• To Increase Sustainable Consumption, Show People What’s In It For Them | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation – I think you're on the wrong track, Fast Company. We need to reduce consumption, sustainable or not.
• Supermarket Meat Comes From Sick Animals | Mother Jones – Ugh. I go back and forth on which meat to buy…this is definitely pushing me further from buying regular supermarket meat.
• Rogue Farm Corps – Farm Internships – I think we're going to need more farmers and farm workers in the near future. Here's one way to get started.
• 4 New Ideas for a Bicycle Planet by Kate Malongowski and Jennifer Kaye — YES! Magazine – A pedaling school bus, a bicycle-supply vending machine and more.
• Environmentalists Need To Stop Pretending It’s All OK | The Good Human – Hard truths? We're all guilty.

Eating good food feels sooooo good. But chasing that feeling is also sabotaging my weight loss goals.

I’ve been losing weight for a little over a year now. I started on my own, and then started Weight Watchers when we were offered free meetings at work. That first year of Weight Watchers went quite well, although perhaps a little slowly. I didn’t always stick to my point limits, but I did (mostly) cut out regular soda, fast food, and convenience store breakfasts. I added more fresh fruits and veggies to our menus. I started choosing the turkey sausage and other lower-fat products. I continued riding my bike to work, and added some crunches and yoga here and there, along with some longer bike rides. The weight came off, and I reached my ten percent weight loss target over the summer.

Since then, however, I’ve been bobbing up and down right around that ten percent target number. I’m not really getting anywhere. Part of that is probably the stress of starting a new school year, both on the job and with my own kids. But it’s also that weight loss is getting a little harder for me. I took off the easy weight. If I want to take off more, I’m going to have to work a little harder. I need to work on portion control and just eating less each day, and I need to add a little more exercise. And I need to make it a lifestyle change, so that I won’t just start bingeing again.

And THAT is hard. It’s hard for me to resist the euphoria of good eating. And sometimes, I just plain feel hungry when I eat less. I get a little of both.

I know the usual suggestions:

• Do something besides eating that makes you feel good.
• Plan healthy snacks so you won’t get hungry.
• Eat more protein and fewer carbs.
• Drink more water.

Sometimes those things work. Sometimes they don’t. The hardest part is the “do something besides eating.” I haven’t found anything that really works.

I’m going to keep plugging away, though. I’ve committed to tracking my food and activity this week, which I’ve been slacking off on, so I’ll be able to see what I’m really doing.

No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST-treated and non-rBST-treated cows.

A couple of people misread this as meaning that the milk in question DID contain milk derived from rBST-treated cows. However, it’s really the opposite — the dairy companies are required to use this language if they’re also advertising that the product is rBST-free. So I thought maybe I’d post some information for those who might be confused.

rBST and rBGH are used interchangeably. They refer to growth hormones given to dairy cows in order to increase milk production. The hormones were approved for use with dairy cattle in the U.S. in 1993. Not everyone was happy about this, so some companies quickly began advertising that their products did NOT contain milk from cows treated with hormones.

And Monsanto, the company that developed a recombinant version of growth hormones called Posilac, didn’t like THAT, so they used their influence and lawsuits to get the FDA to insist that dairy companies advertising their non-use of growth hormones had to add the disclaimer that there’s NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE between rBST and non-rBST milk. Because otherwise they’d be making false health claims about non-rBST milk being superior.

It’s never been conclusively proven that milk from rBST-treated cows actually harms human health, but studies have shown that the treatment results in health problems in cattle. That’s a problem both if you’re concerned about animal welfare and if you’re concerned about antibiotic use, because increased incidence of mastitis, for instance, leads to increased use of antibiotics in cattle. (REPORT ON ANIMAL WELFARE ASPECTS OF THE USE OF BOVINE SOMATOTROPHIN, European Union Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare, 1999)

In any case, public demand has swung toward milk from non-rBST milk, with many retailers (including Safeway, Kroger, Publix and Walmart) pledging to sell only rBST-free milk. And according to the USDA’s 2007 Dairy Survey (page 79), “A total of 15.2 percent of operations used bST on 17.2 percent of cows.” In many, if not most places, it is fairly easy to find rBST-free dairy products.

So, to conclude, if you see that disclaimer above, it’s most likely there because the product you’re looking at IS from cows NOT treated with rBST.

Photo by Marcy Reiford on Flickr, used via CC BY 2.0 license.

You can get exact recipes and instructions for making and preserving jam in lots of places. My favorite is PickYourOwn.org. I won’t be giving you the step-by-step here.

