...Continued...

My family got inspired by my class and my Green Project that they decided to make their own fruit juice instead of mixing up frozen juice from concentrate!

It was tasty grapefruit juice but it was hard work!!

Reading Week!

Hello Followers,
          It is Monday February 21, 2011, and I am living at home for the Reading Week. Last week I recorded how much money I spent on my grocery shopping and the hope was to eventually compare that with the amount that I normally spend on a weeks groceries when I am eating normally. This week however, I am not paying for my own food and I am happily eating what has been made for me at home and I have found it very easy to eat non-frozen and no precooked foods. All of the meats that we eat at home come from our family friends who share their pork and beef with us and this has made eating no precooked/frozen meats very easy as part of our experiment.
          On Sunday for lunch, we ate at our church’s potluck. I have to admit, I am not sure if what I ate was all fresh and not frozen, however, I accepted the fact that in this case, it was almost impossible for me to determine where my food came from and if the casseroles at the potluck contained vegetables and meats that were frozen or precooked when bought. I took this day as my free day and enjoyed the foods that our family friends took the time to prepare and cook at home. I did however avoid foods that were obviously precooked from restaurants and grocery stores.
          Today for family day, my sister Jilienne, made a delicious homemade soup using fresh, vegetables and legumes that were both bought fresh from the store or grown in our garden and frozen for the winter. She created the recipe herself by adapting the recipe from homemade baby food. The pureed soup tasted great! The recipe is below for your enjoyment!
          I am looking forward to researching the differences between fresh and frozen foods in greater detail while Cara and I begin to write our paper portion of our Green Politics Assignment. I have noticed just from quickly glancing at labels on frozen boxed meals, the high sodium content of frozen boxed foods. I am interested in researching the impacts of consuming frozen and precooked foods.

Baby Food Soup! 
Sweet potato
Regular potato
Spinach
Corn
Onions
Cottage cheese
Cheddar cheese
Vegetable broth
-puree together with an electric mixer
-heat and enjoy!

Hey!

So this weekend on Friday Cara and I decided to venture out to visit Brantford's Farmers Market together to explore what a local farmers market looked like at this time of year. What we found was better than I had expected! We visited with an open mind and tried put our "farmer-roots" aside as we explore what was offered as "local" and "fresh" food. We were really surprised to see the amount of people who were purchasing their groceries at the market because the market is just across the street from a chain grocery store. We visited with the various farmers and artisans and surprisingly enough, we got so carried away in our discussions that we had to both sit down and figure out what we wanted to actually buy. Even though we quickly discovered that a majority of the food was not from a local farm, we were so pleased with the amount of foods that were locally grown, and the generosity and kindness of the people we encountered at the market. We had the opportunity to ask questions about the foods we bought and we asked some venders where their farms were located. This gave us an opportunity to ask and discover where our foods came from which was both refreshing and exciting. We both were struck with how fun it was to go shopping in an environment with such a welcoming, friendly community. Cara and I really enjoyed cooking together afterwards and we look forward to sharing more recipes with each other and continuing our exploration together!

So after only a few days of initializing our green project, Cara and I are already making adjustments and modifications.  We decided to continue to eat foods that are prepackaged for a few reasons.  First, everything from cereal to yogurt to frozen vegetables, and everything that we eat aside from fresh fruit and vegetables from the store is already packaged before we buy them.  So, we've decided to refine our weeks to no frozen and no pre-cooked foods.  This is still going to be challenging and Cara and I have already discussed our struggles with food choices and it's only been a few days.  Cara is also eating no wheat and sugar so her journey is turning out to be even more of a challenge.  Talking about food has been fun and I realized that it is something I rarely discuss with friends and family.  I look forward to exchanging recipes for healthy and fairly easy supper meals if anyone has any delicious ideas! Also, I came across this funny comic that relates to our project!

Hello friends, classmates and family,
For one of my fourth year Contemporary Studies classes, Democracy, Citizenship and the Environment, we have been asked to participate in an environmental action project.  This project is open to interpretation and we have been given a very flexible outline to structure our project.  My friend, Cara Barwell and I have decided to look into the environmental impacts of our consumption habits.  A part of this assignment is to educate others and spread the word about our chosen environmental action plan and that's where you all come in! Over the next couple of weeks, both Cara and I will be blogging about our experiences in this experiment and we would appreciate it if you could support us by following our journey by reading our blog.  Cara and I are both still trying to figure out the definite parameters of our experiment and even this has proven to be more difficult than we imagined.  Blogging is very new to me and I am excited to create an online journal and share it with all of you!