Here's a Sneak Peek at Our . . .

. . . gourmet garden on day 1.

The Dirty Dozen - Eating Pesticides

Knowing who grows your food, where it comes from and how far it has traveled is important.  If you buy food not in season, you can be certain that it has traveled and has some oil-based miles on it as
some loss in nutritional value.

You become what you eat and if you don't know about your food and the hands and farming practices from which your food has come, there's a possibility that you might be in for some serious health issues in the future.

Just about everywhere you turn you hear about buying organic and buying local.  Farmers' markets are springing up every where and of course, as farmers, we are excited.  We love our farmer's market.  It's given us the opportunity to meet so many wonderful people - those who faithfully buy our produce and other vendors that we get the privilege of working along side with.

To us, organic is so important.  Our farming practices are organic and we adhere to practices stated here with Certified Naturally Grown and just today The Simple Farm became accepted by them.  All this to say that just because someone touts their produce as organic doesn't necessarily mean it is.  Recently, California Farmers' Markets have been in the news with those they are calling the 'cheaters.' Read more here . . .

If you're not trying to buy all organic then at least know which foods REALLY should be organic because of the amount of pesticides on them.   If you are buying these "dirty" foods, it would be wise to buy organic. Of the dozen "cleanest" foods, it is the least necessary to buy organic. In the tests all the items were washed or peeled normally before testing. If you want to learn more, you can visit http://www.foodnews.org/

The dirty dozen--the most pesticides

Peaches

Apples

Sweet bell peppers

Celery

Nectarines

Strawberries

Cherries

Lettuce

Spinach

Imported grapes

Pears

Potatoes

The cleanest--the least pesticides

Onions

Avocados

Mangoes

Asparagus

Bananas

Cabbage

Broccoli

Papaya

Frozen sweet corn

Frozen sweet peas

Pineapples

Kiwi

Kindness comes back to you...

. . . when you show kindness.  I heard the word 'kindness' means to be useful and last week at our market store on Shea Maya Nahra, the health and wellness director of Sunflower Market needed something to take the swiss chard she bought from The Simple Farm home. It was important that they get home still fresh and perky as she had a photo shoot (for her Pure Nutrition web site) planned with our chard.  .  . so . . .

. . . I thought it best that she use our vintage candle/flower jars for just the right thing to preserve the chard and zinnias.

Yesterday, our beautiful Maya Nahra brought back the jars - but not emptied - but filled with these delightful pumpkin raviolis filled with Crows Dairy goat cheese - which were incredible!

I like being kind - not that I expect anything in return because my reward for kindness is just that - I get to give and help and be useful and that's reward enough for me.

Maya also has a blog - Ask The RD (registered dietitian) here.