Cookies without butter and eggs?

Monster Cookies with no butter or eggs!

Maybe you're like me and you don't look forward to helping your kids with science fair projects. You know it's a valuable experience, but it's just not your thing. Maybe it sounds like a lot of work and mess and maybe you're not a scientist so you're not sure how you can guide your kid through a project that won't be judged harshly.

Or could I be the only person with those insecurities? Social science I'm pretty good at, but science science? Not so much.

So when my ten year old girl, Brynn, came up with a great idea for a science fair project that would actually answer some questions that our family had, and when it was clear that it was something she could do mostly on her own...I was pretty excited to find out what her results would be.

So, here's what she did. Brynn made two batches of Monster Cookies -- one using eggs and butter and one replacing the eggs and butter with ground flaxseed and water.

 

She wanted to find out whether the flaxseed cookies would come out looking appetizing and tasting okay. She wasn't so interested in getting the exact same flavor and texture, but would the flax cookies be good enough to want to eat?

That was her question. Would they be good enough to want to eat? That's my kind of scientific question. And I love how she sets the bar low. She makes success easily attainable.

The answer to her question? Heck yes. They were tasty and she actually found that the texture of the flax cookies was better than the texture of the conventional ones. They were moister and less crumbly than the conventional cookies and they tasted just as good.

Flax cookies on the left, conventional on the right.

Here's the recipe for you, because I know you're going to want to try out these cookies for yourself!

1 1/2 C ground flaxseed + 8 Tbsp water (to replace butter)
3/4 C brown sugar
1/2 C sugar
2 Tbsp ground flaxseed + 6 Tbsp water (to replace eggs)
2 t vanilla
3/4 C peanut butter (the real stuff, not with added oil or sugar)
3 1/2 C old fashioned oats
1/2 t salt
1 t baking powder
1 C chocolate chips
1/3 C chopped walnuts

Mix wet ingredients before adding dry ingredients. Bake at 350 for about 12 minutes, rotating the cookie sheet halfway through bake time.

An Eat To Live secret for cutting calories

It's not really a secret, not if you've read Eat to Live or Engine 2. But it might be new to you.

This is something I want to share with you because I've heard of so many friends making resolutions to lose weight and get healthier, and it's something that has been a really simple change for me and a change that I think played a huge part in my weight loss last year.

What is it?

Use less olive oil. Or any kind of oil, really.

I've never been the type to eat much fried food, but I do eat sauteed food, like almost every night. When I'm cooking now, I sautee my veggies in low sodium veggie broth instead of olive oil. And when I make salad dressings, I'm more inclined to puree an apple and some vinegar and spices in my blender rather than throwing together olive oil and vinegar.

I still use some olive oil or coconut oil or grapeseed oil, depending on what I'm making, but where I used to sautee in two tablespoons of oil and then add another two as my veggies started to dry out (I never cook in nonstick pans so moisture is a must), now I might use one tablespoon or less, and then I add veggie broth a little at a time until I'm ready for the next step of my recipe.

When I started subbing low sodium veggie broth, I did some mental math to figure out how many calories I was saving by leaving out the oil. The numbers were too big, really, when you consider there are 119 calories in one tablespoon of olive oil (as opposed to 15 calories per CUP of veggie broth), and I was using at least four in each meal I made, not to mention the salad dressing. Over the course of a week, those really add up and they are, essentially, empty calories. Yes, you need some fat in your diet but, according to Dr. Fuhrman of Eat to Live fame, you're better off getting your fat from nuts that you incorporate into your meals (not snacks by the handful) rather than added oil in salads, main courses, and sides.

Veggie broth is not expensive and it comes in really easy to use cartons. I buy my organic low-sodium broth from Whole Foods, where the regular price is $2 per carton. Our Costco just started carrying organic veggie broth too, but it's not low-sodium, six cartons for about $9, I think.

I used to kind of laugh at baking recipes that gave you the option to replace oil with apple sauce. It seemed silly -- let dessert be dessert, right? And that is still my attitude, mostly because we don't eat much dessert-y food here. But cutting out oil in food I eat every day? To me that makes sense, and I wish I'd known sooner about the veggie broth option. Here's hoping a few of you can save some calories, too!

The making of a "happy" Thanksgiving dinner

Those of you who have known me for a long time know that for about the last five years I've differentiated between "happy" food and "unhappy" food. For those of you who are new, here's a little primer for you. Happy food is sustainably grown and harvested, sustainably, ethically, and humanely raised (obviously referring to meat and dairy there), and usually (but not always) organic and local. Now that we've moved to a diet of mostly high nutrient density foods (like Eat to Live or Engine 2), our definition of "happy food" has expanded. Now it isn't just about how the food was grown, raised, harvested, slaughtered, etc. but also about what it does to our bodies. So, for example, local organic kale is just about the happiest food ever, right? Cool Whip, on the other hand, uh...yeah. Cool Whip is like really, REALLY unhappy.

Making a Thanksgiving dinner that reflects a high-nutrient-density food pyramid.
Can it be done? I think it can!

Although we've moved away from a diet that includes meat and other animal products (they simply don't have the nutrient density that our bodies crave now), we still have our 21 cubic foot freezer in our basement...an artifact from our local meat buy-a-whole-hog-at-a-time days. And it still has some meat in it, including a beautiful organic turkey that I bought last year at Costco after Thanksgiving.

And shortly after I bought it, we went vegan. And now we're not really into meat.

Luckily, our kids still like meat (although when Callie eats too much meat and/or oil, she pukes -- case in point, last night she puked up a gigantic Pei Wei dinner all over her bedroom carpet). We're having Thanksgiving with a family who eats meat, too. And I'm sure I'll have a slice of turkey, but not because I crave it or feel like I need it. Just because it's there.

