Healthy!

Recently our family was invited to dinner in someone's home.

While our hostess was finishing her preparations for the dinner, she said something about the cookies her daughter helped frost for dessert--She hoped that they wouldn't "ruin" my children because she'd heard that we are really into healthy eating.

Ha!

Our healthy eating isn't really what most people would consider healthy eating.  It includes dessert, and frankly doesn't follow many of the "rules" in the popular conception of healthy eating.

The other day I was clearing out Owen's backpack of the day's barrage of paper waste. I came across this small scrap:

With no context I had to ask Owen what the writing prompt was.

"We were supposed to say a healthy eating choice," he said. 

His answer:  Ice cream! Becus its mad frum cow's milk.

=sniff= I couldn't be any more proud of him. 

Hot Cocoa

I should just restrain myself.  I keep turning over long-enjoyed food products and finding things on the ingredients label I just don't like. Most recently it was hot cocoa mix which contains sucralose.

I'm just not a fan of artificial sweeteners.  They are all created as a sugar alternative to be sweet but to have no (or less) calories.  In the first place I don't believe it is calories per se that are the enemy to good health, and secondly if I wanted to find a replacement for sugar I would go the other direction on the processing spectrum and instead choose to replace it with honey or maple syrup.

So after returning the canister of hot chocolate to the store shelf, we returned home to revisit Alton Brown's "Art of Darkness II: cocoa" to seek out our solution, and were not disappointed.  It's a yummy mug of hot cocoa very rich and dark--very un-American. It's a nice big batch that we can store in a canister for quick and easy use.   A frugal replacement for something fairly overpriced in the store(especially if you buy individual packets) and one in which I can control each of the ingredients. 
 

Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix

• 2 cups powdered sugar 
• 1 cup cocoa (Dutch-process preferred) 
• 2 1/2 cups powdered milk 
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch 
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper (if you like that kick)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and sift together (we use a whisk). Seal in an airtight container.

To use, fill your mug one third to half full with the hot cocoa mix and pour in hot water.

Note: LDS Cannery dry milk is a little different than the "instant" powdered milk they sell at the grocery store.  If you are using cannery milk use only 1 1/2 cups dry milk.  Then the amount of mix you'll add to your cup will probably be on the lower end as well.  Just experiment with it--we always do!

Book Club Reject

So I was in charge of picking the book for book club to read this month.  I brought in In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. I'm a little nervous that the other ladies are going to kick me out. I mean, it's non-fiction, and how interesting can a book be that has only a head of lettuce on the front cover?

I read the book for the first time a few years ago and found the whole thing fascinating.  Pollan's explanation of the current food culture in America and where it came from.  And then his knocking it all down back to common sense and non-fanaticism--just simple real food.  It's so interesting --and radical even-- while not being radical at all.  .

And I'll admit--I buy it. 

I love the book because it ratified so many of the feelings I've had about food as a young adult responsible for feeding myself and now a young family.  It justifies my desires to learn traditional foods and preparation methods.  It encourages our family and dinner-guests-included dining practices.  It supports my lack of guilt about not consulting the FDA or AAP (or whomever) for the "latest research on what to start when" once Wyatt showed interest in solid foods.  (Because "latest research findings" have been completely different for each of my three boys born  in '05, '08, and '10 respectively.)

And mostly I love the book because I love food!  (And having a blog is bad for that--I constantly want to take pictures of the visual poetry created by my peeled sweet potatoes sitting on the cutting board, because they just look so orange and so good, and the anticipation of thinking up something delicious to make with them fills me with excitement!)  And Michael Pollan shows that enjoying food is completely desirable --that the alternative (an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating) is more detrimental than to love "food, not too much, and mostly plants."

But really, I don't mind if the other ladies don't see it like I do.  They don't have to agree with the book like I do.  But this is my passion.  It's what I enjoy reading about, talking about, watching movies about.  So I brought the book for the discussion I want it to spur.  I just hope the ladies will give it a chance.

Syrup

One chipper Saturday morning in college, our apartment of three girls headed over to our friends' (three boys) apartment for a waffle breakfast.  They had the table set with an assortment of toppings for the waffles.  There was maple syrup of course.  Peanut butter graced the table as well I'm sure, but the one that surprised me was corn syrup.

"You aren't seriously going to slather your waffle with that are you?" I asked the tall boy. "It's corn syrup--straight sugar."

