Buying Locally Grown

I can't stress the importance of buying locally grown goods.  Buying locally grown is like throwing a Molotov cocktail in the face of Monsanto and Bayer and Syngenta. And if you have a revolutionary nature like I do, then that alone is reason enough to start shopping at your local farmer's market or natural food co-op.

My daughter tagged along with her camera. I had to goof off for her!

BUYING LOCALLY GROWN- WHERE DOES YOUR FOOD COME FROM?

I am going to forego talking about the processed foods from the center aisles of your grocery store- I talk about this a lot, but for the sake of this blog, I am going to just say- Don't eat that crap. Trust me. Its bad. God only knows what havoc its wreaking on your immune system.

 Having said that, some people really do try to shop mostly from the outer edges of the grocery store, where the so called fresh food can be found. Even so, the food there has some issues that are not obvious. Produce, for example. We can now buy strawberries and seasonal produce year round. Sometimes its more expensive than others, depending on the season. Usually, the produce is shipped in from other states, and even other countries, like South America. What this means is that your produce was picked well before it was ripe, in order to get on the shelf in time and also allow it to sit on the shelf for another week or so. When produce is picked before it is ripe, it is lacking the natural processes that make it not only taste good, but deliver nutrients. The nutrients come in the maturation process, so when a tomato is picked several days before it is ripe, even though it will continue to ripen while its in a box on its way to the grocery store, it is not ripening on the vine and lacks the necessary sugars and sunlight to become a true representation of what a tomato should be. You can also see the difference with your own eyes. Cut open a tomato from the grocery store and its water-y and goopy and has lots of space inside it- often only the outer part is usable. But cut open a vine ripened fresh locally grown tomato, and its solid tomato meat all the way through.

My beloved Studio City farmer's market. Its also a fun way to spend a Sunday!

So, by the time it gets to you, its been picked too young, put in boxes and transported across states or even countries. It doesn't taste or look like a tomato that you bought that was picked the day before, as you get from a local farmer, and it lacks the full range of nutrients, too. It is a well known fact that in countries that eat a mostly plant based diet, there is a lack of the major illnesses that plague us in the USA. By eating the most nutrient dense produce you can buy, and learning to eliminate processed foods (I know, it takes time. Even I have a list of 5 that I am not ready to give up yet.) and reducing animal based foods (I said reduce. If you can eliminate them, then I totally salute you, but I am definitely not there yet. However, I now eat meat about once a week. My weakness is milk.) you can significantly decrease you and your family's chances of succumbing to such abundant ailments as obesity, high blood pressure and cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Fresh fruit and vegetables contain what our bodies need to function properly and stave off illness and disease.

"Let food by thy medicine." Hippocrates said that. Every Dr has to swear a Hippocratic oath to this day in order to become a physician- that's how legit Hippocrates is. And how not legit many Drs aren't.

Check out this trailer from the documentary Forks Over Knives. Its a must see! And don't worry, so many people tell me they are afraid of seeing how animals are treated in meat processing plants- they don't really show all of that. They just tell you some amazing facts that everyone should know.

Another big factor is the cost to the environment to ship all of this produce all over the world. Often your produce has been in several trucks, planes, or trains before it gets to you. There is a lot of fuel used in this transport. When you buy local, you are not contributing to the exorbitant waste, or the emissions from said waste. Local farmers drive to the markets, but not usually from very far, with their fresh, vine ripened produce. So it tastes better, is healthier, and doesn't contribute to the consumption of fossil fuels.



Checking out the zucchini for some Bomb Ass Zucchini Chips!!!

You also don't get GMO produce, since you know where it came from. They don't sell Frankenfoods at farmer's markets. And those who created genetically modified organisms want the small farmers out of business. Its very convenient that they are killing off the honey bees, which farmers have relied upon since the beginning of time to pollinate their crops. When you support small farmers. you DO NOT support those power hungry assholes that are ready to sacrifice the health of you, your children and the planet for profit.

