O Christmas Tree!

We found the perfect tree!

As I was merrily surfing the other day, I came across an entire new organic issue for me to worry about! Christmas trees! Cue the eye roll from my husband. See, I thought we’d settled this issue long ago when we chose a real Christmas tree rather than a fake one. We didn’t want that big plastic conifer outgassing PVC all through our house, so we developed our tradition of selecting a tree at a nearby farm and cutting it down ourselves. A fresh, live (for now) tree! Love the pine scent, don’t mind the needles too much. We always have fun picking the tree and gather plenty of pictures and memories. But now a shadow has been cast over this lovely family adventure.

Is this pungent pine beauty scenting our house not only with its own perfume, but also pesticides? Or for that matter, has anyone applied a toxic fire retardant spray to prevent it from igniting in my house? These questions had never occurred to me.

When I was a child, I have vague memories of returning from our Christmas tree harvest and waiting impatiently while my father (the chemical engineer) applied some kind of fire retardant spray to our tree. That was just what you did. When my husband and I bought our first tree (from a neighbor), we never even thought to douse our prize with chemicals even though we lived in a 150 year old farm house (that hadn’t been updated). Was I naive not to worry?

The National Christmas Tree Association has this to say about the danger of real trees igniting in your home:

A) Less than 0.0004% of Real Christmas Trees used each year are ignited in home fires and NEVER has a Real Christmas Tree caused or started a fire. Even though the chance of a Christmas Tree fire is very slim, you can ensure that your Real Christmas Tree stays fresh and safe by following the NCTA recommended care tips. Anyone who has ever tried to start a camp fire with green wood understands how flame resistant a properly watered tree is.

Don't believe us? Watch this clip shown on the NBC Tonight Show with Jay Leno in December, 2004

The clip is kind of fuzzy, but it’s funny. Every year, the press warns us about the danger of Christmas trees and fire, but I have to wonder how much of that hype isn’t generated by the Artificial Christmas Tree manufacturers. Seriously. I never realized that the real vs fake tree dilemma is such a battleground. I found two sites while looking in to this Christmas tree issue – The National Christmas Tree Association, which takes the side of live trees, and the American Christmas Tree Association, which promotes the use of artificial trees.

The American Christmas Tree Association website is a pretty scary place to visit if you’re planning on a live tree this year. There are all kinds of dire warnings about the hazard of a real tree inside your home. Still, I can’t help wondering why my dead, dry tree (their words, not mine) is any more a fire hazard than the papers my kids leave everywhere. When I light the fires in our woodstoves, I never having any trouble getting paper to light, but I’ve spent some pretty frustratingly cold mornings struggling to light the 2 year old dead wood placed in the stove. There is enough intrigue, deceit, and raw material here for a movie, or at least a Michael Moore documentary. But I’ll leave these issues, fun as they are, so I can get back to discussing organic Christmas trees.

Most Christmas tree farms use some kinds of pesticides, although the only way to know for sure what and how dangerous they are, is to ask the grower. You can also buy Christmas trees infused with other scents (orange, spice, etc.), although I’m not sure why you wouldn’t want that refreshing pine scent the tree produces naturally. There’s no data on how scents are ‘infused” or whether they are natural or artificial. You do have the option of certified organic Christmas trees (of course!), but I’m willing to bet they don’t come cheap. You can find a local organic tree farmer through Local Harvest.

I’m still committed to a live Christmas tree. I just can’t imagine a plastic one, convenience or not. And it’s not just the outgassing or the fact that plastic trees are not recyclable, it’s the smell. I love the smell of a pine tree in my living room. And I love trooping all over the tree farm arguing about the perfect tree. And I love coming home and decorating it together. This is one of the few things we do as a family anymore.

This year I might ask my tree grower a few questions. But he seems like a nice guy and the trees are literally in his front yard, plus the yard is definitely not weed free and the trees are cheap ($40 bucks any size), so I can’t imagine he’s heavily invested in expensive chemical pesticides.

Like so many other organic issues, it comes down to trust and your best speculation. You have to trust the person you’re buying from and you have to speculate just how much risk there is in bringing a live, possibly pesticide-coated, tree in to your house. We can’t know for sure that pesticides are a definitive danger to the health of your home’s inhabitants, but we can’t know for sure that they aren’t. I’m not sure we will ever sort out the effects of the chemical soup ingested by all of us over the years.