"Of course I am." he asserted, pouring it on his waffle.  "It's the exact same thing the maple syrup is made out of anyway!"

I couldn't argue with that, but just because it was the truth about the "naturally flavored" maple syrup didn't make it right--didn't mean that I wanted to embrace that fact, and skip the maple flavor and go straight to the corn syrup.

Jeremy and I use exclusively pure maple syrup in our home.  The number one response I get to that is "But it's so much more expensive!"  Sometimes followed by, "With how much my kids use we'd go broke!"

There are a couple of reasons why this doesn't deter us.  First of all.  Real maple syrup is a lot thinner than the corn syrup based version.  So it spreads out thinner and will therefore last longer if used accordingly.  Also the higher price helps us consider exactly how much we do let our kids use.  Even the smaller containers that pure maple syrups come in from the store help give a visual reminder to use it sparingly so we teach our kids that.  Although a natural one--it is still a sugar syrup. 

Recently I've been interested in making fruit-based syrups as a way of providing for our pancake syrup "needs."  (Though one day I'd love my very own maple bush (grove) to make real maple syrup.)  I was contemplating how to get a thicker syrup rather than just adding sugar to make fruit juice more "syrupy".  Of course pectin was the answer and I don't know why I never thought of it before.  I was excited to become familiar with Pomona's Pectin which is a citrus-based pectin as opposed to the standard apple-based varieties.  Pomona's can use significantly less sugar and still "jell."  You can also use honey and other sweeteners--not just white sugar. 

The website suggested for making syrups to use 1/4 the measurements of pectin from jam recipes as a starting point.  My first try was with elderberries foraged from a couple bushes in the university gardens.  Jeremy had a large elderberry bush at his house growing up and he remembers his dad making elderberry syrup when he was a kid.
I'm excited for the potential of making more natural and lower sugar syrups for our family pancakes.  Though truth be told--maybe elderberry wasn't the best choice of fruit for trying to go low sugar!

Fair Treats

After dinner on Saturday Jeremy announced we were going to have our dessert at the county fair!  I had almost forgotten that it was fair weekend and would have been crushed to miss my annual opportunity to enjoy a funnel cake. 

 We love taking the boys to see the fair animals.  They need that exposure to the animals, both those they are familiar with and those they aren't.  Last year we watched--yes watched--a pig give birth while we were at the fair.  Now that's educating our children!

 The boys were right at home running up and down between the chicken cages.  And They love sticking their fingers inside all the bunny cages to feel their soft fur.

My favorite part of the evening was --in anticipation of the dessert he had been promised--Jonas saw the home garden produce on display and lunged at a plate of cherry tomatoes exclaiming, "Oh!  There's some treats!"

Oh how I love my boys!  (And don't worry--the produce survived.)

Really Real

Owen has been obsessed with an idea lately.  We try to encourage any interest the boys show towards food or cooking and Owen was obsessed with making homemade orange sherbet.  We watched Alton Brown make it on Good Eats and since then Owen asked about it almost daily.

I cannot even describe how delicious it turned out.  It tastes so orange and it tastes so clear.  As I was eating it I was thinking about how so many people and us included just don't even know what the "real thing" tastes like.  And I wondered if we sat a bunch of people down in a room and fed them the real thing if they wouldn't just instantly be converted to real food because they simply hadn't known what they had been missing?

Unfortunately for some people their taste buds have been assaulted with too much added salt, and too much added sugar, and too many artificial "natural flavorings"  for so long they can overlook real food upon first re-taste.   But I've seen my homemade chocolate pudding rock people's worlds before, and I'm going to bet that this orange sherbet would do the same.

It sure rocked mine.

Cultivating

Our early spring peas are growing well.

It's been reasonably cool and has included a few rainy days--The peas love it.

I can't wait for the peas.  Last year we only had about a dozen plants.  The boys loved eating the peas and pods straight from the vines but we almost had to ration them out to let everyone have some each time.  This year we hope to have less rationing necessary.

Next to the peas I planted two varieties of carrots.  We're still waiting for those to come up (I really hope they do).

I have a cabbage and broccoli plant that actually wintered over in the hoop house.  I planted them late (too late) in the fall.  The plants were really small and I kept them covered in plastic and in the spring they started growing again.  So hopefully there will be something to harvest soon.

