During the hot sultry days of summer, cooking can be the last thing on your mind. In warm weather our appetites decrease, but it’s important to get your five servings of fruit and vegetables.

Salads are not only simple to prepare, but refreshing as well. Salad recipes are an easy way to combine grains, fruits, vegetables, and meats in one easy dish.

7 Tips for Yummy Salads

1) Look for produce on sale. Then find a recipe that calls for those ingredients. Or try a vegetable you normally might not use and feature in a salad, like beets or jicama.

2) To make your salad extra special, add a garnish. Sprinkle paprika; add chopped parsley, chervil, chives or basil. Add hard-boiled egg slices, pepper rings, red onions, or pickles.

3) Add some crunch with sesame or sunflower seeds; chopped walnuts or sliced almonds.

4) When making potato or pasta salad ahead of time, add extra liquid. These tend to soak up the dressing and dry out.

Tino munches on fresh produce.

5) Whole grains, like corn and barley, are great cooled and mixed for a whole grain salad.

6) Serve salad on a slice of melon or halved cucumber.

7) When picnicking, nestle the salad bowl in a larger bowl with ice. This will keep the salad cooler longer and keep it from growing bacteria.

Check out the Salad & Sandwiches section to the right of this page. You’ll find yummy recipes like the Tomato Cucumber Salad recipe: Click Here.

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The recent European outbreak has made 2,400 people in 12 countries ill. Twenty-three people have died. So far the testing for the source has been inconclusive. Original concern was that bacteria may have been spread on tainted cucumbers shipped from Spain. Then it was thought that the bacteria may have come from bean sprouts grown in Germany. It’s still not known where the bacteria originated.

E. Coli From Animal Waste
Food-borne E. coli infections typically cause a bad case of diarrhea, although it’s potentially deadly disease. Almost all E. coli are associated with mammals. That is why undercooked ground beef can be a problem.

E. coli can also come from produce, which has been contaminated with fecal matter. Animal feces can spread E. coli in fields. This is thought to be the case in the spinach outbreak in California.

Most produce is waxed after harvest to withstand the long journey to market. Wax seals in pesticide residues and debris, which make them even more difficult to remove with just water. To reach the contaminants buried beneath the surface of your vegetables and fruits, you need a cleanser that also removes the wax.

Organic Produce
Food isn’t just grown locally it comes from all over the world, which posses a lot of challenges. Even “organic” food can come from places like China. Last June, I wrote “ USDA Organics…from China?” How in the world is it possible to track organic food from China? They use human waste as fertilizer and have their government officials overseeing their crops. Not much hope of really getting organic produce from China. You always want to check the “country of origin” before purchasing produce.

To earn the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s organic certification, the land must be free from prohibited substances such as synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, sewage sludge and other toxins as well as genetically modified organisms for at least three years.

The best solution to preventing food born illnesses is to prevent it at its source. That being said, there are some things you can do in your kitchen to minimize the possibility of a food borne illness.

You Can Minimize Food Borne Illness

• Wash your hands before and after preparing fresh produce.

• Wash all produce under running water. Even wash produce BEFORE you peel it.

• Don’t use the same cutting board for meat and produce.

• Cook meat thoroughly A major source of E. coli poisoning is undercooked ground beef. Don’t serve it medium rare or rare.

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The benefits of involving your child in gardening (indoors or outdoors) are many, especially for the picky eater. Gardening is a natural way to include multi-sensory learning for the picky eater.  But not all of us have the time or place to plant a garden. Perhaps you live in an apartment or work full-time. Did you know that you can engage your child’s imagination and interest him in previously rejected vegetables by growing your own…indoors.

You know what they say, “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.” That may be true for cake, but you can have your avocado and eat it, too.

I just purchased this bag of avocados. Avocados make a great indoor plant, even if you won’t be able to grow an avocado indoors to the point of enjoying its fruit.

Ben is holding a basil plant. In the fall, it will be placed in my garden window.

