Mindful Eats

Local Winter Seasonal Foods

Paffenroth Farms stand at Union Square Greenmarket, NYC, 1/30/10

Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. ~Henry David Thoreau

MindfulEats is celebrating our first year anniversary, and we are very grateful to have you with us. We were founded last January during a particularly inspirational time - New Year Resolutions were swirling, Obama had just been inaugurated and the Steelers were on the way to the Super Bowl. 

It was also the middle of winter, and food choices were more limited than during the summer. Root vegetables dominated over fruit. If you haven't noticed a difference, you probably live in a warm and sunny area. Those of us in cold, wintry climates are fortunate that we can take advantage of delicious seasonal specialties. The interest in local foods seem to be increasing (yay!) and we've recently fielded several questions on what's in season - so Bill, Jon and Kaitlyn, this post is for you.  

It's possible to deny winter with food that's been shipped from warmer areas, but that stuff isn't great. It was picked days before it had a chance to ripen naturally, and it's been sitting around for a while. It also cost a lot of carbon to ship. Use it as a supplement to the bonanza of hearty winter foods easily available: cabbage, potatoes, turnips, parsnips, brussel sprouts, dried beans, eggs, meat. There may not be as wide a selection as the summer, but this is definitely a season to take advantage of. (And do it while you can - the winter season is short!) Eating seasonally provides you with:

• Food that makes sense. It's cold out there, and filling your tummy with roasted sweet potatoes and a heart-warming stew or cassoulet makes more sense than eating a tomato and mozzarella sandwich with strawberries. You'll be in sync with nature!
• Cheaper and tastier food. Produce that's in season and local tastes better. Parsnips and turnips in the NYC greenmarket are $1 a pound. That's a lot less than the small bundles of spinach from California.

The hardest thing about adding seasonal foods is knowing what's in season, so:

What to do - Eat Seasonally (and Locally)

1. Bundle up and go to the farmer's market. The selection is more sparse than during the summer, but you'll quickly see what's in season and you'll be able to buy the freshest. Besides, this is when your local farmers need the most support. They get a lot less traffic and they're cold too.
2. Use this great site from Natural Resources Defense Council and check out what's in season.
3. Learn how to cook root vegetables and meat. Most any winter food can be roasted or turned into stew. Your slow cooker is perfect for this season, and we roast veggies at least once a week.
4. If you're in the NYC or SF area, buy this clever and beautifully illustrated Local Foods Wheel from Chelsea Green to always see what's in season. It makes a great gift too! It was our favorite item in a gift bag.

What I ate: City Bakery hot chocolate shot, 1 cup plain yogurt + 1T Sarabeth's peach-strawberry jam + flaxseeds, 1 cup McCann's steel-cut oatmeal + dried cranberries + ground flax seeds, cheddar cheese, macadamia nuts, 1 grapefruit, 1 large latte, 1 cup tea, Trader Joe's dried mangos, Tazo white apricot tea, whole wheat fusilli, roasted eggplant + portobello mushrooms + parsnips + turnips, hot chocolate, New Chapter multivitamin, water

Exercise: 30 min run, 60 min yoga

Slow Cooker Pork, Turnip and Collard Green Stew

Pork, turnip, collard green and carrot stew

Some of the world’s greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible. ~Doug Larson

So after all that prattle about the pork shoulder, here's the recipe for the slow-cooker stew. It was delicious - I think this is a recipe for two, but I ended up eating the whole thing myself.

Slow-Cooked Pork, Turnip and Collard Green Stew

Serves 2

1 lb. pork shoulder
5-6 small turnips
5 collard greens
2 small parsnips
1 stalk of celery
1 carrot
1 cup whole wheat fusilli (but you can use any grain you like)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 shakes Worcester sauce
water
any other vegetable you like - onions, potatoes, etc.

1. Chop the turnips, parsnips, celery and carrots into bite sized soup pieces. Turnips should be small (2 inches or less) and heavy.
2. Strip the collard green stems off the leaves and slice leaves into strips. (collard stems can be saved for vegetable juice)
3. Put all the vegetables into the slow cooker.
4. Add the pork shoulder. I had to chop mine off the bone since it didn't fit, but the original plan was to just pop it into the slow cooker without any hassle.
5. Add in 2 soy sauce and a couple shakes of Worcester sauce.
6. Add enough water to cover the vegetables plus another 2-3 inches. Unless the water is 3/4 inches from the top of the cooker. If so, only fill it until it's 3/4 inch from the top.
7. Turn cooker on low. Let cook for 8+ hours.
8. When you're ready to eat, cook the pasta separately. If you have pre-cooked grains, add them in at the end. Do NOT cook grains for hours in the slow cooker- they get overcooked, clumpy and gross.
9. Skim off fat as necessary.
10. Spoon stew over pasta and enjoy!