Our onions are just starting to come up.  I walked by our neighbors the other day who had a whole plot of 6-inch high onion shoots and was worried--we seemed way behind. But ours have started shooting up this week and they really grow quickly once they break ground--so I'd guess we're only a week behind our neighbors.  Last year our onions were not a successful crop.  We're off to a better start since we didn't even get them in the ground last year until after the baby was born. 

This is simply how gardening has gone for us.  Every year we've had failures and successes.  Every year we've learned more about how we'll do it better "next time".

We literally are cultivating the skills in our lives in order to live in a more self reliant manner.  Self-reliance isn't something you can just buy--like a 72-hour kit.  A big part of self reliance is developing the skills necessary for providing for your own needs.  This takes time and effort.  I cook well not because it was a skill that I was born with, but because it is a skill that felt was important so I have devoted time and effort into learning it. (Most of that being during the last seven years since I have been married.) 

As I have learned basic skills that appealed to me I have found that more areas of self-reliance start to look interesting--the more I'm interested in seeing if I can provide for that need myself instead of depending on someone else to supply it.  I may not choose to always do so, but that can be my choice. 

I want my children to have that choice as well--to have the independence that comes from being able to do many productive things for themselves.  I don't know if our boys will ever need to know how to spin wool into yarn, but they do need to know how to feed their own bodies.  We invite the boys into the garden with us and particularly into the kitchen--teaching them principles and cultivating within them important skills, as well as cultivating within them the desire to provide for themselves.

Real Convenience Food

In a recent post I asserted that real food can be just as easy as buying prepackaged processed food.  In the comments an old friend from the undergrad years had this to say:

JosephJ said...

In my mind there are several tiers of "easy food." There's the "I've got to eat something right now or I'll collapse" and the "I've only got 15 minutes to whip something together" and the "I've got time, but want it to turn out well without much effort."

In grad school I kept a drawer of junk food that fit Class I Easy (Pop-tarts, peanut butter crackers, granola bars, etc). Now, I resort to fresh fruit, a bowl of applesauce, or peeling a carrot. This week my Class II Easy was to pop several potatoes in the microwave, then top with butter, sour cream, and salsa. I let Jen do most of the Class III Easy, because she's so very good at it.

I think the main temptation to stock junkfood comes when our idea-well for Class I Easy snacks/foods runs shallow. Perhaps you have thoughts on this?

His classification of three types of food based on the immediacy of our hunger or schedule is totally valid.  And I would agree that "I need something to eat right now," is the hardest time for choosing real food over processed food.  So I've spent a few days thinking about the way we do things, and I've come up with some ideas to share.

I identified three different tiers of solutions to this issue as well.   The first being purchasing prepackaged--but non-preservative-filled foods.  The second being planning ahead.  And the third being true, real, convenience food.

Purchasing prepackaged foods:  I throw this idea out there because there are times when you are out on the run--or maybe on a car trip--when it seems you have no alternative than purchasing something.  My point is that there are some things that you can buy that fit mostly into the "real food" category.  Pretty much everything I will mention in the following two categories will offer some prepackaged version or another with varying levels of processing and additives.  But if you look closely you should be able to find an acceptable option.  You can buy a fruit leather made with fruit and lemon juice rather than a bag of gummi worms made with HFCS and artificial colorings.


Planning ahead:  I say this as motivation to myself not because I am at all consistent about this currently.  But obviously the amount of snack foods that you can make ahead and have waiting and ready for "emergency" are endless.  I mentioned buying fruit leather--but I would love to make my own.  I'm waiting for a cheap dehydrator on Craigslist.  Then there are the baked goods: homemade crackers and granola bars and other things.

Crackers can be made in advance and kept in an airtight container.  granola bars can be stored individually wrapped in the cupboard or even the freezer for longer periods so that it's ready when you want it.  We also recently made homemade "Oatmeal-to-go" bars.  Take your cue from the grocery store--anything they sell you,  you can make at home instead.  And it will be cheaper and better for you.

One thing my boys really love to snack on is our homemade granola.  They will often be found eating straight from the bucket.  I love the granola as a quick snack as well.  I'm a real cold-cereal lover and granola with milk satisfies that craving.

I'll put hard-boiled eggs in this plan-ahead category too.  It takes about 15 minutes to get a hard-boiled egg, but if you make them a day in advance they are very quick to grab and eat.  

