Tag Archives: food

How to Buy the Best Produce without Blowing Your Budget

Unless you’re a hard core proponent of the local food movement and never eat anything that was grown outside your immediate area, you’ll find yourself cruising the produce aisle at the supermarket from time to time, especially now that gardening season is winding down. If you grow your own food, you will probably be looking for products that were produced using sustainable and organic practices.

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Unfortunately, depending on the time of year and where you live, the selection of organic fruits and vegetables can sometimes be downright pitiful or prohibitively expensive. What do you do when you can’t find what you’re looking for, or when the item you want costs more than you can afford to pay?

Do you know how to choose the highest quality foods from the available selection? Or do you get frustrated, grab just “whatever,” and then pray it doesn’t harm your health?

If you’re discerning about the quality of the fruits and vegetables your family eats, you need to become a savvy produce shopper.

Navigating Supermarket Produce Aisles

organic_apple_label

You’ve undoubtedly noticed the little stickers with four- or five-digit numbers on them that supermarkets put on individual pieces of produce. These stickers sometimes also identify the variety; for example, an apple might be marked “Gala” or “Fuji.” (Bins containing bulk items, such as granola and nuts, are often similarly labeled.)

The numbers on those stickers are PLU (Price Look Up) codes randomly assigned by the International Federation for Produce Standards (IFPS). When cashiers ring up your order, they key in these codes to identify the item being weighed or measured.

If you know what these codes mean, you can tell how (and sometimes even where) the food was raised. For instance, a PLU code can tell you if that head of lettuce you’re holding is organic or conventionally grown.

Deciphering the PLU Codes on Produce Stickers

PLU codes can have four or five digits and start with the numeral 3, 4, 5, 8, or 9.

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Four-digit PLU codes beginning with 3 or 4 denote conventionally grown produce. For instance, conventionally grown Fuji apples like the one in the photo above are assigned the PLU code 4131.

PLU codes beginning with 5 identify transitionally grown produce. This means the food was grown under conditions that meet organic standards, but for which the certification process has not yet been completed. A 5000 series PLU code can also mean the produce was grown on land that has not been free of chemical usage for the required length of time (36 months) before it can be classified as organic.

Both 8 and 9 are used as leading digits in five-digit PLU codes. In other words, 8 and 9 are prefixes to standard four-digit PLU codes and have special meanings that provide additional information about the item.

5189399089_c6ee3e62ec_oA standard four-digit PLU code prefixed by an 8 indicates the item is a Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) containing genetic information from an entirely different species. Very little is known about the possible long-term effects of eating GMO foods. For this and other reasons, many people choose to avoid GMO foods altogether.
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A five-digit PLU code that begins with a 9 indicates the item is organic

They Don’t Want Us to Know It’s GMO

Okay, let’s assume you know how read PLU codes. Can you now feel confident you’re making the safest choices for your family and not drive yourself crazy worrying if the product you’re buying might be loaded with pesticides or if it’s a Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) food engineered in a laboratory? Well, maybe. Read on!

Although this labeling system seems straightforward on the surface, herein lies the rub:

Because PLU codes aren’t mandatory, companies can label GMO foods as conventional.

The truth is, unless it’s labeled as certified organic, most of the corn, soybeans, canola, cotton, papaya, and squash being sold today is genetically modified.

According to Consumer Reports, an estimated 60 to 70 percent of foods, including packaged goods, contain genetically modified ingredients. Dreadful, isn’t it?

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Even worse, you will rarely see a PLU code that begins with an 8 because GMO awareness is rapidly gaining traction and manufacturers are afraid that labeling GMO foods will impact their profits. And they can get away with it because the FDA has determined that GMO’s are substantially equivalent to their conventional counterparts. According to our government, there’s no difference between conventional and GMO foods, despite the fact that plenty of studies show otherwise.

How to Be Confident about What You’re Buying

Even though PLU codes can’t be trusted entirely, there are a few ways to ensure the produce you’re buying isn’t genetically modified. You can choose

  • Items labeled 100% organic or certified organic
  • Items labeled GMO-free
  • Items with PLU codes that begin with a 9

But what can you do when the selection of organic produce is slim to non-existent?

Fortunately, the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) “Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce” is a terrific resource that can help simplify decisions at the grocery store.

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EWG singled out the produce with the highest pesticide loads for its Dirty Dozen™ list. These are the foods you want to AVOID at all costs.

Similarly, EWG’s Clean Fifteen™ lists the produce that’s least likely to hold pesticide residue. You’ll notice a lot of these items have thick or layered skin, like onions, avocados, and pineapple. These are foods you can feel good about buying when their organic counterparts aren’t available.