Here is what we'll be eating this Thanksgiving, besides the turkey.

We'll have a Gardener's Pie (aka: vegan shepherd's pie) stuffed with lots of veggies and topped with mashed potatoes.

We'll be eating Kickin' Corn Puddin, a vegan spicy creamed corn recipe that we got at our last Whole Foods Health Starts Here class.

We'll have our usual Tangy Cranberry Chutney, similar to this recipe. I've been making this since our first Thanksgiving together and it might be my favorite part of Thanksgiving. It's got apples, raisins, a little cider vinegar, cloves, and a ton of sugar. This year I'll be experimenting with subbing dates for the sugar. But...shhhh...don't tell my kids, okay?

I'll make some baked Stuffed Apples. I plan to hollow out some of the apples from our local CSA, stuff them with the same stuffing I'd usually use to stuff a turkey (mine always has nuts and dried cranberries in it, along with the usual onions, celery, and blend of herbs), and bake them for a while. How long? I dunno. Until they're done, I guess. This is how dinner happens around here.

I'll make some gravy to go with the turkey. I was thinking of including some chantarelles that I picked up at Whole Foods for about half-off, but I don't really want them to get lost in the gravy. Plus, the kids like gravy more than anyone and I don't think they'll appreciate the chantarelles. So if you have some ideas for what to do with 1/4lb of chantarelles, speak up. Seriously.

My friend Emily, who is much better at following recipes than I am, will bring over the Maple Mashed Sweet Potatoes and the Tarragon Green Beans from the Forks Over Knives companion book.

For dessert, I bought an unhappy but probably quite tasty Pumpkin Cheesecake from Costco. I'm pretty sure it will satisfy everyone who feels like eating dessert. I, for one, will have a bite but would probably be satisfied with a good cup of coffee after dinner.

While this isn't a super high nutrient density Thanksgiving dinner, it is a mostly-vegan Thanksgiving dinner that will satisfy our desire for traditional Thanksgiving foods, but in a healthier way. I'll report back on what is popular and what isn't and I'll share some recipes. Maybe I'll learn something that you can use for a healthy meal during this holiday season!

Last-minute cole slaw dinner

After my post about how my family and I went plant-strong, I got several questions from friends asking what I eat and what recipes I use. I don't use many recipes and when I do, I treat them like inspiration (much to the chagrin of friends and family who need plant-strong ideas). But, I thought I could give you a little window into what my dinner-making process looked like tonight. Here we go.

It's 5:30pm. Like most nights, tonight I don't have a plan for dinner. I look in the fridge to figure out what I'm going to make.

I've got kohlrabi. I have kale. There are carrots and apples and green onions. I've got sliced almonds in the pantry.

Decent beer is, of course, a necessary ingredient for any dinner-making adventure.

Sounds like a big cole slaw to me.

Here's how it came together.

Dressing (all measurements VERY approximate, so use your best judgement):
1 T toasted sesame oil
1 T seasoned rice vinegar
2 T soy sauce
1 inch fresh ginger, peeled
1 medium apple, cored and roughly cubed
2 T peanut butter
(One whole peeled orange or a lime would be good, but I didn't have one. I forgot to add garlic, but you probably should. It would also be good with some red pepper flakes, but Callie is way spice-averse.)

Blend all ingredients until smooth. (I used a Vitamix high speed blender.) Taste and adjust if needed. Refrigerate.

Cole Slaw
4 small apples, cored
2 medium kohlrabi, tough peel removed
6 medium carrots
1 bell pepper, seeded (I used green because I had it on hand. Yellow, red, or orange would be better.)

Shred ingredients listed above. I used my food processor with the shredding attachment.

Add: 
1 bunch of kale, finely chopped
3 green onions, sliced
1 bunch cilantro, roughly chopped

Pour on dressing and toss.

Add:
1 C of sliced almonds

Toss one last time and serve.

I just used what I had on hand to make this, but you could add ingredients like broccoli, purple cabbage, edamame, or bean sprouts. If you're looking for more substance, this would be good with rice noodles or mung beans or even lentils.

I ate two big bowls and felt full. Scott also had two servings. Brynn had one big bowl. Callie ate one medium bowl and then she had a couple of dried dates for dessert. For us, this was enough. If we were going straight from a chicken-and-ribs lifestyle to a plant-strong lifestyle, this dinner would obviously raise some eyebrows at the table. But, since we eased into it, a meal like this is expected and satisfying for us.

I hope this helps!

The end of a lifelong struggle

I've struggled with my weight and my body image my entire life. I've never been obese, but I've always been overweight. Even in high school when I was at morning and afternoon swim practices, probably swimming as many as 8000 yards a day, things were never quite right. I played sports year round and was always an athlete, but always carried extra weight. I didn't eat candy, I didn't drink soda, I didn't eat typical junk food or much processed food. My mom said I was fine and my doctors said I was fine, so I didn't worry too much about it. I just never felt great about myself and I always figured someday I'd shed the extra pounds.

But, I was never willing to do anything difficult to get there. I'm still not, actually. I am not and never will be a runner. I despise running. I love food and am not willing to feel hungry. I can't make myself throw up (although I did try, probably like most teenage girls who are unhappy with their weight). Once in fourth grade, the meanest boy I know called me a "110 pound whopper." I don't think I weighed that much and I know I wasn't huge, but I still torment myself with that comment.