Now there is an overlap to my categories, because technically everything in this next category must be planned ahead for and bought, or made, or grown, or fermented, but in our home all contents of the following category are available regularly for fast and easy consumption

 Real Convenience Food:  Joe already mentioned fresh fruits and vegetables.  Grapes, bananas, apples, carrot sticks, slices of sweet peppers, sugar snap peas.  (My boys love their vegetables crunchy.)  The choices are endless.  Out of season you can enjoy applesauce and bottled or frozen fruits and vegetables along with dried fruits.  (We love raisins, craisins, banana chips, and dried pineapple.) 

If you are looking for a snack that sustains your energy it's good to pair a protein source with them.  That sounds lame but it's not.  Yogurt with berries on top. Celery with peanut butter (and rasins?). Apple slices with cheese (don't knock it). Cottage cheese with pears.

All of those pairs are favorite options on their own as well,  yogurt (maybe topped with granola?), and cottage cheese or cheese slices make great snacks

One of our favorite quick filling snacks is smoothies.  

 I keep assorted frozen fruits in the freezer at all times.  That goes into a bowl with any fresh fruit going soft or brown, fresh greens from the fridge (spinach in the summer, kale in the winter)  and plain yogurt.  Buzz it up with a stick blender.  I use a little bit of 100% fruit juice or rice, almond, or cow milk to thin it out, and it's fast and delicious. And it's the easiest way I know to get a lot of greens into my boys.

A quick snack we eat regularly is toast.  Jeremy loves his toast with chocolate milk (we do love our Nesquick afterall) and although there may be healthier options--it's a surprisingly satisfying snack. 

   Toast and eggs are easy too and filling.  We'll even do toast and eggs for a super-quick dinner sometimes. Peanut butter on toast would be a good snack too.

Finally my boys do love tangy, briney-type foods as well.  The love to eat pickles and olives (black, green, and purple) by the crock-full. I haven't tried making any other pickled vegetables, though I probably should because the boys would love them.  Jeremy actually made pickled eggs recently.  Wow--potent. . . but really good sliced on a sandwich. 

So there you have my ideas about real convenience foods.  I think it's one of those things where there are really more ideas than we realize until we sit down and think about them.  So I appreciated this challenge to think about the way we currently do things, and how we could to even better. 

It finally cooled down here enough for us to turn our oven back on.  I christened it back into service this week with a giant batch of homemade granola.  We're excited to be able to turn the oven on more regularly again this fall season, and bake a lot of the foods that we've relied on the (air-conditioned) grocery store for this summer. 

What about you?  What is your easy food?  What are your favorite homemade snacks?  Do you think this whole idea is crazy?  Let us know--commenting is now open!  (I may be back with forgotten favorites as well.)

My Boys Love This

My friend asked about Food Inc. the other day.

"So does it say you should be like vegetarian?"

I answered, "No." (Since I'm a self appointed spokesperson.) Food Inc. explores the industrialized food system in America, and if I was to name a food lifestyle it was promoting it is simply "eat real food." You can eat meat, if it comes from healthy animals eating the food that nature intended for them. I would call meat a real food, along with fruits and vegetables and flours milled from grains--that sort of thing.

I like to be able to recognize my food--what it is, and what's in it.

This last week as Jeremy and I were discussing grocery shopping, we felt like we needed some "easy food," based on Jeremy's current inability to help out around the house.There was the temptation of the idea of buying some ready-made processed foods.

Until I remembered that real food can be just as easy.

An onion in a pot with butter then flour.  A quart of stock.  Broccoli and some shredded carrots.  4oz cheddar and 1/2 cup of cream.

Hardly needs a recipe.

I love to look at my ingredients and see how simple they are and know that something truly delicious is coming.  That's why, although I believe I'm a good cook (through equal parts practice and courage), I've never felt comfortable with the label "gourmet" that some people sometimes give me.  Most of the time I love the basic simple ingredients. 

What else could I want?

Edited* More specific instruction if you want to make Cheddar broccoli soup.   Start by sauteing the onions in 2 TBS butter until soft.   Add 2 Tbls flour until the butter soaks it all up.   Then add chicken stock a little bit at a time while stirring to get all that flour and butter mixed through it.   Add the broccoli to the broth and simmer until soft.  Add the carrots toward the end of the broccoli cooking.  Then slowly add the cheese to melt it and add the cream and stir to combine.  