 

ITS NOT JUST FRUIT AND VEGETABLES

At all farmer's markets, you can find a variety of things besides produce. I get fresh eggs from hens that are free range. They left the hens only a day or two prior to my getting them, rather than weeks after. They taste amazing!!! I also get my soap at my local farmer's market in Studio City, spices, and fish. They also have meat from grass fed cows, handmade clothing and jewelry, organic chousehold cleaning supplies, organic coffee and honey, some cool herbal tonic drinks, fresh squeezed orange juice, locally grown nuts, and smoothies. I always buy a bouquet of lilies for $5. One of my favorite discoveries is Nary Dairy,  a cheese alternative spread made from cashew butter.  The Nary Dairy people are so super sweet, and I love eating food made by such great people. My favorite is the Chia Cheddar. I eat it with quinoa, flax and chia seed crackers.  No more chips, no more candy bars,  no more grazing on snack stuff from 7-11. This stuff is awesome!

With Suzanne from Nary Dairy. Such great people!!! So yummy!!

I now do at least half of my weekly shopping for my family at the farmer's market, and I continue to learn new recipes so that I utilize foods that I can buy there, like my Bomb Ass zucchini chips. It makes me so happy to eat food that supports the local farmers, does not support shipping produce all over the world, is ripe and fresh and nutrient dense and delicious. I love that I walk to the market to get it, use only my recycled shopping bags, and don't purchase anything in packaging- no waste whatsoever. I love that I am not supporting the giant food corporations that would like to jeopardize our health to keep Big Pharma fat and happy.  The revolution starts with making different choices in who and what your dollar supports. So its a big fat UP YOURS to Monsanto, and that makes me ecstatic.

Not everyone has a local farmer's market, and not everywhere has a climate where they can buy locally grown.  Here are two helpful websites that can assist you in finding what is in your area-

CLICK HERE for a farmer's market locator.

CLICK HERE for a natural foods co-op locator

Don't forget to use recycled shopping bags. I will soon have some snazzy Shake The Hive market bags, with little produce bags inside so you don't have to ever use any plastic bags again.  A friend of mine is helping me with the new logo, and I can't wait to unveil it!

Don't forget to March Against Monsanto! Check out the facebook page for the March nearest you

Shake the Hive!

Ashley Dane

Urban Gardening

Right about the time I realized I needed to change the way I was looking at, and living, my life, I was lucky enough to have two unused garden towers in my proximity that I could learn to use. At my work, my boss had purchased two of them, but no one had championed the cause. It was perfect synchronicity. How many people living in cities don't have the option of growing their food, due to lack of soil or space? Plenty, I bet. Me included.

I also have the good fortune of having someone show me how to get these things started. There are so many ways to talk oneself out of doing something- "I don't know how", or "Maybe next week," or "I can't afford it," or "It won't work." The universe in all its goodness eliminated all such conversations from my head. If I can learn how to do these things, I can teach others. Its amazing to me that the most radical thing any of us can do is to get back to nature as much as possible- and there is nothing more natural than growing your own food.

So my friend who came to help also takes care of the garden towers at Step Up on Second, which is an organization which helps the homeless in Los Angeles. They have a small café where they serve hotdogs and hamburgers, and the homeless people on the program work the café and learn how to have a job. There are many aspects to this organization, and they are doing amazing work. One aspect is the garden towers on the roof- I think he said there were 25 of them, and they grow food that they can use to help feed the homeless people who come through while they teach them how to be self sustaining.  Here is a picture below- pretty amazing. By the way- you can make monthly payments for a garden tower, and they payments are reasonable.

Garden Towers at Step Up on Vine

My friend and I first started to create the seedlings. I got seed packets of peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, arugula. We put rock wool into plastic trays with individual growing bins- you do this so the roots don't grow into each other. Then you put 4 or 5 seeds in each one, and cover with a nutrient rich covering. Its important to mark what you planted- we did it with coffee stirrers with the name of the vegetable and the date on the back. Then you soak the seed beds, but be careful not to disturb the seeds.

The start of an urban garden



If you were not going to use a tower and were going to go guerilla gardening (which I implore you to do) then you would do the same thing but you could use potting soil which is already fortified with nutrients. In guerilla urban gardening, you would plant vegetables or other edibles in public spaces, or in front of your apartment building, on medians, on the courthouse lawn, parks, etc. Nothing at all wrong with doing this!  once your seedlings are good and strong, plant them where they will be able to get water- any public landscaping will have sprinkler systems.