My struggle is over. Do you hear that? I'm done. Not because I no longer care. Not because I've decided to restrict my calories. Not because I'm exercising myself to death. I haven't done anything extreme. I've just tweaked my diet a little bit. That's all it took.

My diet has changed from the majority of calories coming from animal products, grains, and oils to the majority of calories coming from plants. I use significantly less olive oil than I used to and recently I completely removed chocolate from my house (that was hard, actually). I did not get rid of cocoa powder, mind you, but chocolate.

For the past four or five years, Scott and I have only been eating meat as a main course three or four times a week, and it was always from local ranches and farms -- never from the grocery store. But we never cut out cheese or milk or completely eliminated meat. And, actually, we still haven't gotten rid of them completely, but we did cut way, way back.

When I say the "majority" of my calories are coming from plants, I don't mean 55%. I mean like 85-90%. I mean the vast majority. Scott and I started by going 100% vegan for six weeks. We didn't rely on bread, pasta, and other grains to fill us up. We filled up on salads and veggies and beans. We significantly reduced our olive oil use. We mixed nuts into our salads and we started to juice veggies. We were not hungry. We did not count nor restrict our calories. In the first three weeks, pounds of fat literally disappeared from my body. I lost about 14 pounds in the first three weeks. Things slowed down after that and I've slowly continued to lose weight since then even though I'm no longer trying. I'm down about 25 pounds now and today, for the first time ever, the weight listed on my driver's license is accurate.

Not that I meant to cheat when I got my Colorado driver's license eight years ago. I think I was close and was headed toward that weight. But then I had Callie and never made a conscious effort to get back to my pre-baby weight. After going plant-strong, I'm now below my pre-baby weight and in the healthy BMI range for the first time in my life.

This was in June. I'm down another 8-10lbs since then!

I will never be a tiny person. I will never be skinny. That's just not who I am. I am 5'8" and built like a tank. A feminine tank, but still, I'm the cliché "big-boned" person that every fat person thinks they are. In high school my friend Gretchen and I used to talk about how our hips were built for twins. I never had twins, but the doctor who delivered Brynn said I have "the Cadillac of uteruses." Brynn was born 9lbs 14oz. We are not small people.

Will I always kind of wish I were that little person? Yes. Do I realize that my build is not related to my health? Yes. And I am so thankful to have found a healthy lifestyle.

If you're interested in learning more about a plant-strong lifestyle, I'd suggest that you start by reading Dr. Fuhrman's book Eat to Live. That is where we started and it turned our ideas of health upside-down. The book has several testimonies from Dr. Fuhrman's obese and really sick patients (ie: diabetes, heart attacks, super high blood pressure) who used his plan to get healthy. We didn't relate so much to those stories, but the rest of the book was packed with information that is useful for anyone. I also read (and purchased, which is big for me) Fuhrman's book Disease Proof Your Child. It is a great guide to getting micronutrient-dense plant foods into your kids and setting them up for a lifetime of health. It's not so much about weight-management as it is about preventing diseases like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. I've paged through The Engine 2 Diet and think it is totally on-target. I own the new Forks Over Knives cookbook -- it is vegan, plant-strong, and super accessible. No weird ingredients. The Forks Over Knives and Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead documentaries are really motivating and available for instant watching on Netflix.

Have you changed your health lately? Or dropped weight without struggling? I'd love to hear about it.

No more ziplocks!

A few years ago I found a new way to reduce my dependence on oil...I decided to quit using ziplock bags. Because, as I'm sure you know, the manufacture of anything plastic requires a good bit of oil. To replace plastic bags I made a big batch of fabric snack bags. I made some of the bags the size of sandwich bags and some the size of the smaller snack sized bags.

My first bags...they're still in use!

That was two years ago. I haven't bought ziplocks since.

I know! It sounds so...un-American!

Yes, sometimes I get complaints from Scott when he's packing for the airport and wants ziplocks for his toiletries (I haven't had a problem getting through security with my toothpaste in my regular ditty bag). Other than that, I think we've adapted pretty well.

For my snack bags, I've used both cotton and nylon liners. I like the cotton liners better because I don't have to worry about what kind of weird chemicals were used to make them (although conventional cotton is sprayed with lots of pesticides and then later it is bleached...but I try to use fabric that's been washed several times). If I'm sending a messy sandwich in one of the bags, I just wrap the sandwich in parchment paper (I buy the pre-cut squares of deli paper at Costco) before I put it in the bag. My girls pull out their sandwiches wrapped in paper and use the paper like a plate when they eat at school. We use the bags several times (shaking them out when necessary) before tossing them in the washing machine inside-out.

I played with several designs before landing on this one. The rounded top is forgiving and the small piece of velcro is all you really need. I tried bags with full velcro closures, but they were hard to open and close. We've never had problems with this design -- the food we put in the bags seems to stay in the bags!

I want you to be able to join the no-ziplock revolution, so while I worked on another batch of bags over the past few weeks, I took (poorly lit because it was usually the middle of the night) photos of each step.

Let's get started.

First I cut out two pieces of fabric (one for the outside, one for the lining) using a pattern that I created. The pattern is made of one 8 1/2"x11" piece of paper taped to another piece of paper with a rounded top edge. I traced a mixing bowl to get the rounded edge. The total pattern height is 17 inches. When I'm cutting a sandwich bag, I use the full height of the pattern. For a snack bag, I fold the lower sheet of paper in half, so the total height is 11 1/2 inches.

Place the fabrics with the wrong sides together (these pieces are cut to snack size).

If you're going to use a ribbon tab on the rounded flap of the bag, now is the time to cut it. I make mine about 2 1/2".

Fold the fabric tab in half, center it (as best you can) on the rounded top edge, and pin it between the two wrong sides with the cut edge poking out.