I suppose the only way to truly know that my Christmas tree doesn’t pose a danger to my family is to grow it myself. I’m sure my husband is groaning as he reads this, but next spring you know what will be gracing the back edge of our property.

Define 'Organic'

I’ve had the opportunity to lead several workshops on eating organically recently, and it has led me to think long and hard about the definition of organic. Here's Webster's take on it-

Organic, adj. 1. of or having to do with an organ 2. inherent, inborn 3. systematically arranged 4. designating or of any chemical compound containing carbon 5. of, like, or derived from living organisms 6. grown with only animal or vegetable fertilizers

I’m not sure any of those definitions fit with the generally acknowledged definition most people acknowledge these days. The first comment I run in to most often, is “too expensive”. And many people, my children included, can’t help but say the word organic without a slight sneer, kind of the way Nellie Olsen talked on the original Little House on the Prairie series. Somehow organic has gone from a good idea to a trendy idea to a snobby idea.

As I thought through the message I was trying to convey at the workshops, I kept coming back to the word ‘organic’. I think there is a danger in defining ‘organic’ as the food that has received the government’s little green label. In fact, I might even venture to speculate that most of the certified organic food you find in the grocery store isn’t nearly as organic as the food you’ll find at your farmer’s market or roadside stand.

The people defining the word ‘organic’ are the people with the most to gain from that definition (and that wouldn’t be you and me). The food manufacturers have loads of money to spend on lobbyists and plenty of political power to ensure that the definition is watered down enough to make mass production of ‘organic’ food possible and profitable. If you do a little research, you’ll quickly discover that just about all of the organic brands you find in the grocery store have been bought up by conventional food manufacturers. It’s a bit of a curse to be successful at an organic start up; it virtually guarantees your days are numbered.

Truly it’s a free for all. Just about anything can be twisted in to acceptance with the right amount of influence and legal documents. There are over 500 exceptions (probably hundreds more since my source is over a year old) for pesticides, preservatives, additives, food colorings, artificial flavorings, and stabilizers in organic food. At a workshop I led for young mothers, I was hard pressed to come up with an answer to the question, “What kind of organic snack can I give my toddler?” Fruit, being my first response, isn’t always practical. And the overpriced organic snack food being hoisted on well-meaning mothers, isn’t necessarily any better than the goldfish crackers and cheezits I raised my children on. It’s a tough call. And there is no simple answer.

Until we are all ready to go back to growing all our own food or knowing the person who grows it for us, the best we can do is the best we can do. I still keep harping on label reading. It’s pretty much your only weapon against the marketing. Much of the “organic” processed food you find in the grocery store has only a few organic ingredients, most likely just enough to qualify for the little green and white seal.

I was reading today that Horizon organics, who own more than 50% of the market on organic dairy products, keep their cows in a grassless feed lot and stuff them full of “organic” feed. They have so many cows at their manufacturing facility in southern Idaho, it’s a statistical impossibility to keep them on grass (the acreage they would cover would make it impossible to gather them in to the milking barn three times a day). I’m guessing it’s the same situation at their international facilities too. And I have to stifle a giggle at the idea of “organic” cow feed. With all the shenanigans involved with certifying organic people food, I have to wonder who’s certifying organic cow food? My guess it’s pretty much a fox guarding the hen house.

So which is better - milk you buy from local farms who don’t proclaim to be “organic” but graze their cows on fresh grass every day, or certified “organic” milk shipped to you from across the country or continent?

I’m truly getting tired of the “organic” label. I’m not sure it means anything anymore. I think we need to talk about ingredients and processes because they mean much more than the indulgent, expensive certification process that costs us as taxpayers and as consumers.

No one wants to hear this, but it’s the message I have to keep spreading – make your own food. Don’t groan and roll your eyes at me. It’s not difficult and many times it’s not even very time consuming. And for sure, it saves you money. Deciding to make your own food is a mind set. It requires moving beyond the part of you that says, “I can’t do this.” Sure, in the beginning it will take a little work, some serious research, and a rearranging of priorities.