So in about two weeks, we will have little seedlings. Every day I need to lightly water the seedlings and not leave too much water in the bottom tray- or they roots will grow down towards the water, and we'd rather encourage the plants to grow towards the sun.

Once they are seedlings, we transfer them to the garden towers. The towers only need to be filled with water and the nutrient solution and then you basically leave them alone and let them grow. You need to have access to an outlet as they need to plug in for the water to pump up through to each little basket. My first plants I put in my garden tower are growing- some died. White flies got to many of them. If you have white flies, a water and dish soap solution sprayed onto the leaves makes them go away.


Here is my vision- I want to teach people how to create urban gardens and beehives. Bees have a higher rate of survival in cities, and you can have your own source of honey. The gardens can give you certain vegetables and fruit- I am staying away from things like lettuce or herbs right now and focusing on things like tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers- its easy enough to get salad stuff from the farmer's market. I would like to help people understand the importance of buying from their local farmer's markets- its fresh, generally organic, and has not taken a lot of fossil fuels to send on trucks and airplanes from distant countries to your grocery store chain. I know we can't grow everything, and we can't buy everything at the farmer's market- but we can do a lot, and its a great start.

When I go to the farmer's market, I look at the people there and am so happy to be among like minded people. Its revolutionary. Buying local instead of at the supermarkets takes money out of the hands of those who seek to control the world's food sources.  There is much more at the farmer's market than produce- there is bread, meat, fish, eggs- you can get a lot of your shopping done there. the more you buy there, the more you are telling the GMO food corporations like Monsanto and Syngenta to fuck the fuck off.

OCCUPY YOURSELF!!!
 

Hell to the Yes Non GMO Liquid Salad with Mango Sorbet

 

 

So- check it out. I drink two cups of this every day. What I am about to show you how to make will make two 16 ounce cups- and its really yummy so you won't be holding your nose while you drink it.  

That is one cup of kale and one cup of spinach from my local farmer's market. There is no way that I would ever eat that much green stuff in one day- at least, not yet. I still have to force down vegetables, but I am slowly but surely learning to train my taste buds. I don't want to be a slave to anything- not even myself. Thus the phrase "OCCUPY YOURSELF".

 

 

 

 

 

 

After I throw in one cup of kale and one cup of spinach, I put in about a half cup of almond or coconut milk and blend. It ends up looking like this-

 

Yeah, that's a picture of Ray Charles in the back, which I thought looked better than our crusty old toaster. After it looks like this, I add 6 big or 10 small strawberries from the farmer's market. After that, a banana. Sometimes I add yogurt, or 16 raw almonds, depending on what I have on hand. Almonds are crazy good for you, and 16 constitutes a serving.
 

Next I add either 2 tablespoons of chia seeds or the same amount of flax seeds. These things are little superfoods and have more nutrients and omega fatty acids and antioxidants than you can shake a stick at. You can double up if you want to, but then the smoothie gets really gloopy and you need a spoon to eat it.

 

Sometimes I need to add more almond milk to get the consistency right. Then I add a few scoops of mango sorbet, just to make it sweet and something I really look forward to drinking. I still need to psyche myself out- while I want to retrain my tastebuds, I can't completely ignore the fact that I appreciate sweetness and, as Mary Poppins says, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

 

Hell to the Yes Non GMO Liquid Salad with Mango Sorbet

 

So- I know what you are thinking. That doesn't look very good. I wouldn't think so, either, but when I look at all the really powerfully nutrient dense foods that went into it, I am thankful for such a thing as blenders! This makes two very full cups, and I gulp them both down. Why not? Its yummy. I look forward to it.

This stuff almost all comes from my farmer's market in my area, except the seeds, almond milk, and mango sorbet. Drinking a big cup of this is like saying Up Yours to Monsanto and the GMO creeps who seek to dominate the world's food supply. And- it doesn't hurt that its super healthy, and could stave off illnesses that would require medicine and doctor bills- yet another corporation I am not trying to give my hard earned dollars to. This revolution takes place in the kitchen, but its impact is like butterfly wings that create a hurricane on the other side of the world- if we all did it, the world would change. And if the zombie apocalypse ever did come, we know who is gonna outrun those suckers.