Sew along the perimeter of the bag, but leave the flat bottom end open.

Press the seams open and then turn the bag inside out.

Press the edges flat and do your best to round out the top -- sometimes this can be challenging!

Fold the raw bottom edge inward and press it. You're going to top-stitch it closed.

Pin the pressed edge.

Top-stitch the bottom edge. Sometimes it is fun to use contrasting thread for this part...if you're confident in your ability to sew a straight line. I'm not, but I use contrasting thread anyway!

Now add velcro to the outside of the bottom part of the bag.

Fold the bottom part of the bag up toward the rounded flap. I use my best judgement on this rather than a precise measurement.

Once you've figured out where you want your fold, top-stitch all the way around the bag, starting from the top right corner of this picture, down around the curve, and then up to the left corner. I don't go across the bottom -- I just leave the fold.

You're almost done! Match up the rounded flap with the velcro on the bottom and add a piece of velcro to the inside of the flap.

That's it! The bag I was working on in the photos is a snack sized bag. For the sandwich bag, follow the same steps but make your fold in the appropriate place to get the size bag you want.

My favorite kitchen tool.

I love my knives. I love my cast iron pans. I love my lettuce spinner and my Vitamix and my juicer.

I guess on any given day any of those tools could be my favorite.

But today I was reminded how much I love one tool in particular, and I want to share it with you.

I love my pressure cooker.

For making people-friendly, planet-friendly food, there is no better tool.

My pressure cooker cooks beans from start to finish in under an hour. Can your favorite pot or pan do that?

Here's how I do it, using a method I learned from Madhur Jaffrey.

First Step: Sometimes I quick-soak my dried beans. Sometimes I don't. I try to do it every time I make beans, but I don't always have time. For a quick-soak, pour boiling water over your beans and let them sit for about an hour. Then rinse well.

Second Step: Put your quick-soaked beans into your pressure cooker and cover with an inch or two of water.

Third Step: Add a few drops of peanut oil or other high-heat oil. (I avoid canola because it comes from a genetically modified seed. Grapeseed oil or coconut oil would be good options.) The oil keeps the water from foaming up and clogging your pressure release valve.


Fourth Step: Bring your pressure cooker to full pressure and then reduce the heat to keep it at full pressure until the beans are cooked. For chickpeas like those I cooked tonight, this takes about 15 minutes. Check out this handy guide for cooking times of other types of beans.

Fifth Step: After 15 minutes at full pressure, turn off the heat and let the pressure reduce on its own. This will take at least half an hour if not a bit longer.


Last Step: Drain and rinse your beans. They're good to go!

Cool Tacos

A few of you know that Scott and I have gone semi-vegan. Plant-strong. 90/10. "Mostly vegan" is how I like to describe us.

Not vegan as in Tofurkey-eating vegan. Or any other processed meat substitute, for that matter. More like herbivores who occasionally indulge in meat or dairy.

As we power through the last few days before our CSA starts again and we have access to the freshest, tastiest food plants around, I've been pulling together a few more grocery-store-based meals.

Tonight was Cool Tacos. Cool as in room-temperature and mostly raw, not cool as in awesome. Although, they were that, too.

Our meal tonight was based on this recipe for Magical Raw Tacos, but since I added cooked pinto beans to the recipe, they're no longer raw. But they are cool.

I look at recipes as guides, not so much as mandates, and I tend to use what I have on hand rather than going to the store to get what a recipe requires. The next time I make these tacos, they will probably look and taste a bit different. But here is what I put in our Cool Tacos tonight:


Cool Tacos (serves 6)

Wraps:
2 heads romaine lettuce, larger leaves only

Filling:
1 1/2 red bell peppers diced
2 large carrots shredded
1 bunch cilantro finely chopped
3 green onions finely sliced
1/4 large jicama finely diced
1 medium cucumber diced
1/4 head red cabbage finely diced
juice of one lime
1 Tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

3 C dry pinto beans rinsed, soaked, rinsed, cooked, rinsed again in cold water
seasoning (I used salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, cayenne pepper, oregano, coriander, and chipotle powder to taste.)

Topping:
1 diced avocado
sprouts
salsa
Cashew-Chipotle Crema

Cashew-Chipotle Crema:
(makes about double what we needed for the tacos)

2 C raw cashews, soaked for 2-3 hours and rinsed
1/2 C water
1/2 red bell pepper coarsely diced
1 whole lime, peeled and sectioned
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp chipotle powder
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp cayenne pepper
pinch of salt

First make the Cashew-Chipotle Crema. In a high speed blender, combine all crema ingredients and blend on high speed until smooth. Place in freezer to chill. Stir occasionally.

Next, start cooking your soaked and rinsed pinto beans in your pressure cooker. If you don't have a pressure cooker, start cooking your beans before starting your crema. (When I soak my beans ahead of time, I can cook them in my pressure cooker for about 10 minutes at medium pressure. It takes around 30 minutes total for heating up, cooking, and cooling down.)

While the beans cook, prep all filling ingredients and wash your heads of lettuce. Combine all filling ingredients and place them in the fridge to stay cool until you are ready to serve.

Once your beans are cooked, rinse them in cold water to cool them down and then season them to taste.

Fill your romaine leaves with beans and filling. Top with sprouts, salsa, and avocado. Pour on a generous helping of Cashew-Chipotle Crema because it is heavenly.

Enjoy.