It seems to me, as I watch the lines at the fast food drive through and the overflowing carts at Walmart, that most people are sheep. They are following everyone else, trusting that if they are eating it and the store is selling it and the government is allowing it, than it must be OK.

Sure, it won’t kill you, at least not today. All you have to do is look at our ever-expanding population to know that we can survive on artificially colored, chemically-created, pesticide and preservative laden food. We can live just fine. All we’ll need is seriously good health insurance and some major savings to support us when our bodies finally max out on the toxins and we have to pay the piper. Not to be all doom and gloom, I’m just saying.

My mother-in-law tells me that I need to be sure my readers know that I’m not super-woman, that I truly don’t get it right all the time. So let me tell you what I brought home from the grocery store last night for my 15-year-old’s upcoming birthday gathering this weekend. (he chose the menu) – cheezits in multiple flavors, tortilla chips, pretzels, mountain dew, sierra mist in that bright red color you know is laden with Red No. 5, and several ridiculously impossible “fruit” juices that claimed to be “100% from concentrate” (which means, what?). And on Saturday I will bake a cake laden with fat and chocolate and real cream and then we’ll order pizza from a parlor. And I promise that not once will I say “you shouldn’t eat that”!

I don’t want to be the “food nazi” as Stephen Colbert accused Michael Pollan of on his show this week. My oldest son is a huge fan (of Colbert, not Pollan) and enjoyed sharing the clip with me. Pollan took the chiding very well, but he also made his point – people need to eat real food. He didn’t talk about organics, he talked about common sense.

I think we need to remember that eating “organic” (for lack of a better word) is not an all or nothing venture. Every change we make that moves us towards a healthier life is progress, however small. It’s time to take responsibility for our food. It’s dangerous to trust our family’s health to the government, the food manufacturers, or the grocers. We need to know what we are eating. Or as my favorite quote says, “If you are what you eat and you don’t know what you’re eating, how do you know who you are?”

Defining the word ‘organic’ in terms of our food system is difficult, as it seems to be an ever-evolving claim, but defining organic as food that is real, honest, and good for our bodies might be a step in the right direction.

A Pumpkin A Day....

Wait! Wait! Don’t toss that pumpkin on the compost pile now that Halloween is over! Did you know that the pumpkin is a veritable boatload of healthy eating? Me neither, but this morning I did a little research. We finally carved our jack-o-lantern last night after the urgent pleading of our youngest. We even took the obligatory pictures of the kids scooping out the seeds, although the older two participated under some diress. My daughter even donned the rubber gloves (“I’m not touching that – it’s disgusting”). When it was all said and done my 9-year-old chased my 15-year-old out of the kitchen with pumpkin gut loaded hands outstretched and I rinsed the seeds and spread them out to dry over night.

This morning I surveyed the yucky mess. Pumpkin guts spattered on the counter and floor, dried pumpkin seeds now laminated to the towel where they were drying. The jack-o-lantern does look cute though. I was all set to roast our seeds, when I noticed an e-mail from one of my favorite blogs – Maria’s Farm Country Kitchen. A recipe for pumpkin seeds! I quickly clicked over and was dismayed to see that I’ve been doing my seeds all wrong forever. Every recipe I’ve ever seen, and every person I’ve ever asked, has said that you should rinse your seeds. Not so, Maria! Rinsing them takes away much of their delicious flavor. And this makes sense because really, why would you rinse them? They’ve been in a somewhat sterile environment inside a pumpkin for months. And we cook the pumpkin insides without rinsing them. So why would we rinse the seeds – it can’t be for the joy of prying them off the towel where they’ve been drying (according to directions!).

Too late for my seeds, but it got me wondering what else I don’t know about pumpkins. A lot, it turns out.