The Big Guns

I haven't actually been trying that hard on Owen's lunches.  I've been letting his new cute containers do most of the work for me thus far.     That was. . . until we had the following conversation:

Me:  Owen how do you want this carrot in your lunch?  Do you want me to cut it into carrot sticks or do you want me to leave it like this-- like a big carrot rocket?

Owen:  I don't want any carrots in my lunch.

Me:  Would you like me to put some dip in for your carrot sticks?

Owen:  I would like ketchup. . .
            with french fries. . .
            and some chicken nuggets. . .

That got no reply from me other than to turn and march myself right back into the kitchen to finish making his lunch.  This is exactly why I am making his lunches at home and sending them to school. 

Kindergartners want to eat fun food.  And right now he's thinking that those french fries and chicken nuggets look fun.  That is one of the whole ideas behind bento.  People, especially children, eat with their eyes first, and if the food isn't visually appealing--they won't want to eat it. 

Carrot sticks, sweet red pepper squares on toothpicks, cheese leaves, and ants on a log.  He also had a half a sandwich.  (Jeremy had made him a whole sandwich, but Jonas found it and ate one half for his breakfast.)

When I finished putting together Owen's Americanized bento box I took it over and showed him.    I got the wide-eyed expression of surprise and interest I was looking for. 

"This is your lunch."  I told him.  (And no, you may not have fries with that.)

I think he enjoyed his lunch.  I definitely was excited to show it to him, and he ate most of it.  Now I just have to stop by the principle's office when I drop him off today and ask for his plastic toothpicks back. 

Apparently they were confiscated for being "spaceships--flying through the hair galaxy." 

("Who's hair galaxy Owen?")

Seriously, they should be paying me to send my kid to school.  You know those teachers haven't had laughs this good in a long time.   

Bread

The other morning Jeremy left early without eating  much breakfast.  Mid morning he was feeling a bit peckish so he walked down to the union bought a bagel, and took it back to the studio to eat.

From nearby he heard a scoff.  He looked over at two undergrad girls.

"Oh, a bagel." one said matter-of-fact-ly.

"Yeah, a bagel."  Jeremy said, a little confused.

"Carbs."  She said emphatically, thick with underlying meaning.

". . . "



People are so weird.

The Bottom Line

I've been thinking a lot lately about buying the expensive version. Of what? Well, of everything. On Food Inc. there's a man who compares buying food to buying a car asking: who goes into buying a car saying something like "I want the cheapest car that I can get." Most people obviously don't because you realize that in paying a little more for a car you are buying reliability, or safety, or even comfort. The same goes for food--just with different characteristics like taste and -in truth- safety again.

Jeremy and I have held this position about food for a long time now. That's something that I've really appreciated about Jeremy as a husband--I never have to worry that I'll be repremanded over the grocery bill. We recognize that good food costs money. But over time our definition of good food has narrowed, and the potential cost has continued creeping up.

Recently a woman who's blog I read talked about making something herself particularly because she could get it cheaper in the store, recognizing that the cheapness of the product most-likely indicated. . . something negative. She didn't state her exact oppinion. Perhapse she feels it was a lack of ethical business practices on the part of the manufacturer, or dislikes the idea of so much of what we buy in this country coming from China. It's an interesting thought though.

Then there was an add for a nice leather bag Jeremy saw that says, "Your children will fight over it when you're dead." Goods made of such high-quality materials and of such high workmanship will obviously cost a lot more than a Jansport bag. But we want that. We want quality goods that wil last for a long time. We get annoyed by magazine articles that talk about how cell phones are designed to break irrepairably the week after your six-month warranty runs out. We're tired of all the cheap bookshelves we got when we first got married which are now in shambles.

So we are definitely getting to this point where we are becoming more comitted to paying more for things instead of looking for the cheapest version. But there is a flipside as well.

I completely, one hundred percent, absolutely hate paying for a label.

I see no reason to pay $100+ for a pair of jeans. They are made of cotton. Cotton is cheap. Cotton grows in America (Arizona to be precise) so the materials don't need to be shipped all over the globe. And jeans wear out quickly. These are reasons why I don't think I should spend that much on Jeans.

