common thread carrots versus baby carrots

Farm:

Today was SO BEAUTIFUL. The warm, sunny weather reminded me why I enjoy my Thursday mornings at the farm. I started out the morning with Mary Charles and Amy, harvesting escarole and feeding the chickens. It was very peaceful and we chatted about our weekends while we worked. No chicken sex this morning, but I did get to hold a bunch of fresh brown eggs that they laid. Afterwards, we reconvened with the group and did a ton of random cleaning and lifting, bringing veggies into the cooler or up to the farm shop. Then we grabbed some squash from the greenhouse. We spent the last hour harvesting carrots.

The carrot harvesting was interesting for me because I realized how much I resent laziness. I was grouped with two others on one end of a row, and the person who was forking the soil so that we could pull up the carrots was doing it slower than a toddler could have. They kept gossiping and NOT working to the point that I said something, and they said that this was a social activity. I got frustrated and proceeded to take the fork and be a soil-loosener for the whole hour. I couldn't deal with the unnecessarily slow pace, especially when Amy, who is very pregnant, was moving three times as fast as we were. I love to talk more than anyone I know, but I can do two things at once and just feel like while we are on the farm, especially when its SO NIC

E out, we should be working pretty hard.

After we forked the whole field, I helped pick the carrots which was a lot of fun. I just felt very "farmer" sitting on the ground, hands caked in soil, digging carrots from the earth, while Boon (dog) munched on a carrot a few feet away.

To refer to the title of this post, I was talking to Amy about food and somehow baby carrots came up. She HATES them, saying that its creepy how a machine takes a carrot and turns it into this little weirdly textured unnaturally shaped baby carrot. I never thought

about quite how baby carrots are really made, but I only eat baby carrots because they come all washed and bite size and are very easy to deal with.

So I read this article: http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2004-08-11-baby-carrot_x.htm and learned that baby carrots are created from ugly carrots and currently make up 1/3 of sales in the fresh carrot market. Another person wrote about baby carrots and decided that "The success of baby carrots speaks to two things about American culture that sort of bug me: 1. The desire

for food that is uniform in appearance and taste. 2. The desire for food to be sterile, already prepared and washed, and packaged for quick, mindless eating

." Well... true. She also support her argument with the points that baby carrots do not taste

like real carrots, are more expensive, and waste food. Her article can be found at:

http://www.wisebread.com/baby-carrots-the-frugal-idea-that-isnt

I don't think I have been convinced to switch my carrot preferences, but I promise I will buy a REAL carrot next time I go to price chopper. Happy Amy?

Oh and by the way, Amy's carrots, while delicious, are often ugly carrots. Also, when I google-imaged "ugly carrot," a rather unattractive red-headed male was the 2nd picture.

(example of a Common Thread carrot)

Food:

I have been TRYING to eat healthier and I'm doing okay I think. I COOKED myself an omelet yesterday with mushrooms, tomatoes, broccoli, and cheese. It was delicious but looked kind of disgusting (I guess I have to learn presentation). Today I had half a protein bar for breakfast, a lean cuisine which was some Asian dish with noodles, edamame, and chicken for lunch, and stir fry for dinner (more noodles and chicken but also carrots and baby corn and broccoli. I have also eaten a little trail mix nuts thing, two sugar-free fudgsicles, a medium sugar-free vanilla latte, and a biscotti. Not too bad considering I ran 3 miles and worked on the farm for 3 hours.

That is all for now.

-Jenna

BOSTON and Sorry I've been MIA

This post is loooonngg overdue. First I had the swine flu, and then I took off for my fall break without blogging about the farm last week. So here is an EXTRA long post to make up for my EXTRA long absence from this journal.

Food:

First I would like to talk about what I ate YESTERDAY because since I ate so much yesterday I didn't eat that much today- making today's menu rather boring. I don't think that I compensate for overeating one day by undereating the next, but I do find that after a day of major eating I am less hungry.

Yesterday I was in Boston visiting my sister at Northeastern University. For breakfast, I had the pleasure of dining in her freshman dining hall. I forgot how irresistible free, unlimited food can be- even if it isn't all that tasty. I had some pasta in cream sauce with chicken, popcorn chicken, a salad, and an apple. I also took a piece of pizza

but it was too disgusting to consume. Being in the dining hall reminded me of how terrible I am with self-control around so much food. I also think the atmosphere of the dining hall- rushed and crowded- makes for poor eating decision-making.

For lunch I stopped at a rest stop with my car of Colgaters and got two grilled chicken snack wraps from McDonalds and a large coffee. I generally HATE McDonalds but it was slim pickings at the rest stop and I was afraid of falling asleep at the wheel so I just wanted some energy.

When I got back to school, I ate an energy bar and

decided to call it a night with food because I had been treating my body like a wasteland all day. Yet the night was not over for me: some of my sorority sisters called to invite me over for a dinner of homemade mac and cheese. I could not resist and ended up gorging on delicious macaroni and cheese, Caesar salad, and red wine.

Macaroni and cheese is a special food for me. It was one of the staples of my diet both as a child and freshman year when my roommate and I would covet our late-night gossip sessions with easymac. It therefore has associations of home, friendship, and just general deliciousness. Red wine is also one of my favorite social drinks. I began drinking it in Florence when I studied there last Spring and it is one of those things that is best enjoyed with good food and good company.

In other food news, being in Boston this weekend made a variety of great foods available. One night I ate at a fairly expensive restaurant on Tremont with some friends and tried Barramundi- which is a type of fish. One thing that I love about my Blackberry is that I no longer need to feel uneducated when reading fancy menus- I simply wikipedia "Barramundi" and learn that it is a river fish, hermaphroditic, and an iconic table fish in Australia. I stayed on the other side of the globe for my dinner on Sunday night, meeting up with my good friend from home Allie to enjoy some amazing Thai food. Thai food might be my favorite cuisine ever- mostly because it employs peanuts in almost everything.