After eating an avocado in a salad or dip, clean the avocado pit and root it by suspending it in a glass of water. With the pointy side up, place toothpicks into the seed about ½ to 2/3 of the way up the avocado. Suspend the seed in a glass of warm water and be sure that the water doesn’t evaporate. The top portion of the seed shouldn’t be covered with water. Be patient, a root will appear somewhere from the second to fourth weeks. Then watch out, the avocado can take over a kitchen counter!

Garden Window
I have a garden window and for years I used it only for showy plants. The last few years, I’ve brought in parsley and basil from the deck in the autumn and put them in my plant window. They do quite nicely for several months. If you have a sunny window, you’ll want to think about putting some small pots with herbs.

Sprouting
Sprouts are baby plants. They are full of nutrients. They have a greater concentration of proteins, vitamins, and minerals than at any other point in a plant’s life. Sprouts are a staple for many worldwide diets. They are easy to grow, economical, and one pound of sprouting seed can usually generate about five pounds of food!

Sprouting is easy! So easy, kids can do it, even toddlers. Just add water to sprouting seeds. The only thing you’ll need is an inexpensive plastic sprouter. First soak the seeds overnight. I use a small glass jar. Then pour the seeds into the bottom of a sprouter (a basket or a colander will do). Rinse with a gentle spray. Place the basket on your counter and gently rinse two times a day. In a week, you’ll have sprouts. Add them to salads, in a smoothie, stir fry, or eat by the handful.

Zach is displaying sprouts that are ready to eat. You can see a small basil plant on the kitchen counter behind him.

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Keep Produce Fresher, Longer
1. You may think your kids fight a lot, but fruit and veggies don’t like each other at all! They’re constantly fighting in your refrigerator! The solution is to separate them. Manufacturers know this and build refrigerators with special bins for each. For optimum nutrition, taste, and longevity, store plants with seeds (fruit) separately from plants without seeds (vegetables).

Ally knows fruit (produce with seeds, like this happy watermelon) should be stored separately from veggies (produce without seeds).

2. Remove the tops from beets, carrots, and radishes because the sap will continue to flow from the root to the leaf. This deprives the part to be eaten of some of its nutrients.

3. If your lettuce or celery is wilted, soak it in cold water. The vegetable will absorb the water and crisp up once again.

4. Place mushrooms in a brown paper bag to enhance longer storage.

5. Potatoes, onions, and garlic should be stored in a cool, dark, well-ventilated place—not the refrigerator.

Don’t place them under the sink either, as the moisture will cause them to quickly spoil.

6. Bananas turn black when stored in the refrigerator. Keep them on the counter.

7. Always thoroughly wash vegetables and fruit to remove bacteria. Preferably wash and dry before placing in the refrigerator.

For info about the FREE Baby Bites Ezine, Click Here.

For a synopsis of Baby Bites: Transforming a Picky Eater into a Healthy Eater, Click Here.

Farmers’ markets are not only fun for the entire family, but they can be a wonderful source for multi-sensory learning. One of the most effective methods for developing healthy eating habits in your kids, especially picky eaters, is to involve them in the entire food process, beginning with your purchase of the week’s groceries.

Farmers’ markets are more intimate than a large chain grocers or big box store. These food producers are directly connected with families who consume their goods. They may bring locally grown, organic, fresh food products to families in a cost-effective, resource-efficient way. Most farmers’ markets start up in the spring and close down in the fall, although a few operate all year.

Organic-food sales currently account for about 2.5 percent of U.S. food purchases, while only .2 percent of U.S. farmland is certified organic. Sales of organic products have been increasing at annual rates of 16 to 20 percent!

While this is encouraging, the U.S. is behind the ball with organic farming. Italy, which is smaller than New Mexico, has more organically farmed acreage than the entire U.S.

Katy is proud of her farmer’s market find…a GI-NORMOUS artichoke!

I regularly shop at the farmers’ market a few miles from my home in Colorado. Fresh, organic locally-grown food is my goal. On Sundays, the Crossroads parking lot is a bustle of activity. The buzz of people make it a shopping experience. Wide-eyed children cling to their moms, hoping for a treat before they head home.

