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Want to get your kids to like healthy food?

Thankfully, my children are young. I haven’t yet had to fight them over food because they’ll gladly eat just about anything I put in front of them.

And, thanks to clever, nifty, and fun ideas in cookbooks like Raw Recipes for Kids, my kids are happy eating Real Food.

I don’t know how much longer it will last. They will visit friends’ houses. They will be served libations of fructose-heavy soda pop. Their friends will gorge on donuts and candy, corn dogs and fish sticks.

That said, all is not lost. I’ve not given up before I’ve begun. I am heartened by this story from the mother of a seven year old girl who begged to go to Dunkin’ Donuts, just to see what her friends were fussing about.

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Spinach, zucchini, and peas in a creamy smoked gouda sauce. Resistance is futile.

I’m a sucker for creamed spinach.

Spinach is one of those vegetables that tastes great raw, but should generally be eaten cooked.

No, I’m not afraid of E. Coli. My spinach is fresh and not from industrialized sources, so it doesn’t run that risk.

It’s the oxalic acid that scares me. What? You’ve never heard of oxalic acid? Well, don’t be embarrassed. Neither had I until I read Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions (a Food Renegade Must Read). The acid is present in raw spinach and blocks the absorption of calcium and iodine. Mildly cooking spinach neutralizes the malevolent acid.

So, while raw spinach is higher in vitamins and minerals than its cooked counterparts, it’s best not to gorge ourselves on this particular raw leafy green despite the wonderful temptation that is fresh spinach salad.

In my home, we eat spinach raw only in small quantities and cook it the rest of the time. To each his own.

Now, where was I? Oh yes… I’m a sucker for creamed spinach. Last night, I didn’t have enough spinach on hand to create my favorite creamy culinary masterpiece. So, I threw in some diced zucchini and frozen peas.

I also had about 3.5 oz of smoked gouda waiting to be eaten.

Smoked Gouda Creamed Vegetable Medley was born.

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Calvin Tells It Like It Is, Folks.

I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions. I’m just not goal-oriented enough to care.

But, I also realize the value of turning a new leaf, of making steps towards living the life we care about. I know the value of repentance.

In honor of Change For the Better and the New Year, I thought I’d spend at least one post talking about how we can all make changes in our diet for the better.

If you’re familiar with my philosophy of Real Food (go read The Basics and related articles for the lowdown), then you know that making these kind of healthful and sustainable food choices in our modern industrialized food culture can be difficult. More than difficult. Sometimes, it can seem overwhelmingly impossible.

What if fresh, local, organic produce is an impossibility where you live? What if raw milk is against the law? What if you can’t grind your own grain to make wholesome sprouted grain flours? What if your finances just can’t flex enough to afford to make all these changes at once?

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How can you tell when fresh fruits & veggies are ripe?

Yesterday, I walked past the produce aisles at my local H.E.B. and read some signs.

Above the bananas:
“Yellow bananas are ready to eat today and tomorrow.  Green bananas are ripe and ready to eat in 3-5 days.”

Above the lemons:
“Room temperature lemons yield more juice.”

Above the pears:
“Press gently around the stem with your thumb.  Pears are best eaten when this area is soft and the rest of the pear is firm.”

This age old wisdom we should have learned from our mothers and grandmothers made for an informative (and slightly amusing) set of signs. I could not believe that we are so divorced from our food that we need grocery store tutors to tell us how to select our produce, when to eat it, and how to store it.

But we do.

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A book everyone should read.

Five years ago, my hero Joel Salatin (self-described as a “Christian libertarian environmentalist lunatic farmer”) published an article called Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal.

Last year, he published a book by that name (A Food Renegade Must Read).

Why would a farmer’s life be illegal?

Ask the feds.

From this press release:

On the morning of December 1, 2008, law enforcement officers forcefully entered the Stowers’ residence, without first announcing they were police or stating the purpose of the visit. With guns drawn, officers swiftly and immediately moved to the upstairs of the home, finding ten children in the middle of a home-schooling lesson. Officers then moved Jacqueline Stowers and her children to their living room where they were held for more than six hours.
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