What I ate: vegetable juice, 1/2 c. kefir, bread, mixed greens + cranberries + blue cheese + pistachios + grape salad, Cosi bread, 2 coffees, 6 squares dark chocolate, 1 apple, 1 oz. Simply Naked Pita Chips, 10 Downing: tiny salmon amuse bosche, celery root soup + creme fraiche, braised short ribs, 1 slice bread, chocolate panne cotta, lemon granita, 1 green tea, 45 oz. water

Exercise: 30 min lifting

Butchering a Pork Shoulder

Wares from Flying Pigs Farm, Union Square Greenmarket  

I can't believe that God put us on this earth to be ordinary. ~Lou Holtz

I try to be mindful and grateful about the meal on my plate. A lot of effort and carbon went into growing and transporting it, and lives were given up for it, sometimes animal. I even wrote a post about appreciating food. But after butchering a pork shoulder and some winter vegetables for an upcoming slow cooker recipe, I hit a whole new level of food gratitude.

This was the second time I'd made a meat dish in the 8 months since I started eating meat again. In love with my slow-cooker, and hearing multiple stories about how perfect it is for meat, I went to the farmer's market in search of something to braise. After a discussion with a guy at Flying Pigs Farm, I went home with a pork shoulder. My only criteria was simplicity. I wanted to pop the meat in the slow cooker with veggies and flip a button - no roasting or prepping of any type beforehand. He promised the shoulder would fit the bill.

The pork shoulder might have been perfect - but it was a tad too big for my small crockpot. So I started to chop it up. Chopping into the shoulder was entirely different from browning grass-fed ground beef, the other meat that I had made.

The last biology class I had taken was in high school (a very long time ago), and this kitchen exercise reminded me of it. As I cut into the pork shoulder, I called a lifeline to determine whether the skin was edible (he didn't know either. If you do, please let me know.) The skin had small bits of hair on it, and I was pretty sure I didn't want to eat hair so I discarded the skin. Underneath the skin were layers I vaguely remembered from class - fat, membrane, muscle, and bone. And blood. The shoulder had that cool rolling joint in it - I imagine it looks exactly like my shoulder. For the first time, I realized why people get expensive knives. My knife wasn't quite sharp enough for the job, so it took me nearly an hour to cut off the necessary bits. 

The whole operation left my soft, citified, restaurant-eating self pretty squeamish and grossed out. I lost my appetite. I'm sure I did just about everything wrong, but as I was unhappily butchering the shoulder, I felt a real connection with my food and a very strong appreciation of the stew I was preparing. When I finished with the shoulder and starting peeling turnips, even the butchering of the vegetables made me nauseous - my appreciation extended to everything that went into the stew. It's a connection that the traditional hunters and farmers are closer to (or for completely non-country folk, the same appreciation that the blue Avatar people have when they hunt).

The stew ended up being delicious. Getting my hands "dirty" gave me a connection that I just don't have when food shows up beautifully plated at restaurants, or when it's precut and ready to pop into the pan. You gotta eat, and getting down with the pork shoulder helped eliminate the distance that is so common in today's food chain. I'm not going to butcher another cut of meat tomorrow, but I will at some point. And in the meantime, I have a whole new respect for everything that crosses my plate.

What I ate: 1 grapefruit, macadamia nuts, 2 cups coffee, 1 latte, cheddar cheese, sushi + salad, 10 wasabi nuts, 1 orange, baby carrots, Heavenly Hummus, Minetta Tavern: steelhead salmon, cabbage + mushrooms + beans, whole wheat spaghetti + Rao's Siciliana, 40 oz. water

Exercise: 30 min stationary bike, 30 minutes lifting

Cold Weather Exercise

Everyone is a house with four rooms - a physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time. However, if we don't go into every room, every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person. ~Indian axiom

Some people seem to think winter is a reason to hunker down and stop exercising. We've even heard that it's impossible to exercise in the cold. Let's debunk the myth immediately - turn on the television and check out all the football players wearing short sleeves in the snow. Then think about all the skiers. Exercising in the cold is not going to kill you! Some people even prefer it - we'd take winter running over summer running any day of the year. One benefit of winter running is that we actually run faster (to warm up).

