Eating Organic: Best tasting food we've ever eaten

My family has been eating organic beef and chicken for some time now.  A few months after we moved into our new house in 2009, we started purchasing all our beef, chicken and some seafood from a local distributor who brings the individually packaged and organic items to our home every couple of weeks.  

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Every once in a while, the "Meat Guy" as we call him (his real name is Ron) doesn't stop by and I have to go buy grocery store chicken and it is so rubbery and strange tasting to us now.  I'd rather not eat if we don't have our Meat Guy chicken. 

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Recently, I discovered an organic farm fairly close to us that sells not only organic meats, but veggies and all kinds of other fun things.  I try to visit weekly but it's sometimes difficult due to the distance but it's well worth it.  I took a tour a couple months ago and found that this farm grows 60-75% of what it sells.  And what it doesn't grow comes from 100% organic farms.  And I mean the TRUE organic....not the organic that sells on the boxes at Publix or Whole Foods. 

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*Just because it says organic doesn't really necessarily mean it's 100% organic if the full sense of the word.  Also be sure to not confuse "natural" "free range" and "cage free" with organic.  Being one doesn't automatically make them them the other.*  Look it up on the Internet.

Some articles say that eating organic isn't necessarily healthier. Fine, I'll give you that in vitamins and minerals. But one thing is for sure, we're not eating harmful pesticides and fungicides and we're definitely not eating a bunch of added hormones. Lallie will certainly be flat chested going into elementary school.....as it should be!



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Moving on....the food is absolutely amazing.  Even Lallie eats her veggies without complaint (yes, even the "little trees" a/k/a broccoli).  I don't yet know if it's a mental thing or if the food truly is that much more tasty.  Whatever it is, the prices are very comparable to even those of Walmart and the produce is one hundred times better!  We've added more spinach, broccoli and kale to our diets.  The potatoes are sweeter than I've ever tasted.  The strawberries barely make it through the door before they're eaten in entirety and the veggie chips are Lallie's favorite new snack (made at the farm).  I even use their organic made olive oil and their locally produced eggs (the yolks are the size of your palm!). 



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I'd love to try their bee pollen.  Bee pollen you might say?  Yep, here are some of the benefits:

• Holds of aging
• Increases libido in men and women
• Increases energy
• Is anti-carcinogenic
• Helps promote weight loss and increased metabolism
• Apparently you could live of bee pollen as it has every enzyme, vitamin and mineral you could possibly imagine!

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I'm also wanting to pick up some wheatgrass which aids in lowering blood pressure, increases metabolism and can help with many issues of the GI tract (ever wonder why dogs eat grass when they're stomachs are upset....(*light bulb!*).  

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Wheatgrass, interestingly, also has soothing oils for sunburns, itches and cuts, it increases fertility and sweetens your breath.  It can even reverse grey hairs when ingested regularly and can help with sleep just from sitting a pot next to your bed!  Amazing stuff! 

Kale and Arugula (Via)

Anyways....I'm sold.  Clearly.  And so far, my family is as well.  I'm not only becoming more educated but we're eating better in the process!  Yesterday I was at the grocery store and except for bread....I didn't even shop the center aisles (which is what they say to avoid when you're trying to eat healthy as all the processed foods are in the center aisles). 



Do y'all eat organic foods?  Tell me about your experience.  I'd love to start and chat and hear what you have to say! 

Happy Friday Y'all!





Farm Food and Lightening Bugs

Do I really need to say anything about this picture?  I guess if you live up north and are privy to tomatoes like this, then I guess you're not too surprised.  But in most of Florida, tomatoes that are so red, so ripe, so juicy, so sweet, so NOT mealy, so absolutely wonderful are a very rare thing.  We can barely grow them and the tomatoes at the stores and food markets are just substandard, not sure why.  The only half way decent ones are the ones Husband grew this past year. 

Love those fresh Kentucky home-grown tomatoes!

Paired with some Ale 8, Aunt Patricia's zucchini bread and canned peppers....can we say "yum"?

Of course, we devoured the homemade apple pies (crust and all) so quick that I didn't get a picture.  Over the course of four days, we consumed three pies.  Never did get to the gooseberry cobbler.  They'll be waiting for me at Thanksgiving.

AND the reason I will never eat canned tomato soup again?  Homemade from home-grown veggies, this tomato soup is the most amazing soup ever. 

Husband and I are going to attempt (hopefully this weekend) to make this soup.  I just need to locate a 1/2 bushel of decent tomatoes.  This could be a challenge.

Paired with a grilled cheese sandwich (LOADED with real butter), nothing says comfort food more than this!

We also had fresh picked corn.  Grandaddy and Lallie went and picked it for us.

Then they shucked the corn for us.

Then the shucks were fed to Misty, Lizzy and Clem.

All this food reminds me of my childhood on my Grandma's farm.  We always had fresh veggies and fresh eggs from the chicken coop. It was always so mcuh fun for us kids to go get the eggs for breakfast though the chickens didn't like us terrorizing them that much.  We also had fresh beans and corn and we loved eating the seeds from the sunflowers Grandma always had growing in her garden.  There are some mornings I wake up here and the lighting and smells remind me of those days. 

It also takes me back to those same days when the adults of the family would work in the fields during the September and October corn harvest while Grandma cooked.  My cousins and I would play "catch the (wild) cats" for hours, rarely ever catching one and playing down by the old railroad tracks (that had been removed), looking for old train relics.  We thought finding a track stake was the neatest thing on earth.  Every once in a while, we also ran across and Indian arrowhead.  But, if we ever ventured into the corn, Grandma would punish us by making us wash her walls.  Those were the days!

Back to the present....

After we'd risen back from our comatose food state, we ventured outside for Lallie's first lightening bug hunt.  Our adult eyes must be getting old.  I don't remember having that much trouble catching them when I was a kid on my Grandma's farm (and neither did Daddy or Granny).  We would stand right in front of them, see them light up and then instantly lose them.  We couldn't see them anywhere!  Lallie of course yelled, "there's one" every single time one lit up!  She was so excited.  This picture is dark, but it was actually still somewhat light out.

Daddy's eyes were sharper than the rest of us.

Getting ready to take her new bugs to bed for the night.

That's a wrap up of our weekend in Kentucky!

Happy Thursday Y'all!