Because the event is held outdoors, many people bring their dogs. Vendors place bowls of water in front of their booths, to keep man’s best friend hydrated.

You can see moms and dads eagerly placing colorful produce into their reusable canvas bags. The produce is gorgeous and it’s tempting to purchase more than we can eat.

The tables, set in the middle of the parking lot, contain a variety of wares and homespun items. You can find locally grown honey, organic beef, and of course produce. There’s a vendor displaying locally made pasta. In the mix are hot dog stands, cotton candy, and donuts. So, just as in the grocery store, not everything found in a farmer’s market is nutritious.

Farmers’ markets, of course, usually don’t sell exclusively organic food; but the emphasis should be on local above all else. In most farmers’ markets, you can find produce grown only miles from your home, which will be the freshest and tastiest produce. Flavor is only one of the perks from locally grown produce. Fruits and vegetables contain their highest levels of nutrients, when harvested fully ripe and eaten soon afterwards.

Locally grown foods are often a better choice
Then again, it can be trucked from thousands of miles way. Be sure to ask the vendor where the food is grown. If it’s not grown in your state, move along to the next vendor.

The farmers’ market in Parker has several produce vendors, one trucks it’s produce in from California. Another is the Palizzi Farm from Brighton, Colorado. A new addition to the Parker market is Monroe Organic Farms from Kersey, Colorado. They’re the oldest organic farm in Colorado. The Monroe Organic Farms it’s still family owned and operated. You can contact Jacquie and Jerry Monroe from their website, http://www.monroefarm.com/. Their table is a bit smaller, because they offer only locally grown organic produce. As summer veggies are harvested, they’ll have more to offer.

If I want to purchase produce shipped 1,000 miles, I’ll shop at a grocery chain or a big box store and it’ll be cheaper. A concern with produce is that much of it comes from Mexico, where regulations don’t always apply. When you purchase produce grown in the U.S., you know that it’s been properly inspected, as well as safe to eat.

I always make a beeline to the Monroe Organic Farm’s and the Palizzi Farm’s tables. Jose is in charge of the Palizzi Farm’s tables and he’s always cheerful. Although, this produce isn’t certified organic, it’s grown with minimal us of pesticides. It’s freshly picked and quickly transported to the farmers’ market.

The Palizzi Farm has been family-owned for four generations. I spoke with Debora Palizzi, who along with her mother Gloria, owns and operates their 145-acre farm today. She said the maximum time the produce is picked before it makes it way to a Colorado farmer’s market is 12 to 24 hours.

Other Costs for Food
Approximately 80 percent of every food dollar you spend pays for advertising, trucking, processing, packaging, and marketing. Purchasing locally grown food supports local farmers and keeps the revenue in your community. This eliminates several steps between the farm and your plate. As the price of gas continues it’s upward climb, local produce will become even a greater bargain.

Farming economists predict there will be less than 400 farmers within the next 20 to 30 years. These farmers will work on mega farms of 30,000 acres or more. Purchasing produce from local farmers, directly supports small farms and increases the likelihood they will survive.

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#1. Buy produce in season. Not only is “fresh better than frozen; frozen better than canned,” but fresh is usually cheaper, too. For long-lasting produce, store your fruit and veggies in separate bins in your refrigerator. Fruit (produce with seeds) manufacture ethylene gas as they ripen. When fruit are stored with vegetables (produce without seeds), the vegetables loose their green color and spoil more rapidly. You’ll save not only dollars when your veggies and fruit are stored in separate bins, but also flavor, as vegetables stored with fruit will develop a bitter taste.

Even if you love pickles, like Madison,
you don’t have to be in a pickle over grocery shopping.

You can save when you purchase large bags of produce. Bags of bell peppers can be hard to use up before they go bad. I clean, then seed and slice each pepper, place each one in its own baggie in the freezer. That way there’s no waste, just take out a baggie, remove the pepper, and pop it into recipes frozen. It’ll defrost as it cooks. The same can be done with onions. Also, fresh herbs can be frozen.