Get up and get out!  Life doesn't stop for weather. You don't want your blood to congeal in your veins, do you? You might need to bundle up a little more, but go for your regular walks. Things look different in the cold - check out the winter light and admire the bare silhouettes of trees without leaves. You might feel chilled at first, but your body will definitely warm up and what felt like not enough clothing might feel like too much - dress in layers. 

What to do - Exercise in the Winter

1. Keep your routine going. If you're a morning or evening exerciser, don't change it for the weather.
2. Motivate. If the idea of getting outside makes you cringe, make it easier on yourself. Lay your clothes out early so you don't have to spend time looking for them. Find a friend to go with. Think about how good the hot chocolate and hot shower will be when you get back.
3. Layer up. You'll get better at figuring out what works for you at certain temperatures. For us, this simple formula works for running (in degrees Fahrenheit):
   • 50+: shorts and short sleeves
   • 40+: running tights, long sleeves (+ a running vest it it's low 40's), and a hat
   • 30+: running tights, long sleeves, a fleece, warm hat and gloves
   • 20's and below: running tights, sweatpants, t-shirt, long sleeves, a fleece, fleece hat and gloves
4. Have fun! Remember how you used to be able to play for hours in the snow? This is your chance to relive that joy.

Get out and get your cheeks flushed. You'll look and feel great! Here's another take on cold weather running by Food-Fitness-Fresh Air. 

What I ate: 1 grapefruit, macadamia nuts, 1 latte, fancy tea: 1.5 pots of tropical green tea, 1/4 egg, 1/4 cucumber, 1/4 watercress, 1/4 turkey sandwiches, 1 can Progresso Chicken + Wild Rice soup, baby carrots, hummus, 40 oz. water

Exercise: 6 mile run, 20 minutes lifting

Hassle-Free Healthy Meal: Slow Cooker/Crockpot

Collard green and turnip soup

My parents gave me a slow cooker for Christmas last year. I thought it was an odd gift, but I sweetly thanked them and took it home. Then I took the slow cooker out of the box and fell in love. 

The thing is magic! You load it up, add water, turn it on, and when you come home 9+ hours later on a frigid night so hungry you could eat your dog, the warm smell of love hits you as you walk through the door. It's the only way a working stiff like me can come home to a delicious smelling dinner. And the only effort required is chopping and flipping a switch. Magic. Parents (often) do know best.

The magic isn't limited to meals - the slow cooker is great way to prepare slow foods like dried beans and lentils, or carrots on their way to being pureed. 

Slow cookers are especially perfect during the winter. They're great for soups, chili and stews. I also understand they are great for braised meat (next on my list of things to try), but the most frequent meal in my slow-cooker is a turnip collard green soup.

In addition to slow cookers, there are a few other ways to cook healthy and fast.

Turnip and Collard Green Soup

Serves 2

5-6 small turnips
5 collard greens
1 stalk of celery
1 carrot
1/4 clove of garlic
 1/2 barley, quinoa, brown rice or any other grain
 water
 any other vegetable you like - onions, potatoes, etc.

1. Chop the turnips, celery and carrots into bite sized soup pieces. Turnips should be small (2 inches or less) and heavy.
2. Strip the collard green stems off the leaves and slice leaves into strips. (collard stems can be saved for vegetable juice)
3. Put all the vegetables into the slow cooker.
4. Add enough water to cover the vegetables plus another 2-3 inches. Unless the water is 3/4 inches from the top of the cooker. If so, only fill it until it's 3/4 inch from the top.
5. Turn cooker on low. Let cook for 5+ hours. I've let it cook for over 9 hours.
6. When you're ready to eat, add the grains. Leave them in for the regular cooking time. If you have pre-cooked grains, add them in at the end. Do NOT cook grains for hours - they get overcooked, clumpy and gross.

You're done! One of the easiest meals ever. Feel free to experiment - slow cooking is flexible and nearly impossible to screw up.

What I ate: vegetable juice, 1 grapefruit, 1 c. steel-cut oatmeal + flaxseeds + dried cranberries + milk, 2 scrambled eggs, macadamia nuts, 1 latte, baby carrots, hummus, 1 green tea, lobster ravioli, salami, prosciutto, 2 slices bread, cheese, hot chocolate, water

Exercise: None

What is Conventionally-Grown, Industrial Food?

Grocery shopping in Aleppo, Syria. 

Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made. ~William Dyer

Have you ever noticed that hippies, yuppies and environmental folk love farmer's markets and sustainably grown, organic food? What's up with that? Is it better for you? And why are people making such a fuss over conventional, industrially grown food? Read on for most of the answers...

If MindfulEats were to draw a bright line in the world of food, the first and most important cut would be between processed and non-processed foods. Eating non-processed food is the best thing you can do for you and those you love. But you already knew that.

