Strawberries Home-Grown & Strawberries Farm-toxic

I used to walk past a strawberry farm on my way to middle school, just around the corner from my parents' house. I grew up in Garden Grove, a town in Orange County (but definitely not The OC land), where a Strawberry Festival is held every year.

Despite the strawberry farms I grew up around, I hadn't thought of strawberries as a plant for the garden, at least not until I saw an episode of Jamie At Home focused on them. My friend Mary Rose grew Alpine strawberries in her container garden last year and, a few months ago, gave me a plant that grew from runners. (Man, plants are so magical.)

I planted the little guy in my garden, and after a couple of weeks of hand-wringing that it might die, it began to grow new leaves and send off blossoms. Even though I grew up near strawberry farms, I didn't know that they sent up such pretty little white flowers. I suppose I hadn't paid much attention or thought to pay attention.

Eating Fat Doesn't Make You Fat

"...Eating too much makes you fat!" - Common sense from Michael Ruhlman in his TEDxCLE talk (below).

Ruhlman discusses the importance of cooking in this TED Talk organized independently in Cleveland. I liked that when he talked about it shaping division of labor between men/women, he added "for better or worse"-- mindfulness of possible problems with gender binaries is a plus.

"When you buy crappy food that's been cooked for you in a factory, you're asking for more of it. When you buy good food, food you need to cook, you're asking for more of it."


Voting with your dollars is not a new concept-- the old rule of supply and demand. More people want to buy hybrid cars? More companies start manufacturing hybrid cars. More people want to buy organic food? Wal*Mart, of all places, starts to sell organic groceries. (Though "organic" is a totally loaded term.) More people want to shop at farmers markets? More farmers markets are organized in our communities.


Prioritizing cooking is not easy. Being able to afford organic or locally-grown groceries is not easy. But in this time when we have to worry so much about health care, isn't eating well part and parcel for health? To ignore the link between health problems and the amount of fast food, sugary soft drinks, and salty snacks we consume is egregious negligence.

The old adage "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" comes to mind. Would I rather spend time and money now on real, good food, or would I rather spend it later on hypertension meds or insulin shots? When I think of it that way, the extra time and money doesn't feel quite so inconvenient.