This month's drink of choice

As with everything in my life, I seem to go through phases with what I drink, especially what I drink in the mornings. As a kid, it was Instant Breakfast. (Can you sing the jingle? Carnation Instant Breakfast....you're gonna love it in an instant!) Later in life but before I was a coffee drinker, it was just orange juice. Then it was espresso and then lattes and then cafe au laits and then while we were in Mexico it was fresh squeezed orange juice. Lately it's been just french pressed coffee with a dash of half and half, but about two weeks ago, Scott and I went vegan.

Yes, vegan. As in no more half and half! Oh, the terror!

We're not planning to be vegan forever, but we are really enjoying it for now and believe that some of the good habits we are creating now will continue as we slowly add some animal products back into our lifestyle. Scott is sleeping better than he has in years, maybe better than ever. We've both lost some weight and have plenty of energy. Part of our purpose in going vegan has been to reduce our consumption of foods that are not beneficial for our health or that are low in nutrient density. We're not eating processed foods in place of animal products; we're eating whole veggies, fruits, legumes, and a few grains.

Coffee is one of those not-so-healthy things we've mostly dropped. Yes, you can say it has some positive antioxidant qualities, but I think that is mostly justification for drinking something that we like. And I do like coffee. And I still drink it, but not as much as before.

So my drink of choice lately (especially at night, but also on chilly mornings) has been hot water with a bit of honey and a wedge of lemon. Today I added a slice of ginger to it, also. For now, it is satisfying, warming, and feels clean.

My daily smoothie

Ever since returning from Christmas break, this (or something very similar) has been my lunch most days:

Sometimes I add Greek yogurt, and if I'm out of coconut milk I'll use OJ instead (but I prefer not to have the extra sugar that is in OJ). All of my ingredients are organic except the coconut milk and maybe the ginger, I think. I've been using the Silk Coconut Milk that comes in a carton in the fridge at Costco. It has a few additives I'd prefer not to eat, but I suppose that is the price of convenience.

Once it's whirled, it comes out to a lovely swamp green color, but the color can't dissuade me from drinking it -- it's actually pretty tasty and it makes me feel happy. Do you make smoothies? I want to know what you put in yours. What am I missing?

Canning spaghetti sauce

I'm not sure how a giant box of tomatoes turns out to be only seven (and a half) quart-sized jars of tomato sauce. It sort of makes the time I put into the project seem like a waste.

But I know the sauce tastes heavenly -- we ate some last night.

The recipe I used is derived from Marcella Hazan's classic recipe with only three ingredients: butter, tomatoes, and onions. The onions are halved and cooked with the tomatoes but removed before serving. Her recipe calls for canned tomatoes but since the whole point of this exercise was to relieve myself of a giant box of fresh, organic, heirloom tomatoes, I used what I had on hand. Since I've got yet another giant box of tomatoes on the porch, I think I'll be heading out to buy more quart sized jars and repeating this exercise tomorrow night.

Goals for the new year, part one.

I generally don't make resolutions. At least, not publicly. Sure, every year since about 4th grade, I've thought, "I want to lose X pounds this year." Sometimes I've even thought of it all the way up to, say, January 5th. Usually it's forgotten within the first three days of the new year, though. So, for me, new year's resolutions are usually not something I take seriously.

I do occasionally set goals, though. Usually my goals don't have anything to do with the start of a new year. I can think of three major goals I've set for myself in the past that I was actually successful at achieving. The first was during the summer between eighth grade and my freshman year in high school. That was the year I was introduced to the Y's Ragger Program and earned my first rag -- the blue rag. One challenge associated with the blue rag is to be your best self. I remember thinking that my best self would be more outgoing and more interested in the people around me. Because of my blue rag challenge, I began to make a conscious effort to engage others in conversation and it changed my entire personality. I went from being relatively withdrawn and quiet to conversational and outgoing. Clearly, I'm still no social butterfly and I'm not the life of the party, but I'm very different from the girl I was before accepting that challenge.

The second life-changing goal I managed to accomplish was shortly after Brynn was born. Before having Brynn, I had never successfully lost weight. I'd thought about it a lot and had been really unhappy with my body from the middle of elementary school all the way past college graduation. I've always been a bigger girl -- even in high school when I was swimming year round, even working out 4+ hours a day in the pool. Small is just not in my body's vocabulary...well, besides my cup size. That's a different problem. Anyway, By the time Brynn was born, I'd gained 30 pounds (about ten of which was Brynn and probably another eight in fluids and baby-related stuff that disappeared shortly after she was born). A few weeks after her birth, I had a good chunk of weight left to lose plus whatever I could lose beyond my pre-pregnancy weight to get to a healthy goal weight. Since I'd never successfully lost weight before, I knew it would be a challenge.

But...those months when Brynn slept 20 or more hours per day, when I had no job and almost nothing to do at home, I was pretty disciplined. I started using FitDay.com to track my calorie intake and within a month and a half of starting, I'd not only lost the baby weight, but also gotten below my pre-pregnancy weight. I was sooooo proud of myself -- to finally accomplish something I'd wanted for so long. Then I got pregnant with Callie, the weight came back, and the discipline disappeared. When I think about it now, I know I could lose at least a few pounds if I tried...but it's a lot of work and I just don't have it in me today.

The last life-changing goal I accomplished related to the food I ate and the food I fed my family. It was initiated by a FoxNews.com article I read about pigs being abused at a North Carolina slaughterhouse. It sickened me in a way I'd never experienced before, so much so that it set me on a road to change my eating habits. It started with not wanting to contribute to animal cruelty, grew into wanting to limit my contributions to the toxicity of our environment, and turned into a personal crusade to keep my family eating as organically, locally, and sustainably as possible. With the budding resources at the time (from books by Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver plus a tiny handful of websites with directories of small, local farms), I managed to completely change the way my family and I eat.