This is a barramundi:

I went to Price Chopper today and bought some foods that actually involve preparation because I want to learn to cook. I bought chicken, stir-fry things, shrimp, turkey, and ingredients for omelets- we will see how much of this stuff I utilize before it goes bad.

Farm:

The farm was COLD this week, but luckily my parents came up last weekend and brought me some warmer farm clothes. I spent the beginning of the morning with Mary-Charles and Amy collecting a variety of green leafy veggies and feeding the chickens. We got to witness some lovely morning chicken copulation and create laying areas for the hens. We then spent a lot of time doing non-harvesting-work, which shows how much of the farm labor is not always pulling food out of the ground. We carried some crates of food to the farms-shop upstairs and also spend a decent amount of time removing the black garbage-bag-like tarp from the fields. There are about 7 huge 4 foot wide and god-knows-how-long strips of black tarp which were used for the watermelons because watermelon generally does not grow in such a cold climate. The black tarp was put a little under the soil to help it retain heat and stay warm for the watermelons and was really frustrating to try and pull up.

I will write a LOT Thursday to make up for my lack of posting. I am on a diet/exercise routine which started today because I have formal on Saturday and need to fit in a dress, so hopefully my eating will stay healthy!

-Jenna

brussel sprouts and deep fried macaroni and cheese nuggets

I'm eating peanut m&ms right now. Technically not the most healthy thing to enjoy, but they ARE pink and going towards Breast Cancer awareness so does that counteract the chocolate-processed goodness that is rotting my body? maybe...

So now I apparently have a few followers of this blog- wahoo. Prof. Henke wants me to talk more about the details of my farm experience and food, so don't mind the change of pace...

FARM: Today was COLD and RAINY and therefore not so much that pretty picture of idealized farming that we all have grown accustomed to. We started out by cleaning out a bunch of lugs with freezing cold water and then harvested some brussel sprouts- another vegetable I've never eaten or seen live. Celeriac is still the ugliest, but brussel sprouts are pretty freaking weird looking...

After the brussel sprouts, we grabbed some squash from the greenhouse, cleaned up a bunch of cabbage, and then picked some more celeriac. The celeriac was disgusting today because the soil was so wet... when you yanked one of the ugly thinks up it had pounds of cold wet soil with worms all over it which was near impossible to chop off. I felt like Armanzo from our Farmer Boy book, bearing the terrible cold weather (40degrees I'm pathetic) to dutifully complete my job.

We spent the last hour gossiping and doing the onions in the warm greenhouse, which was much appreciated after the cold. I know I've mentioned it before and now its awkward because Amy reads this, but I just LOVE her and Chris and how alternative/hippie they are. I can just see their little kid frolicking around the farm in cloth diapers, picking flowers and chasing chickens. I know we have a tendency to idealize farm life but I definitely think there is something to be said for being an outdoors kid- something I definitely was not.

FOOD: I always WANT to eat healthy- honest. I start out each day ready for my new healthy lifestyle. Every summer I go on a health kick, exercising and eating right... and every school year by mid-September I'm back to my lazy academic self.

So today is brought to you by the vegetable CORN! We just learned in the movie King Corn about how everything we eat is corn and how disgusting it all is... the "unhealthiest crap on earth" is feed corn which is produced in excess in the US and used to feed much of the livestock which we then consume and to create high fructose corn syrup which is in practically everything. I don't eat red meat and TRY to eat fairly healthy so I figured I probably wouldn't have TOO much corn in one day of my life right? WRONG:

For BREAKFAST I had a ZONE breakfast bar... I'm going to grab one now for nutritional facts: OK- so its chocolate peanut butter, 210 calories, 7g fat, 24g carbs, and 14g protein. 1st ingredient is soy protein nuggets- wtf is that? OK- soy protein nuggets are "soy protein isolate, tapioca starch, and salt" so thats not so bad... the next ingredient is peanut butter fudge which is corn syrup and a bunch of other weird things that are hard to say. Corn syrup also has its own spot on the ingredients list after the chocolate flavored coating. I also had two gummy vitamins which were the greatest creation ever because finally at the ripe age of 21 I am capable of remembering to take my vitamins.

LUNCH: For lunch I had turkey chili from Trader Joe's with a piece of a whole wheat pita and Parmesan and Romano KRAFT cheese on top. Turkey Chili facts: 230 calories, 3g fat, 30g carbs, and 21g protein. The ingredients are pretty good (meaning its comprised of foods that are real and not chemicals)... "water, dark turkey meat, beans, dehydrated onions, tomato paste, green chili puree, dehydrated bell peppers... until close to the end where we have modified corn starch. The wrap HAS NO CORN (yayyyy), 120 cals and some other stuff... and the cheese also looks clean.

DINNER: Life goes downhill... I got a side salad and soup from the COOP so we have NO IDEA whats in that stuff... side salad has a little ranch dressing on top which probably has high fructose corn syrup, soup was barley and mushroom. THEN I ate two of my roommates fried macaroni and cheese nuggets which were probably the most disgusting thing ever, but in that tempting way- like how McDonald's food is disgusting. THEN I ate like 39282098 peanut m&ms as mentioned earlier. And if you check the time of this entry... its only 6:20pm right now so I'm sure I'll end up snacking on something later tonight...

^DISGUSTING RIGHT?

Throughout the day I drank a lot of water- I find that no matter how disgusting my diet, the secret to feeling healthy is to drink a TON of water at all times so I try to drink at LEAST two liters a day.

So that was my food. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governator, is on TV so I'm going to laugh for a while and watch this. Thanks for reading!

Jenna