Clean Fifteen foods are also a safe bet when you want to shave some money off your grocery bill or need to stay within a tight budget.

So, as you can see, labeling laws are sneaky and interpreting the PLU codes on fruits and veggies is a bit trickier than reading the labels on canned and boxed products found on supermarket shelves. But, as a savvy shopper, you can feel confident you’re buying the very best quality produce available without breaking the bank.

By the way, if you sign-up on the EWG website, they’ll send you a PDF version of their Guide for free. If it’s more convenient, you can access the Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen using these resources too:

Authored by Anna Paige.

 

 

Rhubarb Tips & Recipes

Rhubarb Tips & Recipes

Rhubarb is a perennial that lasts for decades. One young plant will grow, spread out, and need to be divided about every third year for best growth. It’s a great perennial to share with friends. It’s one of the first vegetables to produce in the spring and always a welcome sight.

Rhubarb Tips

  • Rhubarb dividing and planting time is about the same time as spring fishing. Did a deep hole, add the fish guts, soil on top, and plant the rhubarb. Water deeply to encourage roots to move down into the soil rather than spread out across the top. By the time they get to the fish it will have broken down and be available to the plants. You’ll know when they meet up because the nitrogen in the fish will give the plants a big boost. rhubarb tips & recipes
  • Did you miss dividing overgrown roots in the spring? It’s alright to do it in early fall when the sun isn’t as blazing hot, and the nights are cooler. Water well and provide shade if the plants are too hot while they’re settling in. rhubarb tips & recipes
  • As the days get longer and the temperature rises, rhubarb will “bolt.” It will send up a hollow flower stalk. You’ll know it when you see it; it doesn’t look like the usual stalk with a leaf. Pull the flower stalk to keep the plant producing well.
  • Pull stalks, don’t cut them. Pulling the stalk stimulates growth and avoids a wet stump that can allow bacteria in.

rhubarb tips & recipes

Simple Rhubarb Sauce

simple rhubarb sauce recipe, rhubarb tips & recipesThis recipe was my grandmother’s. She would be in her 90’s were she still alive. It’s tried and true, simple as can be, and versatile.

  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 4 cups rhubarb (about 1 pound)
  • 1 tsp cinnamon or nutmeg
  • 1 tablespoon pectin (optional)

Simmer water and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. This is known as a simple syrup. Cut rhubarb into 1/2″ pieces and add to the syrup. Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes, stirring a few times. The sauce is done when the rhubarb is breaking down. Add cinnamon or nutmeg after removing the sauce from heat. Rhubarb is low in pectin so you might want to cut down to 1/4 cup water after the first batch, or add a tablespoon of pectin according to the directions.

rhubab saucerhubarb sauce recipeSimple Rhubarb Sauce can be served on warm biscuits, ice cream, Angle Food cake and many other ways. It cans well and if you put up enough, you’ll be able to enjoy it over the winter. While rhubarb is a spring treat, it’s hardy enough for a winter dessert.

We’re linking up with Maple Hill 101‘s blog hop. Join us!

Grocery Shopping is Expensive!

Grocery shopping is expensive!

After leaving the grocery store yesterday morning, I sat in the car, a little disturbed and depressed. The expense of grocery shopping these days is astronomical. I came home determined to grow more of my own food. I’ll add to my container gardening and I’m thinking about what I can grow indoors in winter. Ugh! Grocery shopping is expensive!

grocery shopping is expensive

Jersey cabbage

It’s May and there’s fresh food available but not enough to put fresh vegetables on the table daily so I’m still shopping. It’s time to find the local farmers market in my new state.

  • Cabbage: $1.29 a pound. I bought it because I’ve been craving coleslaw but it kind of hurt a little. grocery shopping is expensive
  • Carrots:  They are dry and many of them were cracked, and they’re .99 cents a pound. I moved on to the organic section and found nice carrots for $1.49 a pound. I’m sure this is less expensive per pound. They don’t have to be peeled because they are fresher, and because they aren’t overgrown and cracked. They’ll be great in the coleslaw.
  • Broccoli: Soft and starting to flower. $1.99 a pound. The stems’ ends were dried out.
  • Peas: $4 a pound. It takes about a pound of freshly picked peas to get one cup of peas after shelling.  Who can afford to pay $4 a cup for peas? Oh my gosh, grocery shopping is expensive.
  • Spinach. I looked at baby spinach with the thought of adding it to my salads and quiche (the hens are laying full force so I’m eating a lot of quiche). It was packaged in a plastic container. $9.09 per pound. I can buy a lot of spinach seeds for $9.00.

    cherry tomato, grocery shopping is expensive

    Juliet tomato

  • Tomatoes: They’re not ripe here yet, and they weren’t in the grocery store either. They were so immature they were hard and what I consider inedible.  Shipped in from Mexico and $1.79 a pound. grocery shopping is expensive
  • Yellow summer squash.  It’s a wonder I didn’t mutter out loud.  $1.79 a pound.