At first, it seemed impossible. Giving up bone-in chicken thighs on the grill was PAINFUL, let me tell you, for the kids as much as for me. I missed the steaks, the cheap chicken, the pre-marinated pork loins, the grapes grown in Chile, the clementines from Spain and Morocco, the New Zealand lamb and apples. Now, when we occasionally have those treats at a friend's house, they really seem like treats, rather than feeling guilty about eating them.

Between changing my understanding of food and then also beginning treatment with a chiropractor, I became aware of some of the toxins in my environment and the toxins that my kids are exposed to on a daily basis. Fire retardants, pesticides, formaldahyde, mercury, fluoride, parabens and other body-product additives like sodium laurel sulfate and aluminum, BPAs...all of it. The list seems to grow monthly yet somehow we've maintained a relatively normal lifestyle while working to minimize our exposure to these toxins. And all of it started with a story about abused pigs and a goal to be conscious about what I eat and what I feed my family.

Each of these major goals I accomplished had serious motivation behind them and the information I needed in order to accomplish the goals. When I got my blue rag, I KNEW how to be a good conversationalist. I knew how to engage other people because I'd spent my whole life watching my mom do it. I tell my interpersonal communication classes this all the time -- I've never seen anyone engage others in conversation better than my own mother does. People know that she cares about them by the way she listens to them and the question she asks. I had a model and I knew what I needed to do to become more outgoing. I also knew that if I didn't engage others, I could have a very lonely time in high school. I was motivated to make a change.

When I lost Brynn's baby weight, I had FitDay.com by my side, giving me the information I needed to keep my calories-out exceeding my calories-in. I had the time and the discipline to keep track of everything I ate and I had my old jeans standing by to motivate me.

When I changed the way our family eats, I had the motivation -- the poor North Carolina pigs provided more than I needed. Bit by bit, I gained the knowledge I needed to find what we now call "happy food" and over the past three years, the resources available for finding and buying happy food have grown at what seems to be an exponential rate. It's become easy and second nature for us because we have the resources available to help us.

With all that in mind, I'll be back tomorrow to share my goals for the new year.

I love food

I've noticed that lately that the theme of most of my recent Facebook statuses (stati?) has been FOOD. I love food. Last night I watched Food, Inc. I love the movie. You should watch it if you haven't already. Really. While there is lots to say about food, let me just copy and paste this for now, from the Wall Street Journal. It could have said a lot more. If you disagree with Pollan's comments, I'd love to hear why.

A Dozen Eggs for $8? Michael Pollan Explains the Math of Buying Local

By BEN WORTHEN

Michael Pollan, author of "Omnivore's Dilemma" and other popular books, has become a figurehead for the local-food movement, which advocates buying in-season produce from nearby farms.

Proponents say such food is healthier and that the way it is grown and shipped is better for the environment. But it often is more expensive. Mr. Pollan says the real problem is that subsidies keep the prices of some, largely mass-produced foods artificially low.

Still, he tries to strike a middle ground between advocate and realist. In his Berkeley living room, the 55-year-old Mr. Pollan discussed where he shops for food and why paying $8 for a dozen eggs is a good thing:

Zuma Press

Michael Pollan in the backyard of his Berkeley home in 2007.

WSJ: Do Bay Area residents eat and shop for food differently from people elsewhere?

Mr. Pollan: The food movement really began on the West Coast, and you can make an argument it began in the Bay Area. There is a much higher level of consciousness here about where food comes from, about eating seasonally and locally, than there is in the rest of the country.

But we have certain advantages that few other places in the country have. We can eat from the farmer's market 50 weeks of the year—the only reason they close is to get a break Christmas and New Year's.

WSJ: What do you attribute the greater enthusiasm to?

Mr. Pollan: A consumer who is willing to pay more for better food. That's a matter of consciousness and a palate that has been educated by the chefs locally. Paying $3.90 for a Frog Hollow Peach, there are a lot of people here willing to do it. I don't know if you can find a more expensive peach in America. My little rule, "Pay more, eat less," is followed by a lot of people in the Bay area.

WSJ: Where do you shop for food?

Mr. Pollan: I shop at the farmer's market on Thursdays. I shop at Monterey Market, and I shop at Berkley Bowl. Those are the big three, and then I'll get household cleaning products, cereal, things like that at Safeway.

WSJ: How do you suggest people in New York or other places with a long winter eat seasonally?

In much of the country eating seasonally in winter is challenging, though there are options people overlook. A salad of grated root vegetables, for example, is a refreshing change from lettuce, and far more nutritious. But it all depends on how hard-core you want to be. It's not an all-or-nothing proposition.

WSJ: Do you only buy certain things from certain places?

Mr. Pollan: No. I'm pretty flexible. I'm not a zealot, contrary to what people may think. I've told stories about being busted at Berkeley Bowl buying sugary cereals for my son when he was younger.

WSJ: Are there rules for shopping that people interested in eating better should follow?

Mr. Pollan: The most important is to buy things that are in season.

It's nice to skip [things] until they are in season when they are so much better and cheaper. It becomes something of an occasion when the tomatoes come into the market, or the strawberries, or the asparagus.

WSJ: Does eating local, sustainable food have to be a lifestyle priority, or can people do it casually?

Mr. Pollan: People can do it casually. There are people who go [to a farmer's market] every week, and there are people who go when the mood strikes them. To eat well takes a little bit more time and effort and money. But so does reading well; so does watching television well. Doing anything with attention to quality takes effort. It's either rewarding to you or it's not. It happens to be very rewarding to me. But I understand people who can't be bothered, and they're going to eat with less care.