#2. Purchase frozen orange and apple juice with no added sugars. It’s cheaper than juice from the dairy case or purchased in large containers. Juices found in the dairy case have been pasteurized, destroying nutrients. Also, you are paying more for juice in glass or plastic containers, because you’re paying for the weight of the product.

#3. Never purchase soft, squishy loaves of bread, even though they’re really cheap. These are filled with dough conditioners and chemicals. This is one area where spending more will save in health costs over time. Make sure “whole grain” is the first ingredient and purchase with as few ingredients as possible.

#4. Buy foods with LESS than 5 ingredients. Avoid processed foods which are expensive and contain preservatives, artificial ingredients, altered fats (especially trans fat and interesterified fat), white flour, and sugar. You’ll avoid most processed and junk foods when you shop the outer aisles of the supermarket. Never purchase a food item with a cartoon character. This is almost always a sign of added artificial colors and sugars. Steer clear of the pop, candy, and cereal aisles, which are located in the center of the store. Money spent here is money down the nutritional drain.

#5. Ocean-caught fish is better than farm-raised. Farm-raised fish have more contaminates. The rule of thumb is smaller the fish, the lower the mercury level. Don’t eat the fat. Fat is where fish store contaminates.

#6. Use lean meats, sparingly. This will cut your grocery and doctor bill at the same time. Use recipes that make a little meat go a long way: Casseroles, salads, stews, and stir fries.

#7. Buy in bulk. Big box store prices are hard to beat for purchasing bulk items. Build a pantry of regularly used nutritious staples. Big box stores now carry organic items including raisins, canned tomatoes, chicken broth, applesauce, and canned tuna and chicken. Some produce, like onions, garlic, and potatoes, can be stored for weeks in a cool dark place, like a basement. Warehouse stores also offer frozen organic foods: fruit and vegetables and large packages of organic beef and chicken which can be divided and frozen. If you don’t already have one, purchase a freezer. I have a half-size ice chest in my garage. It holds over 100 pounds of food. It’s not expensive either. You can find them for under $175. (I just saw one yesterday at a garage sale for $75.)

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What to do with leftover turkey?

What to do with the leftovers? A little creativity goes a long way. You’d be surprised at the number of ways you can make Thanksgiving leftovers into tasty meals. First, I always use the turkey carcass and leftover gravy and stuffing, for turkey soup. I make a large pot of soup the day after Thanksgiving, because the carcass takes up so much room in the refrigerator.

Do you have leftover mashed potatoes? Refrigerate and then make potato patties later in the week. Leftover sweet potatoes? Make sweet potato soup. Mash, then add a dash of ginger, nutmeg, chicken broth and heat. Just before serving, mix in a little cream.

Sometimes, I use what’s been accumulating in the refrigerator for a “Leftover Casserole.” Leftover Casserole works great with leftover turkey.  CLICK HERE for the recipe. Make scrambled eggs for breakfast Friday morning with sauteed onions, green peppers, and leftover chopped turkey. Or if you have more time, make Sunday Quiche and substitute, chopped turkey for the chicken in the recipe.

Then I—FREEZE, FREEZE, FREEZE.

If you have more turkey than you can consume in a day or two, portion it in one or two pound packages and freeze. You can pull it out of the freezer in a week or two and make a turkey casserole or creamed turkey sandwiches or heat up and serve with a veggie for dinner.

I’ve found that I waste less if I do a couple of things on a regular basis. First, good intentions often end up in the waste can. Uneaten portions of meals make great leftovers. That is unless you forget about them and they turn moldy in the back of your refrigerator.

I bypass the refrigerator and leftovers go right into my freezer from the table. Then instead of throwing it out a week later, when I need a quick meal, one is waiting to be defrosted. I’ve even frozen milk! If you find that you have too much milk, don’t let it spoil use it in a pudding or, yes, freeze it. Isn’t ice cream milk? Milk defrosts just fine, even just for drinking.

