Have a happy 4th of July! Here are few highlights I wanted to share with you all.
Food Preservation Classes – Vancouver, WA
I wanted to let all my local readers know that my aunt, Molly, is teaching another set of food preservation classes this month (July 16 & 23 and then again on August 1) and thoroughly covering the topics of canning, freezing and drying of fruits and vegetables. You will be supplied with a hands on demonstration, and a great packet of information to take home with you. It is an excellent class if you are interested in saving money and preserving local foods for the year. For more information, check out her website here.
Natural Living Articles for your enjoyment:
How to Make Soda Pop from Kefir Grains – I love this! What a great alternative to the sugar filled drinks available on the market and for a refreshing summer drink.
Study Finds Cheeseburgers More Nutritious than Baby Food - another reason to make your own homemade baby food! Not only is it far more nutritious, it is also far more frugal and you know exactly what is going in it.
How Much Sugar Are You Really Consuming?- Stephanie shares an very insightful website that gives visual comparison of some popular food items with how many sugar cubes they contain.
Raw Berry Freezer Jam - Kimi shares how to make freezer jam sweetened with honey. I found that using rapadura/sucanat is my personal favorite for sweetening jam (as honey tends to be a little powerful), but we love Pamona’s for a natural pectin. I am looking forward to making blackberry jam later on this year with the free blackberries that grow around our house.
Food, Inc – the Movie – There has been a lot of talk lately about this documentary that highlights the current problems with our food industry. How much do you really know about the process of bringing food to your table? It looks fascinating! Kimi talks about it here as well as Kelly shares her thoughts here. Check out the trailer here. Here is a crazy quote that Kelly passed on from the film:
“We’re spending less on food than anyone in history, only about 9% of our income, cheaper than anyone else in the world. So we’ve got lots of cheap and abundant food, but…it’s making us fat, we have this tremendous problem with obesity and Type II Diabetes, and as it turns out, cheap food has many many hidden costs.”
For the Garden:
Homemade Fertilizer Recipe – Frugal Granola shares a all natural fertilizer for your garden with nettles! I am making a batch of this today for my container garden!
Natural Weed Killer Recipe – Another awesome natural method for the garden.
I would love to see some of your recipes using sucanat to sweeten jam. I’ve been reading about it, and some say that it doesn’t set up well. I don’t mind jam being a bit thinner than regular white sugar made jams, but I don’t want sweet soup either! LOL! Please post your recipe!
Still hoping your aunt and you decide to video her preservation classes! Hint hint.
I’m learning so much from you and your readers! I’m just starting to take baby steps in nutrition. My teenager really likes to drink soda pop, but I really don’t want him to! Your post on homemade kefir soda sounds exciting. Can you give me more info about lacto-fermentation, etc. It’s hard to get past years of teaching that leaving food out on the counter is unsafe. I understand the health benefits, but would like to know more about how it’s safe to soak with dairy and using raw eggs. Thank you so much for all your hard work!
There are many links addressing these issues through my Natural Living 101 page. If you haven’t read Nourishing Traditions you definitely should check it out. This is one of the ultimate sources of information on this new movement.
Lindsay,
Thanks so much for your quick reply. I just didn’t know where to look! I look forward to checking out these resources.
What is your freezer jam recipe? Do you just substitute sucanat for the honey in this recipe? Do you ever can peaches with sucanat? I’ve read about using it instead of white sugar and have found conflicting information.
I actually have not made freezer jam. I just used the recipes that come with Pomona’s for canned jam and just substituted rapadura/sucanat for the sugar. I canned peaches last year and just honey for the syrup. This was delicious! Rapadura/sucanat is just a natural whole cane sugar that hasn’t gone through all the refining processes.
I so wish that that I was over in the area the classes sound so fun and full of great information!
Oh…what a fantastic post….i just LOVE what you do…
I’m actually going to attend a class on canning this month..i canned my first batch of peaches last month…only one regret: that i didn’t pick 4 x as many peaches…
blessings….lylah
Happy Independence Day!
Thanks for the links. I”m planning on making the kefir soda and absolutely love the freezer jam recipe. We “U-Pick” our rasberries & strawberries from the local farm and have a blackberry bush almost ready to pick, so I really wanted to make jam but was put off by the whole process and all the sugar added. This is wonderful.
Thanks!
I read that same article on cheeseburgers! There’s a lady at church, who has a son 16 months old. He will ONLY eat jars of baby food! Ick! He should be on normal food by now.
Hey Lindsay,
That is crazy about cheeseburgers being more nutritious than babyfood!!!! Wow!!
By the way, I just tried your recipe for italian dressing, and we LOVE it! Thank you so much!