However, I did come up with a few tips:

Amounts: You need a half-flat, or six pints of berries to make one batch of jam, which will be eight half-pint jars or four pint jars. You really do want to stick to this quantity, both because it’s a manageable amount and because this helps the jam to set properly. Don’t try to double or triple the recipe! Just make another batch on a different day.

You can, if you wish, make smaller batches of jam without pectin. I’ve done this before — if you have just two pints of berries, you can still make two or three jars of jam! Marisa at Food in Jars is doing a series of posts on Urban Preserving, specifically for those who want to preserve in smaller amounts, and she’s got some great recipes so far.

Time: It took me less than two hours to process a half-flat of strawberries, including sterilizing, washing, hulling, cooking, filling jars, and boiling the finished jars. Some people can probably do it faster; I am not particularly fast. My point is that it will not take all day! I actually fit this batch in between getting a child packed for camp and going to a dinner party. I’ve also been known to run a batch through the canner in the evening after work and dinner.

Equipment: I have a 21.5-quart canner, because I do full batches of jars. If you’re only doing a few jars at a time, you could use a smaller pot, even one that you already have. You just need some kind of “rack” in the bottom, which could simply be a small towel, and you need enough room to have at least 1-2 inches of boiling water above your jars. You’ll also need a jar funnel, jar tongs, and a magnetic lid lifter. You can get these things in the canning section at the supermarket, or as a handy set from Ball.

To cook a full batch of jam, you will also need a four to six-quart pot. This may seem odd, because you’re only going to end up with two quarts of jam! But when I made jam in my three-quart pot, it overflowed every time it came to a full boil, and you have to bring it to a full boil.

Get a helper: In the time-honored tradition, I use my kids. Or, you know, I train them in life skills by letting them help! You could also try a spouse, partner or friend. I had a child cutting the tops off of the strawberries (we just slice with a knife, rather than trying to pull the hulls off) while I was getting jars and equipment ready. We finished them up together, and then I let another child mash them.

Multitask: I filled the canner and put it on to boil first, because that takes the longest. I washed a couple of pints of berries, got the kid started slicing, and then put my jars and rings in the dishwasher and started them sterilizing. Then I washed more berries, and we worked on slicing the tops off together. You don’t want to end up waiting for the pot to boil, or for the jars to be ready!

If you’re not ready to jump into canning, you might like to try freezer jam instead. It’s even easier, and you get a fresher berry taste because you don’t cook the berries. Either way — it’s berry season! Go take advantage of it!

• 100 Days of Real Food – Just discovered this! A family in North Carolina pledges to eat only real food (no processed junk) for 100 days. They did this a while ago, and have pretty much stuck to it. They also have a number of mini-challenges on the site, which I may try out myself!
• 100 Days of Real Food Pledge — Civil Eats – And here’s an article summarizing the 100 days of real food challenge.
• full hands: Every Day Adventures, Indeed – Sara wipes out on the Xtracycle and keeps on going — and then takes the Bakfiets out in the rain!
• The Friday Podcast: The Case For Preschool – We’ve known for a long time that free access to preschool makes a difference. So why don’t we do it?
• Portland Mercury | The Republican’s Guide to Bicycling – It’s the Portland Mercury’s bike issue! Includes “Free Parking is for Socialists,” “Blue State, Red Tape,” and “Bikepartisan Politics.”
• Father/Son Team Traveling from NYC to Portland in 1,000 MPG Vehicle – Planet Green – It’s a human-electric hybrid for two; it has a 100-watt motor that runs on battery power and kinetic energy from pedaling.

Speaking of peas, I can definitely recommend the two varieties we planted this year: Oregon Sugar Pod II and Cascadia, both from Territorial Seed. Both are great for instant eating; sweet and juicy, not tough and stringy. These are far superior to the peas I’ve grown from seeds from the grocery store!

I also picked a few strawberries today; strawberries are late in the Pacific Northwest this year because we had a long, cool spring.

Potatoes, tomatoes, squash, broccoli and cabbages are continuing to thrive. I’ve also got some bean seedlings the kids planted that need to be transplanted ASAP.

Meanwhile, the CSA is keeping us supplied with a variety of lettuce and cooking greens, as well as radishes, turnips and more peas. In fact, we’re getting more greens than we can really eat in a week! I finally said to myself “So, what are you supposed to do when you have an overabundance of a certain crop? Preserve, of course, duh!”

You can can greens in a pressure canner, if you have one, but I don’t, and I’m not sure I’d want to anyway. I went with blanch and freeze, following directions from PickYourOwn.org. I do recommend using a salad spinner to drain and dry the greens after blanching. I also used re-usable plastic containers rather than plastic bags. Finally, if you do this, be aware that the greens will really shrink down after blanching and spinning! A whole bunch of greens (maybe half a pound?) yields about one cup for freezing.