The second cut would be within the non-processed food world, between 1) conventional, industrially grown food and 2) locally, sustainably grown food. 

Conventional, industrially grown food is quickly becoming the villain in movies and popular press. But like processed food, the reason it came into being wasn't to be evil - the idea was to make farming more efficient to provide more and cheaper food for everyone. Not a bad idea. It's the actual production and execution that is the problem.

To understand the issue, let's take a look at the way food has traditionally been grown. Food (plant and animal) is grown on land. Like you, land gets tired and less productive when it is worked hard and without rest (which is what farming does). Different plants take different nutrients from the soil, and leave different types of waste. The traditional farmer had to be smart about raising multiple types of crops so he didn't strip the soil of all nutrients, and leave himself with dead fields in a few years. He also had to rest plots of land so the soil could enrich itself. 

Likewise, he had to grow different animals to be efficient. Cows would graze on grass and poop in the fields. Chickens would peck through the poop for food, scattering the manure for more efficient fertilizer as they pecked. Pigs ate leftovers and rooted through fields, helping to aerate the soil and creating more poop for chickens to peck through. Farms were an ecosystem of their own, growing food for the farmer and a few others, and being carefully managed so the farm would exist for generations.

Industrialization came along and decided traditional farms were inefficient. Like factories, industrialists thought they could increase production. Instead of planting different kinds of crops, they thought they'd just plant one type (corn, for example) on a large tract and be super efficient about it. They added chemical fertilizers to make the crops grow faster, and herbicides/insecticides to reduce pests. The problem is, the chemicals and just the one crop stripped the soil of its nutrients, so even more chemicals had to be added to make the same land grow as much. This creates a huge environmental problem with all the chemicals, and lots of people don't want to eat those chemicals. It's gross. Enter the growing demand for organic, unchemically grown food.

Meat production went through the same process. Industrial farmers figured they could produce more meat if they raised mass amounts of one type of animal. So each farm focuses on one type - beef, pork, chicken, etc. To grow more meat, they jam as many animals as possible on a plot of land. This means the animals don't have room to exercise, stand around in lots of poop, and are prone to getting sick (that's what happens with poor quality food and lack of exercise). Since they are so close to each other, disease sweeps through quickly. Hello antibiotics. To counteract potential disease, 70% of the antibiotics produced in the U.S. is fed to animals, as stated by Congresswoman Louise Slaughter in her statement to the Agriculture Subcommittee. So when you eat industrial meat, you are eating sickly animals that are filled with artificial hormones and antibiotics so they will grow more quickly and not get diseased. All those drugs and waste leach into the environment and water supply, which causes a big environmental issue that will have to get cleaned up some day.

Sure, cooking helps kill the additives, but that animal you're eating is pretty sickly and unhappy. Yuck. It's bad karma. Pigs are smarter than dogs, and those industrially grown pigs get so depressed they put antidepressants in their feed along with antibiotics. If you took two kids, and raised one so that he played outdoors and ate healthy food, he'd have a good shot at being happy and hale. If you forced the other kid to spend all his time in a closet eating nothing but cereal, you'd have a kid with lots of issues. That's industrial farming.

So the theory behind industrial farming isn't a bad one, but the practice of it is terrible in terms of:

1. the environment - a massive amount of chemicals and waste is being offloaded into the environment, without any kind of replenishing
2. your health - you and your family get lots more chemicals into your food, and you eat sickly depressed animals. It hasn't been proven to be harmful yet, but do you really want to wait for that proof?

That's why people like farmer's markets - it provides a direct connection to food grown the traditional, sustainable way, as do responsible retailers and grocery stores.

What to do - Eat Sustainably

1. Eat less processed food.
2. Buy organic and locally produced food if you have the means. You're getting a bigger bang for your buck than you are when you spend your moolah on designer clothes.
3. Ask your restaurants about their food, and patronize the ones that buy responsibly.
4. Share your philosophy with others.

Want to learn more?

• Watch the movie Food, Inc.
• Read Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma
• Read Congresswoman Louise Slaughter's Statement On Agriculture Subcommittee Hearing on Animal Health, Antibiotics

For articles on SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) food, go to Food Renegade.

What I ate: macadamia nuts, large latte, 3 clementines, 1 banana, dried mangos, cheese, baby carrots, babaganoush, whole wheat spaghetti, roasted eggplant + portobello mushrooms + zucchini + yellow squash + grape tomatoes, 2 cups hot chocolate, water

Exercise: 90 min. vinyassa yoga, 30 min. lifting