In my previous blog post I reviewed the book, Building a Better World in your Backyard Instead of Being Angry at Bad Guys, by Paul Wheaton and Shawn Klassen-Koop. As part of that review I noted that I thought this would be an excellent selection for book discussion groups. It is relatively short, easy, and entertaining to read. The authors prime intended audience are those with little to no experience with ecological/environmental matters though I feel it would of useful interest to those more versed in the subject too. This should help make it appropriate for all that might be a part of such book groups. The material covers a wide range of subject matter offering many ways for everyone to connect to it. I would anticipate lively conversations sparked by the book.
Continue reading “Book Group Discussion Questions for Building a Better World in your Backyard Instead of Being Angry at Bad Guys”Category: Food
Food related posts
Building a Better World in Your Backyard Instead of Being Angry at Bad Guys – Book Review
Sometime in my childhood I seem to have taken on an environmentalist bent. I’m not sure quite when or why. It just seemed like the right thing to do and support, and still does. Thus, in my time I’ve read a lot of books, and watched hours upon hours of movies relating to this general genre. Despite all this information that has been out in the public sphere these past decades I’ve also watched things continue to decline. Who remembers the days when any sort of serious car trip involved stopping occasionally to scrape bug guts off the windshield so you could see out? When was the last time you REALLY needed to do that, and what does that say about the health of insect populations? If you’ve got enough years under your belt I imagine you can think of plenty of other similar examples yourself. So it would seem that all these past books and materials promoting environmental ideas haven’t been effective enough to overcome the increasing tides of destruction. Now here I am looking to review another book. Is yet one more going to be any different?
Continue reading “Building a Better World in Your Backyard Instead of Being Angry at Bad Guys – Book Review”Struggles with Food Addiction
I am a junk food addict.
I don’t say that in some sort of joking manner, laughing about a love of chocolate or some such thing. I say that as somebody who can find myself obsessing over junk food all day, having my thoughts completely consumed in a battle between knowing I shouldn’t eat it and wanting it, finding excuses to get it, reasons “I deserve it”. I say that as someone who will literally spend a half hour to an hour doing nothing but waging an internal battle to not get in the car and drive off to get some. I say that as someone who usually ends up in that car and just might in rare circumstances win the internal battle while on the road, turn around and head home, only to find 30 minutes later I am at the gas station checkout M&M’s in hand. I say that as someone who even now while writing this blog is gorging on junk food with the thought in my head that this will be the last final blowout “meal” of it, trying to quietly ignore the dozen or so other last final blowout “meals” I’ve had in the past couple weeks. This is what I mean when I say I’m a junk food addict. I’m not kidding about it. I’m brutally serious.
Continue reading “Struggles with Food Addiction”Autumnberry: A delicious fruit you may have never heard about
All the right elements seemed to combine this year to make it a bumper crop year around me for autumnberries. (These are sometimes also known as autumn-olive, with the scientific name of Elaeagnus umbellata.) It’s probably not a fruit you’re going to see in grocery stores. In fact, you may have never heard of it before, despite the fact that it’s said to be the most common wild fruit across large regions of North America. I only learned about it a few years ago and went hunting to try and find a bush. Eventually I found some along an old railroad line converted into a hiking/biking trail where I find a lot of wild foods. After positively identifying it in the field I was chagrined to discover a hearty sized specimen growing at the end of my driveway! Doh! It was growing right under my nose for years, with me walking by it everyday as I went to check the mail. I find this is so often how it is with wild edible foods. Until we become educated about them they remain a seemingly invisible part of the landscape. Put another way, the more I learn about wild edibles the more vibrant the natural world around me becomes!
Continue reading “Autumnberry: A delicious fruit you may have never heard about”More Healthy, Decadent Deserts to Satisfy Sweet Cravings
I’ve been working this year to improve my diet and shift my relationships with food as I’ve written about previously. Many days I do well. Unfortunately there are many others when I still succumb to the lure of junk food. The 3 day water fast I mentioned in the last post did seem to help me reset my taste buds and refocus my efforts. Since then I’ve been doing quite well and resisted all heavily processed foods. Still there have been days I’ve been tempted…
Continue reading “More Healthy, Decadent Deserts to Satisfy Sweet Cravings”A Perennial Food Experiment: Stuffed Milkweed Pods
Last week I was off on a camping vacation that you’ll likely hear more about in a future blog post. However, just before leaving I engaged in a culinary experiment I wanted to share with you. I didn’t have time to write up the results before my travels so it waited until now. The experiment is stuffed milkweed pods.
Continue reading “A Perennial Food Experiment: Stuffed Milkweed Pods”Excellent Perennial Vegetables You Can’t Buy in Stores
I’ve written before about my project to look to sourcing my food directly from my homestead first. Today I thought I’d share just a bit of what that practically means with a bit about two fantastic perennial vegetables that tend to get ignored by most despite how awesome they are. They both provide an abundant supply of highly edible produce over a wide range of the growing season. As perennials once established you don’t need to do much of anything to maintain them. I don’t even weed around them. They seem to grow in natural polycultures just fine, thus they promote the building of topsoil instead of its depletion. Pollinators love them so in growing these you support the insect populations so critical to our ecosystems. One is extremely beautiful, generally used as an ornamental. The other is super fragrant, in a good way I might add. Oh, and they both taste great too. To the best of my knowledge though, you can’t buy these in stores, or at the farmers market. There’s a decent chance however, that they are growing near you, if not in your own yard.
Continue reading “Excellent Perennial Vegetables You Can’t Buy in Stores”A stupendously healthy “snack cracker”
A few years ago when I was feeling quite flush with income and not nearly so focused on saving money as I am now I observed a new, and fairly pricey snack food at the local grocery store called kale chips. I think it still took a good sale price to entice me into trying them for the first time, as I have pretty much always been frugal by nature. I found them to be quite delicious and eventually sampled pretty much all the flavor varieties. My only complaint besides the cost would be that they were so delicate. Once the kale leaf was dried it got so thin there was almost nothing to it. That got me to thinking about alternatives that might solve this.
Continue reading “A stupendously healthy “snack cracker””The Garden Project Continued
A while back I did a short post about a small garden project I was starting, rebuilding a couple raised beds with cinder blocks and raising them higher. Today’s post is an update on the continuation of that project, which as so often happens with projects, became more time consuming than I first expected.
Continue reading “The Garden Project Continued”A healthy cure for a sweet tooth
I’ve been continuing with my food goals as I wrote about previously. Some days I succeed, other days I fail, but overall I think I’m doing better at eating healthy, nutrient dense, whole plant foods, with an emphasis on using what grows on the homestead first. One struggle I have is my serious sweet tooth! I thought that today I’d share one of my solutions to this in case others struggle with the same thing. Whenever I’ve made versions of it for potlucks it has always been a real hit, even with those who could care less about the healthy part!
Continue reading “A healthy cure for a sweet tooth”