So, come winter, we’ll still have some of our spring abundance available.

That’s a LOT of greenery! We’ve already had salads galore, but I needed to figure out how to use the cooking greens, too, and in such a way that my family would eat them. Internet research told me that broccoli raab would be good with both pasta and sausage, so I decided to make a simple pasta dish.

I’m also trying out a new techie thing — I added that recipe with the Easy Recipe WordPress plugin, which formats your recipes to work with Google Recipe View. Pretty spiffy, eh?

I tried some of the raw milk, but I was a city kid, raised on supermarket milk. I didn’t like it at all.

Now raw milk is coming into fashion with natural-foodies.  It’s more difficult to buy; in fact, it’s technically illegal to sell raw milk in Oregon. Some farmers get around that by selling “herd shares” — the customer actually buys a share of ownership in a cow or in the herd as a whole, and is then entitled to receive a share of the milk produced. Farmers usually charge a purchase fee and then a monthly boarding fee for the cow(s) upkeep. Prices I’ve seen range from $50-65 for one share, plus $20-35 per month, and one share usually works out to about one gallon per week (although if the herd goes dry, your share will be smaller).

I’ve read about the benefits of raw milk. I’m not sure it’s all fully substantiated. I do like to support farmers directly where I can, but I still remember not liking the raw milk, and I don’t really want to foist it on my family. I can buy organic milk at the grocery store, but it’s $5.48 per gallon, compared to about $2.oo per gallon for regular milk. I feel guilty every time I buy the regular milk, but that’s a HUGE difference, and it may or may not be local. It’s big-business organic.

Or there’s Noris Dairy. They are local. They pasteurize their milk, so it’s not raw, but they do not homogenize it. That means the cream will float to the top. I’m guessing this would probably also taste unfamiliar to us. However, Noris also sells “processed milk” from their cows. So we could buy the more familiar type of milk from a local dairy — and as a bonus, they deliver. But their milk is $6.00 per gallon, so three times the cost of regular.

So I’m still buying the regular supermarket milk, unless I happen to see a screaming deal on organic. I do try to buy local-ish on other dairy products, like butter, sour cream and yogurt (Tillamook or Darigold). But with milk, we’re not there yet.

But there are investors out there who see it differently. Yes, wealthy people who could be putting their money into Wall Street!

In this OPB news story, individuals and groups of angel investors have been putting money into “slow food” and getting a satisfactory rate of return during a time when they might be taking a beating on money invested in Wall Street.

Meanwhile, I’ve joined a local food buying club, and am sending some of our dollars directly to farmers in exchange for locally grown/raised potatoes, onions, eggs, and beef. I feel like this is money well invested, too, even though I don’t see a direct monetary return. And we’re saving money by banding together with neighbors to buy!

Knowing how to really cook means that your child will be able to feed himself healthfully and economically, even if he loses his job and has no money.  Or if the power goes out and she has to concoct a meal over a fire or camp stove. It’s both a life skill and a survival skill.

So how do you make this happen? Painter included several suggestions in her article. My favorite is learn together. Painter suggests taking cooking classes together, which is fun if you already know how to cook, but is an excellent idea for those who don’t. Low cost classes are often available through community centers or through the community education department at community colleges.

You could also work your way through a cookbook together. This is a big part of  how I learned to cook. I had two kids’ cookbooks, and my parents (yes, both of them!) helped me make recipes from them. The Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook is great for this (even though it’s not the same one that I used, and still have).

Some books are more parent-oriented. Picture Yourself Cooking With Your Kids by Beth Sheresh, the kitchenmage, has tips and information for parents plus a wealth of recipes for parent and child to cook together. This book includes great step-by-step visual directions.

Hungry Monkey, by Matthew Amster-Burton, is part memoir and part cookbook. Amster-Burton includes advice for really enjoying food together, tips for helping kids start to cook, and recipes that the whole family will enjoy. He makes a point of not sticking to kid food. Recipes includ pad thai, bibimbap, and (my personal favorite) penne with brussels sprouts and bacon.

What’s Cooking With Kids is a website full of information from Michelle Stern, author of the soon-to-be-published Whole Family Cookbook. Michelle’s company  also offers classes and workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area.

As for my family, we cook together sometimes. I’ve usually got at least one kid helping with dinner (the other main way that I learned to cook). But we don’t always make a formal effort to cook together. Perhaps we should do this on a regular basis?

What do you cook with your kids? Or, how did you learn to cook?

Disclosure: Those book titles up there? Those are Amazon affiliate links, so if you click one of those and buy something, I get a little bit of money to help run this site. Thank you!