Let’s start with the pumpkin itself (if you want to know how to cook fresh pumpkin, check out my post of a few years ago), here’s the nutritional breakdown:

Pumpkin Nutrition Facts
(1 cup cooked, boiled, drained, without salt)
Calories 49
Protein 2 grams
Carbohydrate 12 grams
Dietary Fiber 3 grams
Calcium 37 mg
Iron 1.4 mg
Magnesium 22 mg
Potassium 564 mg
Zinc 1 mg
Selenium .50 mg
Vitamin C 12 mg
Niacin 1 mg
Folate 21 mcg
Vitamin A 2650 IU
Vitamin E 3 mg

Notice the Vitamin A, not bad huh? And folate and fiber? Those are good numbers too. All the Vitamin A comes from the beta-carotene in the pumpkin. Bet you were already clued in to that fact due to the pumpkin’s bright orange skin. Bright colors always seem to be a good thing in vegetables. Brilliant how we were designed to be instinctively attracted to what is healthy for us. Too bad that also makes us reach for the M&M’s.

According to research, beta-carotene may reduce the risk of certain types of cancers and offer protection against heart disease. It also may help us avoid some aspects of degenerative aging. I’m all for that.

I’ve been reading lately on the benefits of selenium, plus B-complex vitamins found in pumpkin like folate and niacin. It’s all good (but I’ll save it for a later post). So cook up that pumpkin and make it in to bread, soup, ravioli (yum), or if you must – pumpkin pie.

Now back to those seeds I shouldn’t have rinsed. As I surfed over the internet this morning, I came upon site after site proclaiming that pumpkin seeds are miracle workers when it comes to prostate health! Who’d have thought? Apparently pumpkin seeds have been prescribed by alternative practitioners for years to alleviate difficult urination associated with enlarged prostate. Hmm. Good to know. But they also are believed to improve bladder function in general.

Here are a few more claims found repeatedly (for what it’s worth) on websites far and wide:

Depression Treatment
They contain L-tryptophan, a compound naturally effective against depression.


Prevention of Osteoporosis
Because they are high in zinc, pumpkin seeds are a natural protector against osteoporosis. Low intake of zinc is linked to higher rates of osteoporosis.


Natural Anti-Inflammatory
Pumpkin seeds effectively reduce inflammation without the side effects of anti-inflammatory drugs.


Prevention of Kidney Stones
They prevent calcium oxalate kidney stone formation, according to studies.


Treatment of Parasites
They are used in many cultures as a natural treatment for tapeworms and other parasites. Studies also show them to be effective against acute schistosomiasis, a parasite contracted from snails. (snails??)


Great Source of Magnesium
1/2 cup of pumpkin seeds contains 92% of your daily value of magnesium, a mineral in which most Americans are deficient.


Lower Cholesterol
Pumpkin seeds contain phytosterols, compounds that that have been shown to reduce levels of LDL cholesterol.


Cancer Prevention
The same phytosterols that lower cholesterol also protect against many cancers

While some of these claims may seem far-fetched, I saw nothing in my reading or online claiming that pumpkin seeds aren’t good for you. So at least we have some agreement.

Pumpkin seeds are also known as “pepitas” and look flat and green when you buy them in the bulk aisle. I grind them and add them to my whole wheat bread. They give it a sweet, nutty taste and add some more nutrients. I bet they’d be good in pastas and soups too.

So, if your jack-o-lantern was left with the candle burning too long, like mine, and is now blackened on the inside (adding carcinogens to cancel out all the good stuff), head out to the market or, better yet, the roadside stand and pick up a few pumpkins to cook. Starting tomorrow, they’ll probably be reduced for quick sale. It’s pumpkin season – don’t miss out on this nutritional windfall!

Open Season for Sugar

Now we all know you shouldn’t take candy from strangers. But what about parents-of-kids-you-know who offer you candy? And what if you're old enough to know your mother will most likely be really annoyed that you’re eating candy at 9:30 at night? (especially when that same mother is about to arrive and has already promised to stop for ice cream on the way home to celebrate a recent academic achievement!) Maybe this sounds like something that only happens in fairy tales or Law & Order re-runs, but this actually happened to one of my children just a week ago! Sure, maybe I’m overreacting, but here’s how it went down:

I pull up only a few minutes late to pick up said child from the evening’s sporting practice. As I look in the door, I see my child crouched in front of a candy machine, reaching in to retrieve something. I think, “Gross, he’s grabbing for leftover candy in that filthy machine!” I spot said child’s friend leaving the practice with his father and wave at them, climbing out to go fetch my disgusting child who is now shoving nerds in his mouth as fast as possible and trying to look innocent.

