Three Women Document their Bike Adventure of Sustainable Ag Projects

Liz, Kat and Lara, three women from Washington, D.C. biked 2,000 miles last year to tour community agricultural projects from Washington, D.C. to Montreal, Canada. They carried video equipment with them and the footage has turned into a low budget documentary. Here’s a preview:

An article in the Washington Post today reported on their journey and upcoming film release:

In the course of their three-month odyssey, the women found a community garden in the gutted ghettos of Baltimore, were run off the road by a truck in New Jersey, abandoned efforts to cycle across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York and got hopelessly lost in New England towns. They slept in the gardens of strangers, discovered new ethnic food and recipes and cemented their desire to change the world by growing vegetables.

Yay for bike adventure! Yay for community garden projects!

Find Your Local Farmer’s Market

When people begin consciously eating, i.e. local and organic or growing their own food, the primary reason is usually a self-serving one, to not ingest pesticides. While this is true and undoubtedly a great reason to eat organic food from your local farmers, the real benefits are actually far more selfless, watersheds (and local water supplies) are spared from farm chemical runoff, use of oil to manufacture and ship seeds, pesticides and fertilizers is spared, conditions for farmworkers are healthier and the surrounding environment for animals is preserved. From GardenMandy, Real Reasons Why We Should Buy From Local Farmers:

Some people say the key to freedom is empowerment and self-sufficiency. Not everyone agrees, but most people who are concerned about the environment at all see that there really is a need for people to buy and use food from local growers.

No matter your reason for making this lifestyle choice, the first step is to find your local farmers market so you can talk with the farmers themselves. You can find your local farmer’s market using this handy map Farmer’s Market Search tool at culinate.com. You simply type in your city and a Google map appears highlighting all the regional farmer’s markets. Click on them to get information about when they are open during the week and what seasons.

Find Your Farmer's Market at culinate.com/mix

DIY Tempeh – Try This at Home

inner-tempeh homemade by Renae

I was making a tempeh stir-fry with some garden veggies and wondering if I could make my own homemade tempeh to compliment my home-grown veggies and herbs. After a few Google searches, I came across this great step-by-step “Making Tempeh” published by Renae on her blog, i eat food. Making tempeh at home seems like quite an involved process where you will have to get creative to make some steps happen correctly. One step in the tempeh-making process requires the soybeans to be kept at 88 degrees Fahrenheit for about 24 hours. Renae says after failing with a food dehydrator she found success using a homemade yogurt machine:

What finally worked for me was putting the soy beans on a wok steamer nestled into a yogurt maker, the lid of which I kept partially on for the first 12 hours then removed. After 12 hours, the tempeh will begin generating its own heat, which you’ll want to compensate for.

I’m not sure how I can accomplish this in my own kitchen as I don’t have a yogurt machine but if i get any good ideas, I’ll be sure to try it out. If you take up the challenge, be sure to leave a comment and let me know how it goes!

It’s Not the Beta-Carotene, it’s the Carrot

Some familiar themes about how Americans eat and its links to disease were put together nicely in a 20-minute talk by Mark Bittman of the New York Times, “What’s Wrong with what we eat.” In one mentioning the importance of a whole-plant-based diet (it’s not the beta-carotene, its the carrot), Bittman touches on the meat and agribusiness industry, disease, junkfood marketing, and the “organivore” and “locavore” responses to the industrial food industry all while noting the importance of our food choices on climate change.