If you shop at a warehouse grocers, produce can be a bargain, but you’ll purchase large amounts. Produce is best when it’s eaten in the first three days after you’ve brought it home from the store. Although some fruit, like oranges and apples, will last much longer. Soft fruit can be held in the refrigerator until a day or two before you plan to eat it. Then place it out on the counter to ripen. This is especially practical when you purchase a bag of 5 or 6 avocados. Set one or two on the counter to ripen and keep the rest in the fruit bin of your refrigerator until a day or two before you want to eat them.

Have your bananas turned brown? Don’t have time to make banana bread? Peal the bananas and place individually in sandwich baggies and freeze. Remove from the freezer and use frozen in a fruit smoothie or defrost and make banana bread at a later time.

Keep onions, those large bags of garlic, and potatoes in a cool, dark place, like your basement. Never place onions next to apples, as your apples will spoil faster. If your veggies and fruit fight, Click Here for the remedy.

Lastly, don’t throw away old bread. You guessed it. Freeze it before it gets crusty. Bread defrosts beautifully from the freezer. Save the heals, if you don’t regularly eat them and stale pieces for bread crumbs and bread pudding.

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It’s my fruit and veggies fighting again! You may think your kids fight a lot, but fruit and vegetables don’t like each other at all. They’re probably fighting right now in your refrigerator, too!

The solution for happy produce is to keep fruit and veggies apart from one another. Manufacturers understand this; that’s why they construct refrigerators with separate bins for each. For a long time, I didn’t know that it was important to separate fruit from veggies, so I just shoved produce into which ever bin had the room. I was just asking for a fight to break out.

Vegetables don’t contain seeds and fruit are plants with seeds. We think of some fruit as vegetables, such as tomatoes, bell peppers, and avocados, but they contain seeds. Botanically speaking, Anything with seeds are fruit. Vegetables are roots (like carrots), tubers (like potatoes), stems (like celery), flowers (like broccoli), or leaves (like lettuce).

Apples, avocados, melons, peaches, and pears manufacture ethylene gas as they ripen. When fruit are stored with vegetables, the vegetables loose their green color and spoil more rapidly. You’ll save not only money when your veggies and fruit are stored in separate bins. But also flavor, as vegetables stored with fruit will develop a bitter taste.

Here are some other useful tips for longer produce storage:

• Remove the tops from beets, carrots, and radishes, because the sap will continue to flow from the root to the leaf. This deprives the part to be eaten of some of its nutrition.

• If your lettuce or celery is wilted, soak it in cold water. The vegetable will absorb the water and crisp up once again.

• Place mushrooms in a brown paper bag to enhance longer storage. Mushrooms collect moisture and get slimy when kept in an airtight container, like the plastic bag from the grocers.

• Potatoes, onions, and garlic should be stored in a cool, dark, well-ventilated place-not the refrigerator. Don’t place them under the sink either, as the moisture will cause them to quickly spoil.

• Bananas turn black when stored in the refrigerator. Keep them on the counter. When you have too many ripe bananas, peel, place individually in sandwich bags, and freeze. Defrost a frozen banana for a sweetener in baked goods and they’re very handy when frozen. They turn a regular fruit smoothie into a frozen shake.

• ALWAYS thoroughly wash vegetables and fruit to remove bacteria. Preferably wash and dry before placing in the refrigerator.

Click Here for Go Organic without Going Broke.

This European Union-funded project found vast differences between organic and conventionally grown foods. Researchers grew fruit and vegetables and reared cattle on adjacent sites. Their primary site was a 725-acre farm attached to Newcastle University.

They found levels of antioxidants in milk from organic herds were up to 90 percent higher, than in milk from conventional herds. They also found up to 40 percent more antioxidants in organic vegetables.

Pictured Left: Ethan agrees, organic is better!

The coordinator of the project said the government was wrong, about there being no difference between organic and conventional produce. “There is enough evidence now, he said, that the level of good things is higher in organics.”