Of course, I confront this child and he tells me that no, he wasn’t gathering leftover candy, but had purchased the candy himself. With what? I ask, knowing full-well that this child is flat broke. And he tells me that his friend’s dad who has just left, handed him a dollar and told him to go buy some candy. An avalanche of emotions rushed through me at this point. Anger, because who is this guy to think he can order my kid to eat candy? Embarrassment, because I know the motivation for this is that my child has claimed (more or less truthfully) that his mother never buys him candy. Frustration, because I’m sick of being the odd man out in nearly all parenting situations. Sadness, because apparently my devoted spawn feels deprived. And then back to Anger, because I had promised this little Einstein that we would stop for ice cream at Handels (where they make all the ice cream fresh every day from real cream!) on the way home that night.

This episode traveled with me for a few days. It’s silly. As much as I wanted to hunt this man down and explain to him why my child’s diet doesn’t consist of daily sugar loads, I resisted. I’m sure he thought he was earning brownie points with my kid (although for the life of me, I don’t understand why parents want to impress kids, their own or anyone else’s). And I’m sure he never gives the dangers of sugar a second thought. But I do.

Sugar is not good for any of us. As recent research is bringing to light, sugar, and not fat, may be the real cause of our collective health issues related to obesity. According to Dr. Robert Lustig, a UCSF professor of pediatrics and very eloquent and passionate anti-sugar advocate, Americans are consuming about 141 pounds of sugar per person each year.

He also points out that we weigh 25 pounds more than we did 25 years ago. His lecture, “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” can be found on You Tube. It’s fascinating and very convincing. He boldly states that sugar is a poison that is slowly killing us all. And after watching his lecture, I’m convinced that he’s on to something. We are eating more sugar now than we ever have. A 12 ounce soda (and Lustig points out that the “normal” soda from a machine these days is actually 20 ounces) has 8 teaspoons of sugar in it. How many sodas does the average person drink in a day? Sodas contain all that sugar to mask the huge amounts of salt in each can. I only pick on soda because it’s sited as the number one source of sugar in the American diet on several websites.

The USDA website which promotes the latest version of the food pyramid, labels sugar “empty calories” and has a chart explaining how many “empty calories” are acceptable in a typical diet.

Children ages 2-3 years: 135 calories

Children ages 4-8 years: 120 calories

Girls ages 9-13:  120 calories

Boys ages 9-13:  160 calories

Girls ages 14-18: 160 calories

Boys ages 14-18: 265 calories

Females 19-30: 260  calories

Males 19-30: 330 calories

Females 31-50: 160 calories

Males 31-50:  265 calories

Females 51+:  120 calories

Males 51+:  260 calories

The average soda (and I’m going to assume it’s only a 12 oz can, silly me) has 145-160 calories. All of which, would be empty. So there’s your day’s worth of empty calories if you’re the average kid. Hope you don’t plan to eat any other junk food or processed food today, cause you’ve already reached your limit. And if you’re hankering for a candy bar, you better divide it up between several days or you’ll blow 2-3 days worth of your empty calorie limit in one day.

Bottom line: We’re all consuming way too much sugar. We drink soda like water. We eat candy mindlessly. Sugar is one of the primary ingredients in pretty much every processed food you buy. Don’t believe me, head for the grocery store and check for any of the following names for sugar on the ingredients list of your favorite cracker, prepared meal, frozen burrito, seasoning, dressing, or what-have-you. Just because it doesn’t say sugar, doesn’t mean it isn’t sugar:

• anhydrous dextrose

• brown sugar

• confectioner's powdered sugar

• corn syrup

• corn syrup solids

• dextrose

• fructose

• high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)

• honey

• invert sugar

• lactose

• malt syrup

• maltose

• maple syrup

• molasses

• nectars (e.g., peach nectar, pear nectar)

• pancake syrup

• raw sugar

• sucrose

• white granulated sugar

Dr. Lustig’s belief (shared by many other doctors and researchers) is that sugar is the main culprit in causing not only obesity and dental disease, but diabetes heart disease, and host of other ailments, effectively poisoning us. Sugar has been linked to immune disorder issues, chromium deficiency, cancer, arthritis, and even learning disabilities. While sugar gives you a temporary “high”, very quickly your body crashes from that surge of false energy and you are left grumpy and tired. So what do you do? You crave more sugar.

