Like the hoop house dismantled by prairie winds rivaling a nor’easter.

Follow along as we share what we learn. You may decide to implement a few things for yourself.