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5 a day and a CSA

My children dress better than I do. I think I care more about weather or not they look cute and I can usually find cute stuff for girls, generally name brand, at the thrift store. My children also eat better than I do. Once again, I think I care more about what goes into there little, growing bodies more than I care about mine. My kids eat lots of fruit, some veggies, mostly whole grain and very little "junk" like nuggets, pizza, chips or fruit snacks. They do get a treat after nap, usually home baked, and if we happen to be out of baked goods I will hear about it.

In an effort to be healthy and put my money where my mouth is, both figuratively and literally, we joined a CSA. For those of you who are not quite to the hippy extreme that I fancy myself to be, CSA stands for community supported agriculture. Basically, a farm share. We pay the farmer up front, when a small farm needs the money, to get a share of whatever they produce over the next 20 weeks. This way we are supporting local, small businesses, eating local and reducing our carbon footprint, eating fresher food that is organic and introducing more veggies into our diet. All things I say I hold in high value. This is good for the farmer too, they get the money when they need it and share the risk.

The daily recommendation is 5-7 servings of fruit and veggies a day. My kids do pretty good with this, I serve them a fruit for breakfast, a fruit and veggy for lunch and a serving or two of veggies for dinner. Usually at least on snack a day is dried fruit like mangoes, raisins, apricots or crasins.

When my world is running smoothly, I eat pretty well. After the birth of each child, my world is generally a sleep deprived haze of caffeine rich beverages, easy simple carbs and whatever my children have left on their plates.While I am not quite ready to give up my caffeine, I have come to the conclusion that I can do better. And so the contest is on.

Matt and I are competing to see who can eat five servings a of fruit and veggies a day most consistently. This serves several purposes: first it allows us to go through all the veggies we are getting, it also helps us loose the extra pounds acquired (because when you have had five servings of lettuce you just can't find room for the brownie/milk shake/chips), and it keeps us healthier.

Eating like this takes a bit of creativity and planning. I have found that I do much better if I prep all my veggies from the CSA the day I get them. I am much more likely to eat a salad if it is already washed and torn and I can just chuck it in a bowl and top it with whatever I have on hand. I have started adding a banana or blueberries to my bowl of cereal. I eat my hummus with cut up radishes and carrots instead of crackers. I top pasta with  cooked veggies and pesto instead of cream sauce. We have meatless dinners.

So the next time you see me I am shockingly svelt and glowing, blame the veggies. When Matt is rockin' the bikini on the beach this summer, you can thank our CSA. And when are sitting at the table happily gobbling down the broccoli, you will know it is because we had more veggie than we knew what to do with.

Comments

Anonymous said…
We went to the farmers market this weekend for the first time of the summer. Not a lot of produce yet but we enjoyed the samples and got some yummy overpriced hummus!

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