WSJ: Is eating well just an indulgence for people who can afford it?

Mr. Pollan: If you're in the supermarket buying organic versus not buying organic, you are going to spend more. But buying food at the farmer's market, if you compare it to the prices at Safeway for stuff that's in season, it actually beats the prices in my experience. People shouldn't assume that they are going to go broke at the farmer's market.

WSJ: What do you wish people here understood about their food that they don't now?

Mr. Pollan: We've been conditioned by artificially cheap food to be shocked when a box of strawberries costs $3.

But it's important to know that farmers aren't getting wealthy. When you see strawberries being sold for $1 a box, picture the kind of labor it takes to pick those strawberries and the kind of chemicals it takes to produce those kinds of strawberries without hand weeding.

Eight dollars for a dozen eggs sounds outrageous, but when you think that you can make a delicious meal from two eggs, that's $1.50. It's really not that much when we think of how we waste money in our lives.

Write to Ben Worthen at ben.worthen@wsj.com

We're baaaack!

The girls in Millenium Park, Chicago.

We're back from the midwest and trying to squeeze a lot of Mexican fun into a little bit of time. Our tickets home are booked for June 16th, giving us a little less than six weeks to enjoy Mexico. We've started off with a bang, though, visiting our favorite taco shop, our favorite organic bistro, getting estimates for some of the work that needs to be done on our car, spending time at the beach, and playing with our puppies! Yes, they're still here. And Mama Milly, too. But, puppy number two (Rosy) went home a few minutes ago and puppy number three (CJ) goes home tonight. Mama Milly leaves next weekend for the SPCA shelter in Puerto Vallarta where she will await a home in Mexico or transport to Canada next fall. We'll hang onto puppy number four (Renegade) until we figure out whether or not we're going to adopt him! If not, we know we'll find a great home for him because he is super double cute and a really easy pup, too.

Renegade

On a totally different subject, I thought I'd share this bit of an email I got from our farm today. It reminded me how lucky we are to be heading back to a place where we have such easy access to amazingly fresh, clean, honest, and happy local food! I love my farm. And I really love her catch-phrase at the end: "Buy better, eat less." Amen, sister.

Factory Farming - It Gets Worse
Cheap Food Comes at a Price...

I recently had the experience of visiting with a local farmer who was a grower for a not-to-be-named turkey producer who was bought out by another non-to-be-named turkey producer (call it company X). In the buyout, the new company X ended all of of its operations in Colorado, leaving this farmer with two barns the length of four football fields empty. He could leave the state and continue to work for company X, but his conscience won't let him despite losing a significant portion of his income. He went on to tell me about the practices of turkey company X - I didn't think my jaw could drop any further, but it just kept going.

Company X has a practice of shipping corn in from other countries because it is cheaper than purchasing corn from the US, in spite of our surplus. This foreign corn does not have to meet any standards related to pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers that conventional US farmers have to meet. They can spray just about anything they want to make the corn grow faster and bigger, cheaper. This corn is eaten by the turkey and ultimately is eaten by you, the consumer.

Don't worry - it gets worse. Company X also has a practice of injecting the birds with water and filling the cavities with water just before packaging and freezing them. So, it may seem like a too-good-to-be-true price per pound, and it is, since you are also paying for a good amount of water!

When a company grows millions of turkeys, profits are made on mere pennies saved, usually to the detriment of the consumer. This goes for all CAFOs which can, and often do, feed chicken byproduct and manure to cattle, pigs and even other chickens to save a buck on grain!

The cost per pound of meat in the grocery store does not reflect the true cost of what it really takes to raise a chicken or cow, not to mention the environmental damage, animal and worker welfare and consequences to our health. As an example, it has been discovered that humans are developing resistance to the most basic of antibiotics due to the overuse of antibiotics used in factory farms to prevent diseases that occur when animals are in confined spaces.

You can be sure that at Grant Family Farms we make our animal farm transparent and never use antibiotics, nor confine our animals - we let a pig be a pig and let a chicken express her chickeness. The price you pay for organic, pastured meat from Grant Family Farms reflects the true cost of raising and caring for the animal and gives the farm a fair price. In addition you are feeding your family a much healthier alternative - animals raised on pasture are proven to have less fat, less cholesterol and more vitamins and omega-3s! Instead of "get more, pay less," I like the phrase "buy better, eat less."

I love my farm.

Check out the new photos we got from the farm today, including pictures of the new chicks! It is such a privilege to be part of such an amazing group of people. I really do love my farm.

Love that lunch.

What a great surprise it was when I saw (and eventually translated) my kids' first school lunch calendar this fall. If you've been reading this blog for even a little while, you can probably sense that I get a bit (okay, a LOT) uptight when it comes to the food my children are offered. I have long feared the day when I will send both of my children to full day school where they will encounter a lunch menu filled with bland processed, frozen, and fried foods and I have thankfully accepted the fact that I will be making my children bag lunches (just like my mom did for me) from their first school lunch until their last school lunch.

This year, though, has been a relief. For lunch today, both of my kids are drinking jamaica (hibiscus tea) that is sweetened with sugar. That, I could do without. But, look at the rest of their menus for today! The primary school is eating lentil soup with carrots, corn tortillas, and oranges. The preschoolers are eating papaya, bananas, plain yogurt, granola, and oatmeal cookies. Today's menu could be better, but it could be a whole lot worse, too. Our school puts together a menu about every 30 days and parents sign up for which meals they would like to bring. I have to bring one meal each month for Brynn's class and one for Callie's. The meals are generally well-rounded vegetarian meals and always have fresh fruits and vegetables as main ingredients.