But consider a nice pair of leather shoes. I can see the value of paying $100 for a nice pair of leather shoes--I never have, but I can see the reasoning--if you pair nice materials with nice workmanship that will last for years. But another reason why I don't appreciate designer labels is because I don't see the point of buying an expensive pair of shoes that are so stylish that they will quickly be out of style. Then you have wasted all the quality materials and workmanship on a product that is now "obselete." Really--is that even ethical?

So I want to spend more, but just on the things that matter, and for the things that don't? Well, I'm not sure, but I still don't want to get them from China. . .

On Food and Eating

The other night Jeremy told me he was in the mood to make cupcakes. We were at Target and the trip lasted later in the evening than we wanted, so at the end we stopped in the "grocery" section and were considering the easy way out--purchasing some Hostess cupcakes.

"But do I really need a whole box?" Jeremy asked.

"Well, it is only eight of them." I said. I was trying to be a supportive wife.

While we sat there debating whether or not we would actually buy them, Owen noticed the aisle that we were on and pointed excitedly to the Hostess Zingers.

"Look! It's traveling snacks, for when we are traveling in our car!"

"You're very right Owen." We said, and moved along from the snack-y cake aisle.

************

That moment made me happy for a number of reasons. First, Owen recognized packaged convenience foods as something that we don't buy regularly, and he wasn't going to even ask for them. But second, that he recognized them as something that we do allow them to get once in a while for special occasions, like a family road trip.

This is really what Jeremy and I want: moderation in all things. We really try to eat healthy and naturally and eat "real food." But yet we don't want to be crazies.

************

Recently we have watched this:


And this:


And read this:
They all share some similar themes. They talk about how much processed food Americans eat and how much of that processed food is corn and soy-product based. How the corn growers vs. government situation is totally out of control. How this impacts the meat products sold in this country, and how unhealthy that whole system is. . .

It's alarming, thought-provoking and frustrating all at the same time. Really, leaving the question of what's a person supposed to do about food?

That's why I liked this one:

This one had the answers of what a person was supposed to do. "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants," explained in a few hundred additional and interesting pages. But the reason I liked it so much was because so much of this book was so intuitive to me. It just made sense.

Michael Pollan himself wonders in the book why we feel like we need anyone else to tell us what to eat.

There are so many lifestyle-diets out there that lay out a wacky food philosophy and then go into all these complicated explanations and obscure examples to explain their reasoning and why their idea has to be right. Things that leave me scratching my head thinking, "Did all that 'science' actually add up, and can that really be right?"

************

I personally believe in God and that he created our bodies and expects us to respect and care for them. Therefore I don't believe that God intended that the principles of feeding our bodies would be such a complex thing that we would require "experts" to lay each calorie out for us.

And as God created the earth, that's the place I believe I will find good nutrition. Plants that grow on the earth and animals that live on the earth. And from an evolutionary standpoint it would also make sense that our bodies would be able to be sustained by the things of our environment--not that we should require eliminations of whole groups of intuitive food sources, or necessitate scientifically calculated dietary supplements in order to actually maintain health.

See?! I already sound like a crazy, and that's just from me saying I want to eat food from nature, and not listen to people who tell me not to eat meat, or dairy, or whole grains or the ones who insist that I can only be really healthy from eating things made by scientist who engineered the food and supplements to provide perfectly for the needs of the human body (at least--as far as we understand the body this year. . .).

************

So although I want to eat healthy, Michael Pollan talks about the serious problem we have in our country about stressing too much over food and nutrition. So I really don't want to do that. I just want to eat healthy most of the time.

So here's my youngest, happy as can be after eating handfuls of yummy delicious red raspberries:


And here's my oldest, happily and tenderly caressing the most recent addition to our shelf-stable "food" supply:

And I don't feel guilty at all. . .

moderation baby.

Is It Worth It?

Yes, is it worth it? This is what I asked myself last fall as I bought two moderately-priced bags of peaches, and took them home to can. Why would I do that? The peaches weren't on some great deal. They definitely weren't coming hand-picked off a tree in my own back yard. So why bother?

It's just something I want to be a part of my life. I want my children to know that food comes from nature, not just tin cans. I want my children to know that food is something we create, not just pull out of plastic bags. I want food preparation to be a task that brings our family together, not just regarded as a necessary evil. Will canning store-bought peaches in the middle of the Kansas prairie accomplish any of those things? I don't really know. But I do know that when I see this...





I think the answer to my original question is "yes."