Fresh from the garden this week, I have radishes, Swiss chard, baby beets and beet greens, lettuce, arugula, boc choi, the last of the tatsoi, and the green garlic. And eggs! Lots of eggs for protein. Fresh food is worth the effort, especially after my reminder that grocery shopping is expensive.

apple cider jelly recipe

Making Apple Cider Jelly

Apple Cider Jelly

Growing up, apple jelly on a toasted English muffin was one of my favorite breakfasts. When I discovered a recipe for apple cider jelly on the internet a few years ago I knew it was going to be my new favorite. I bought a gallon of fresh pressed cider and got to work. It took me several tries to get apple cider jelly right, and we ate a lot of ice cream with apple cider topping (code for jelly that didn’t set up). Apple jelly from the crab apples on my ancient tree was much easier. I couldn’t figure it out.

A neighbor came to pick apples and we talked about my apple cider jelly problem compared to the simple, dependable apple jelly. “Do you simmer peels in the pot,” she asked? I didn’t. I learned that day that there’s a lot of pectin in apple peels. I peel two apples, simmer the peeling in the cider, and remove the peels before pouring the jelly into jars. Problem solved.

apple cider jelly, recipe, hot water bath

Waiting for the jelly to come to a boil

Apple Cider Jelly Recipe

4 cups apple cider of good quality
3 cups sugar
2 oz pectin
Peelings from two medium apples
(Optional) 1-2 teaspoons apple pie spice or a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom

Add the peels to the cider at the start.

Mix spices into sugar if you’re going to make spiced apple cider jelly.

Methods of making jelly and jam vary between brands of pectin. Follow the directions provided in your pectin. Remove peels before pouring the jelly into jars.

apple cider jelly, recipe, hot water bath

Hot water bath

Preserving with Pomona's PectinOld school canning told us to fill the jars, cover the jelly with paraffin wax and allow to cool before adding a cover. Another formerly accepted method didn’t use paraffin. We tightened the jar lid and turned the jars upside down until they sealed. We know now that these aren’t the best methods. You’ll find great information including how to hot water bath your jelly in Preserving With Pomona’s Pectin by Allison Carroll Duffy.

apple cider jelly recipe

Apple cider jelly

A homemade biscuit or English muffin with a pat of homemade butter and jelly or jam is one of my favorite breakfasts in winter.

Time Management Tips for the Homestead

I love reader questions. Did you know that? I love to open a reader’s email and see what they have to say. I’m going to answer a question here.

“You talk about having a lot to do this time of year but you haven’t told us everything you do. What do you do and how do you fit it all in?” ~Rhonda

Raspberries freeze well

Raspberries freeze well

This time of year feels like it’s busier than others but in reality, I’m probably feeling more rushed. Homesteading can be a full time job and if you’re already working a job, it can be stressful.

The first killing frost is hanging over our heads any time after the first week of September. It might be early or it might not happen until October. The first frost could come early and then we’ll be frost free for weeks. It’s too late for the tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and other warm season crops once they’ve been frost killed no matter how good the weather is after so there’s the rush to force the plants to produce.

The late raspberries are ripening and the wild blackberries are still going gangbusters. Making jam and jelly is simple but it’s time consuming. I have more time in the winter than right now they’re being frozen in a single layer on cookie sheets. I don’t think these berries make the best jam after they’ve been frozen but freezing them makes it easier to make jelly. They skins burst when they’re frozen so they let go of the juice easily as they thaw.

  • Tip: Freezing strawberries saves time during the summer. You’ll make thicker jam with less pectic and sugar and have juice for jelly when the berries thaw.
Deluxe Stainless Steel Food Mill

Deluxe Stainless Steel Food Mill

Apples don’t have to be sauced, jellied, pied or otherwise put up immediately. You have at least a few weeks, and sometimes months, to get them processed. I picked a bushel of apples one day last week. They were roasted another day and then stored in the fridge. On day three I put them through the food mill (if you don’t have a food mill, you need one). I warmed the apples turned applesauce on the stove, added sugar and spices, and hot water bathed the batched. It took a little time on each of three days but I didn’t have enough time in one day to do it all. Do what you can when you can and it will come together. A little time here and there resulted in 18 pints of sauce.