For most, organic means less processed or unprocessed foods. The top reasons for organic usage are the absence of pesticides and growth hormones. Consuming fewer pesticides and growth hormones is a good idea, but, are organic foods any healthier than conventionally grown produce?

“There have been a couple of studies that suggest some produce may have larger amounts of certain nutrients,” says registered dietitian Sue Moores, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. “Organic practices affect how food is grown and, in some cases, that may yield more nutrition.”

Families on a tight budget may have difficulty making the shift to organic. Sorry to say, many times organic foods cost more than conventionally grown foods. Despite the health and environmental benefits, buying all organic for some families isn’t an option.

With the price of everything going up, the expense can be the hardest obstacle to overcome. Which foods should you buy organically and which conventionally grown foods can you get by with?

Produce: Organic fruits and vegetables are grown without pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. Some produce such as apples, berries, green beans, and spinach are more susceptible to pests. Naturally, they’re more heavily sprayed with pesticides, than worry-free produce like bananas, oranges, and broccoli. When making purchasing decisions, it makes sense to purchase organic produce that conventional growing methods are more likely to be heavily treated with pesticides.

There is another benefit to eating organic produce without pesticides. When plants aren’t coated in pesticides to help fight off disease, they develop stronger compounds to protect themselves. If you eat that produce, you get those disease-fighting compounds, too. What’s more, organic produce often has better flavor than conventionally grown foods. Since organic produce may be locally grown, they ripen later and are picked at their peak instead of being picked early to ensure survival during shipping.

When your budget is too tight for all organics, purchase conventionally grown produce with thick skins. Fruit such as pineapples, avocadoes, bananas, and citrus like oranges, lemons, and limes, all have thick skins, which are not eaten but discarded. When you throw away the outside, you’re throwing away many of the pesticides.

According to a study done by the Environmental Working Group, the top 6 most pesticide-laden foods when grown conventionally are peaches, strawberries, apples, spinach, nectarines, and celery. These might be on your must have organic list. Also, you can save when you purchase organic produce at big box stores like Costco and Sam’s Club or a farmers’ market.

Meat: A concern with eating conventionally produced meat is the hormones and antibiotics given to the cattle. Conventionally raised animals are pumped with these substances to enhance growth, increase milk production, and prevent disease. Unfortunately, these substances are then passed to people through the animals’ fat cells.

Purchasing low-fat meats may reduce your exposure to these chemicals, but buying organic guarantees a product free of hormones and antibiotics. And animals raised organically can’t feed on genetically altered grains or on land treated with chemicals. Another huge benefit.

Dairy: What sets organic milk apart is what the cows eat: Grain that has not been genetically altered and they are fed feed free of animal byproducts. Plus, these animal are also free from hormones and antibiotics.

In terms of nutritional benefit, a study from England found that organic milk has higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, which boost health and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, than non-organic milk.

Other studies have shown organic milk has higher levels of vitamin E and other antioxidants, as well as minerals like calcium, iron, magnesium and chromium.

Without a doubt, organic eggs are a good nutritional buy. Eggs from hens raised on pasture contain more omega-3 fatty acids, beta carotene, and vitamins A and E.

Processed foods: The majority of packaged crackers, cookies, and chips contain a component from a genetically modified crop such as canola, soy and, corn oils, cornstarch, and high fructose corn syrup. Genetic modification involves gene transfer between plants or animals to yield a crop with increased production and greater resistance to spoilage. If you want to stay healthy and save dollars, don’t purchase processed foods.

The Bottom line: If going organic 100 percent of the time isn’t an option for you, choose the most affordable and sensible foods for your unique circumstances.

Organic dairy, for example, may be the most reasonable option if you have children. The Hartman Group research indicates having children is the most significant reason to go organic. In fact, anyone whose immunity is compromised (i.e., cancer or HIV) should consider eating organic products.

It pays for you to ask questions and to learn more about the foods your family eats. Learn how they were grown and how they arrived on your plate. There’s no time like the present!

There’s more…Whole Foods on a Food Stamp Budget, Click Here.
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