Being a confirmed sugaraholic myself, I would never tell you to cut out sugar completely because you can’t. We get plenty of natural sugar from fruits, vegetables and grains. But the refined sugar we could do without. I might know this, but offer me a key lime cheesecake and I’ll take back everything I said. Sugar is a powerful thing.

Still, cutting out as much as possible might just be the best thing you could do for your health and your child’s. here’s just a few ideas for reducing the amount of sugar in your diet.

1. Read labels. If sugar (in any form, see list above) is one of the first four ingredients, but the package down.

2. As much as possible, cook from scratch. Make your own smoothies with fresh fruit. Most prepared foods have extra sugar and salt to mask the taste of the all the extra preservatives and additives.

3. Consider using Stevia, a natural sweetener derived from a plant, 300x sweeter than sugar with no calories.

4. Eat lots of fresh fruit and limit dried fruit which has considerably more sugar by proportion.

5. Cut out soda completely. You don’t need it and it is only damaging your health. Drink water or tea instead. It’s just a matter of changing habits.

6. Control the sugar added to what you eat. Buy your tea unsweetened. Buy plain yogurt and sweeten with fruit. Make plain instant oatmeal and sweeten it with dried fruit (those tiny, seriously expensive packets are more sugar than oatmeal!)

7. If you must drink fruit juice, buy only 100% juice with no added sugar.

8. Be very careful of “fat free” foods, many times the manufacturer compensates for the lower fat with higher sugar (and salt)

9. Start dialing back your sugar gradually. If you normally add two packets of sugar to your coffee, go for 1 ½, same with your kids oatmeal, cereal, etc.

10. Curb cravings with fruit. When the urge for sugar seems to overwhelm you, reach for fruit. It’s still sugar, but with some extra fiber and a few less calories. I keep dried cherries on hand for these moments. And distract your kids cravings by offering them fruit after a meal or as a snack.

Giving up sugar is not something I can claim I’ve done. I have been able to reduce my refined sugar consumption and it becomes clear very quickly that it improves my mood, energy level, and reduces the amount of sleep I need. But I’ll be the first to wrestle that chocolate out of your hand if you tell me I have to give up all my sugar forever. Not happening. This I do know: If I can reduce the amount of refined sugar in my children’s diet, I’ll be helping them to not only be healthier and avoid cavities, I’ll be helping them to think more clearly and handle their emotions more consistently. That pay off makes the battle worth fighting.

I still don’t know why that dad ordered my child to eat candy last week. But the next time I see his kid, I might just tempt him with some fresh, homemade, organic applesauce with cinnamon! So there!

Free To A Good Home: One Rooster (maybe two)

The thing about chicks is they grow up. (Guess the same could be said about having babies or puppies or kittens) They don’t stay tiny and cute and manageable for long. Soon they are big and awkward and making all kinds of noise. Our seven little chicks that hatched out last Memorial Day are now chickens. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except some of them, or at least one of them, is a rooster. I know this for certain because of the crowing. It’s time to put the new hens in with all the old hens, but what to do with the rooster? Surely if I toss little rooster-boy (he actually has a name the kids have given him, but I can’t ever keep them straight) in with the big roosters, I could get sited for cock-fighting. Although, I have no spare affection to shower on any rooster, and the extra cash from side bets might help me buy the new breadmaker I need, I really can’t bring myself to do that.


Instead, I’m investigating butchers. As much as I like to think I’m a farm girl and for as much as I can handle the realities of the animal kingdom, I can’t quite bring myself to take a life. I have no problem with taking the little crowing, strutting life to someone else for the killing, but I just can’t do it myself. So I’ve been making some inquiries. The butchers say, “Oh, it’s easy, you can do it.” I’ve had two very nice gentlemen carefully explain exactly what I need to do. Simple, kill ‘em, drain em’, pull the insides out (ew), boil ‘em, and the feathers come right off. Simple. Uh huh.