Salsa Verde Ingredients

Salsa Verde Ingredients: tomatillo, Jalepeno pepper, garlic. Missing – onion and cilantro, to be pulled and picked in a few days.

  • Tip: If your tomatoes are not ripening fast enough you can push a spade into the ground around the roots to stress the plants. Cut 12 inches from the base of the plant, severing the roots. A plant’s mission in life is to reproduce. You’ll speed up ripening this way.

The garden is still producing well. Tomatoes, eggplant, tomatillos, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, kale, cabbage – just about everything is still growing. It all has to be weeded, watered when we don’t have enough rain, picked, preserved or stored – you know how it goes with the garden. This morning I picked close to a half bushel of tomatillos for salsa verde. It’s also hunting season. I can’t put hunting in the freezer so move over berries and vegetables, the tomatillos are coming in. Tomatoes can also be frozen. I like having the warmth from the oven early in the morning on a chilly day as the tomatoes or tomatillos roast. An hour or two with the oven on replaces the small, hot, quick burning fire I usually build on a late fall morning.

  • Tip: When your pumpkins and winter squash start to get soft spots, clean them up and roast them first thing in the morning, then freeze the flesh. This is usually a mid-winter project when I start checking on vegetables stored in the root cellar.

Firewood is weighing heavily on my mind these days. It was delivered late so I’m rushing to get it split and stacked to dry. Best made plans and all, I couldn’t depend on someone when it came to firewood so I was stuck with making the best of a bad situation. It happens. I’m working on eight cords of beach, ash, maple, yellow birch and white birch. The hydraulic splitter makes the work a lot easier but it’s still not an easy job on a hot, late summer day.

  • Tip: Secure next year’s firewood supply now and ask that it be delivered in spring. We burn up to six cords a year. I buy eight cords a year which means we a year “off” now and then without the expense and work, and won’t run out of wood.

Pigs, ducks and chickens are growing out back. They’re turning grass, insects, weeds, food scraps and a few commercial pellets into meat that will feed my family. Portable fences and chicken tractors need to be moved daily. Two people moving fencing takes me a third of the time it takes when I have to do it alone. Ask for help.

When did the paint start peeling off the hen house? I swear it was fine yesterday. Or I was too busy to notice. I’m not sure it’s going to get painted before the snow flies. If there are a few extra dollars I might hire someone to do it for me. It would take someone who likes to paint less than a day to do it. It takes me more than a day to fumble through scraping and painting. We can’t always do it all. Remember when you first started to daydream of homesteading? It was so idyllic. You’d spend days outdoors in the beautiful weather doing your chores? The mosquitoes weren’t part of my daydream. Neither was heat rash. Rainy days would be spent inside, cooking and ready. Painting the hen house was not in my day dream.

  • Tip: Neighborhood kids are often willing to do some work if you pay fairly, and you might be surprised at how well they work. I pay by the job rather than the hour. I don’t want to pay for the time they spend taking selfies and texting.

Plan to use the oven early in the morning or later in the day to warm up the house. It can do its work while you’re doing something else.

  • Tip: The final muck out of stalls and pens doesn’t have to happen when the animals leave for slaughter. Give your attention to the work that must be done at time and get to the stalls, pens and the hen house before the ground freezes and you’ll be all set.

Do you have a time management tip to share? Please leave them in comments!

Sheller and Pitter and Shredder – Oh My!

These three items are featured in this week’s newsletter. Sheller and Pitter and Shredder – Oh my! Have we got what you need for mass food production!

Mr. Pea Sheller

Mr. Pea Sheller will shell your peas and beans. It’s fast, safe to use and built to last.

Cherry Stoner, Jr

Cherry Stoner, Jr makes quick work of stoning cherries by nearly effortlessly removing the stones from up to five cherries at a time. There’s no need to be careful to load the cherries just right, the Cherry Stoner, Jr can handle it.

Deluxe Cabbage Shredder

The Deluxe Cabbage Shredder is great for church suppers, sports clubs, restaurants and diners and other folks who make large batches of coleslaw, kimchi or sauerkraut. Cooperatives and groups of friends might get together to buy the Deluxe Cabbage Shredder to share.

Coleslaw Recipe

The sauce for coleslaw is key to making the best slaw possible. This recipe is easy to remember when you’re in the middle of cooking for a big dinner.

1 part vinegar
2 parts sugar
4 parts mayonnaise

Every cup of mayo gets a half cup of sugar and a quarter-cup of vinegar. That’s it. Mix it up, pour it over shredded cabbage and carrots and you’re done.

One cup of mayo will coat one to two pounds of cabbage depending on how creamy you like  your slaw.