Today our farm posted a link to this Time Magazine article about school lunches in France. After living in Mexico and experiencing what this non-American lunch menu is like, I was really interested to see the French lunch menus. The article wasn't really surprising, but it did reinforce what I already know: As Americans, we are really screwing up our kids by offering them crap to eat for lunch every day. The school districts and the government can offer all kinds of excuses for why they offer our kids crap and I know that school lunches aren't something we can change overnight, but all it takes is a little bit of time visiting schools in another culture to know that we are selling our kids short. To me, the biggest bummer is that most parents either don't care or figure their kids won't eat anything other than chicken nuggets and tacos, so why bother offering (or demanding) something better? The parents who do care and who have the time and the means to pack lunches for their kids take the easy way out and avoid trying to change the system. That's probably what I'll do.

But...our farm is looking for ways to get our organic produce into our local schools, so maybe I'll see what I can do to upset the apple cart in my district when I get back. It sounds like an overwhelming challenge, but it is one that I care about!

Now THIS is a rule I can follow.

The older I get, the less I want to follow rules. But, here is a rule I can follow and pass on to my children, as quoted in a NYT Personal Health article about Michael Pollan's newest book, Food Rules.

"Perhaps I’ll try the so-called S policy Mr. Pollan says some people follow: 'No snacks, no seconds, no sweets — except on days that begin with the letter S'.”

In addition to following the S policy, I think it is also high time for me to begin eating my meals off of our extra large salad plates instead of our gargantuan dinner plates. Although...I suppose that can wait until we get back to Colorado since we only have two little salad plates here.

I'm not desperate to pick up Food Rules since it seems to be a compilation of what Pollan wrote in The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, but I will probably grab it from the library when we get back to see if I'm missing out on any other memorable nuggets. Of course, Food Rules only costs $5 on Amazon, so maybe I'll add it to my next order.

For those of you who have followed Our Little Family for a while, you know that Pollan's previous food books have been life-changing for us. Based on what I've read from him before, I think if you're looking for highlights from his earlier food books in a compact, easy-to-read version, you'd like Food Rules.

Toxic sludge.

I thought I knew something about the food industry in America. I mean, check out the "food politics" category on this blog. I've written a lot about it in the past. But I didn't know this. Or if I read it somewhere, I conveniently let it slip my mind because it's so wrong in so many ways and for so many reasons.

I'm talking about toxic sludge, or Biosolids, as the PR folks would spin it.

It's the nasty stuff that comes from our toilets, our hospitals, our factory floors, our storm drains...it all makes its way to the sewage treatment plant and then, apparently, half of it ends up as fertilizer on conventional American farms and in free compost piles in cities throughout America. Even in clean-n-green San Francisco. Can you believe it?

Admittedly, I am no expert on sewage. Everything I know about sewage I learned from Finding Nemo..."All drains lead to the ocean!" I thought that was disgusting and wrong, but this seems just as bad, if not worse.

Read more here, in the Huffington Post article published last month.

Local food, Mexican style.

Just because we're living someplace where we don't speak the language and where we can't figure out where the butcher gets our meat doesn't mean we've totally given up on our commitment to local food!

We're committed, oh yes! Committed to eating a pineapple at least every other day, a papaya every three days, and several kilos of tomatoes, cucumbers, cilantro and onions every week. Oh, and the limes. Can't forget those. We go through those little limes like crazy. It's such a treat to have such bounty grown within a hundred (or, at most, a few hundred) miles of where we live.

Last night, though, was a special treat. My dad and his wife, who have been living in this part of Mexico for almost two years, went out fishing yesterday morning. They caught a Dorado (the Mexican name for Mahi-Mahi) and a few Needlefish. The Needlefish went into a great ceviche that we ate for appetizers and for dinner we ate the Dorado, seasoned in salt and pepper and very quickly pan-fried in a little butter. Along side it we had papaya salsa and cardamom basmati rice. Okay, so the rice and cardamom came from India via Colorado (a girl's gotta have her Indian food, despite the carbon footprint) but the rest of the meal was local!

Pithy thoughts on our food system

Today I ran into an old Nicholas Kristof column in the New York Times and it got me groaning inside...all over again (it's been a while since I got worked up about the sad state of the American food system). Kristof also wrote a blog post following up on his column and someone left this comment:

As I write this morning I anticipate opening eight bee hives later today to check the state of things inside. Three weeks ago with the emergence of corn seedlings on the neighboring farm the populations of bees went from an active, busy three foot cloud at the entrance of each hive, to a moribund state with only a few coming and going.

Many farm crops grow from seed which has been coated with clothianidin, a synthetic nicotine which acts as a systemic poison inside the emerging plant. Drops of solution expressed from the leaf margins carrying the attractive sweetness of sugars manufactured within the leaf attract the foraging bees. One Italian researcher showed that a bee drinking this toxic brew died within two minutes. Industrial agriculture over tens of millions of acres is also creating a natural “biocaust” besides producing unhealthful food.

— john mcdonald

This is one beekeeper's experience with our food system, but it is one experience that I'm sure is being repeated all over America right now as engineered corn hits knee high. I think sometimes it's good to hear what's going on in our agricultural system not from politicians and authors, but from the ground up. We don't hear enough from our farmers and from people who are in touch with our land, our bugs, our rivers, our animals. Most of us certainly aren't in touch -- shopping in a supermarket is so insulating. It keeps us from knowing what kinds of ecological changes our buying habits cause. But when you hear testimony from someone like the beekeeper above, it's hard to deny that with our modern, high tech eating habits we are negatively affecting a system we don't completely understand.