I need a farmer friend to volunteer his services. Another neighbor suggested I just take the rooster up in the woods away from the house and turn him loose for the foxes. This also seems cruel and irresponsible. What if the rooster finds his way to one of the nice 4 bedroom-2 ½ bath colonials nearby filled with pleasant people recently transplanted from the city? Will they trace it back to me? Is there a law against rooster-abandonment?

As I write this I can hear the little boy rooster crowing away and for every effort he makes, the big rooster yells back even louder. They’ve got a real call and response going, only I don’t think the message is anything like what you’d hear in church.

I’m giving myself until next weekend to make a decision. Then I’m going to put on my big-girl panties and take care of this situation. My ancestors did this. And really, all of us who eat meat should be able to do this. We’re hypocrites if we can’t, right?

First, I have to determine how many roosters I really have. Determining chicken sex is not as simple as you might think. There are two other young chickens in with rooster-boy who look suspicious. They have longer tail feathers and small attitudes. But they haven’t let loose with a crow yet. I don’t know if they’re intimidated by the guy already doing all that crowing, or if they haven’t figured it out yet, or if maybe (hopefully) they’re actually hens in rooster drag. I do want to be certain who I’m killing before I start killing.

Next spring when my hens start all their brooding nonsense, I promise I won’t be such a softy. There is no reason they need to hatch chicks. The Achterberg farm is a small China in reverse – only one male allowed in the chicken pen. The rest, well, the rest are going to be eliminated by someone. Maybe me. We’ll see. I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, I welcome your chicken butchering suggestions and assistance. Free To A Good, oh heck, ANY Home: One rooster.

Don't Waste the Mustard (or anything else)

I love mustard. Love it. Especially the sweet-hot kind. My youngest child is also a mustard lover and feasts on the plain yellow kind with a fistful of pretzels most days after school. Being a male of the species, when the mustard becomes difficult to get out of the jars he simply puts it back in the fridge and opens a new one. Thanks to this habit, at any given time there could be 2-3 almost empty open mustard containers in our fridge.


Yes, of course I rant about this. But it falls on def, hungry ears. A better mother would stop buying mustard. But then that would just be punishing myself, right? So we carried on, until I read this GREAT idea for almost empty mustard containers, especially the squeezeable kind. I found this brilliant idea in a free copy of a home cooking magazine, which has long since landed in the recycling, so I can’t give credit where credit is due. It was one of those abbreviated versions of a bigger magazine sent with stickers and a subscription offer you can’t resist. Since I’ve got stacks of magazines on my desk to be read, I could resist. But before recycling it, I did skim through it while waiting for the mustard-eating child to locate his cleats.

Here’s the great idea: when your mustard jar is almost empty, add oil and vinegar and whatever other things you like in your salad dressing and shake. Brilliant! I added garlic grapeseed oil, elderflower-lime-apple vinegar, salt, and pepper. Yum! Simple, easy, gourmet dressing and no more wasted mustard. And when I’m finished with the dressing, the jar is easy to rinse and recycle.

I’m thinking this idea might also work on BBQ sauce bottles too. You could make a quick marinade by adding oil and vinegar and worchestershire sauce or soy sauce and water, plus whatever spices float your boat.

So there you go, my healthy-eating-good-for-the-planet-don’t-waste-anything tip for the day!

One of the biggest excuses I hear time and again for not eating organically is - "I can't afford it." The first step in affording to eat organically (or affording to eat at all) is to not waste the food you do buy. I've blogged about this in the past, but now I'm focusing on this and other ideas for an upcoming workshop I’ll be giving on Eating Organically and Affording It. I’m still a bit stuck searching for a catchier title for the series of workshops I’ve been developing on all the aspects of kid-friendly organic life. I’ve started with Healthy, Happy, Homemade Life, but that’ a mouthful. If you’ve got a better idea – I’d desperately love to hear it.

And if you’re local, mark your calendar for Wednesday October 26 at 7pm. I’ll be presenting at the Paul Smith Library in Shrewsbury and I’d love to see you there. It’s free, of course. Bring your own ideas for eating organically and saving money, or send them to me and I’ll share them. We’re all in this together and we need all the help we can get.