Food That I Can Grow

In my quest to become self sufficient and sustainable, I've been making a list of the foods that I can grow to eat. My goal, within the next two years is to be producing around 70-80% of my own food. Right now, I don't have much growing space, just a small backyard. However, we have bought some acreage, our share is a little over 30 acres. In the next couple of years, my husband and I will be moving there. It is there that we are building a cob house, it is there where we will be living off of the grid, and it is there that I will be trying to grow as much of the food that we eat that I can. To begin this process, I have made a list of all the different foods that I can think of that will grow in our climate that I think I can grow. I haven't estimated how much of each I will need yet, but that is the next step. The fruit and nut trees will be accumulated over the next couple of years, some will be bought others will be swapped for and grafted from starts. A lot of the vegetables, I am currently growing. Right now, I do not have the room to grow the grains, so they are a future project. Another goal is to learn how to forage for food that all ready grows on our land, there are a lot of greens and other food, I think we can get directly from the land. This is something I have not learned very much about yet. If you see a food that I have missed, will you please, let me know in the comment section, so I can add it to my list. Thanks


FRUITS AND NUTS

Plum, Apricots, Peaches, Pears, Apples, grapes, raspberries, gooseberries, blueberries, blackberries, cranberries, strawberries, persimmon, paw paw, cherries - sweet and sour, kiwi, fig (in greenhouse), dates (in gh), citrus (in gh), melons, watermelon, ground cherries

GRAINS

rice, barley, oats, wheat, quinea, amaranth, buckwheat, flax, sesame (?), corn\

NUTS

peanuts, filberts, pecans, walnuts, hickory, chestnuts (i think i'm missing some obvious ones)

VEGETABLES

garlic, onion, broccoli, cauliflower, radish, greens, spinach, lettuce, carrot, asparagus, artichoke, radish pods, kohlrabi, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas - snap, shelling, snow, beans - green and dried (we eat lots of dried beans), lentils, tomatoes, peppers - hot and sweet, eggplant, squash - winter and summer, pumpkins, celery, soybeans, tomatillos, corn mache, cress, cabbage,

ADDITIONAL ITEMS

mushrooms - learn to grow and hunt for morels, eggs (chickens), milk and cheese

I haven't made a list of herbs yet. I still need to do this.

Food Politics

I was lucky enough to get to hear the wonderful author and food advocate Marion Nestle speak a couple of nights ago. If you are not familiar with her, you should take the time to become so. She is the nutrition chair at New York University, author of numerous books and host to the website Food Politics. Of her books, Food Politics is my favorite. It traces the complicated issue of how the food industry influences what food choices we have at the grocery store to eat. These issues are dictated by thirst for profit, not good nutritional policy. She also provides information to help consumers make good food choices for themselves and their families. Her newest book, Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine, is an investigative report on the March 2007 pet food recall.

In her talk, she spent some time talking about her new book Pet Food Politics. Even if you don't have an animal which you buy pet food for, this issue should be important to you. During her investigation, Nestle was able to trace how pet food contaminates ended up back in the human food system. Pet food has vital wheat gluten added to it to increase the protein. The vital wheat in the contaminated pet food was adulterated with melamine, which is an industry byproduct that is cheap and mimics protein. This adulterate was coming from China. Melamine was causing bladder and kidney problems in these animals. At least as important is how melamine was getting into the human food supply. It is common practice for scrap pet food to be sold as livestock feed. On this occasion, the melamine ended up being fed to chickens, cows and fish., which ended up being eaten by humans.

Marion Nestle advocated that this is just one more indicator that it is necessary for a comprehensive farm to table food policy in the United States. Currently, the FDA and USDA are independent entities that have become fairly toothless because of restrictive legislation from Congress. Until this changes, individuals have to make smart food choices for themselves. Buying organic is one choice people make to have more faith in their food. I think choosing to buy locally, from farmers you know is arguably, even more important. Small, local farms take pride in their products. They also have to personally back up any product that they sell to individuals because you are able to ask the farmer questions, pass on favorable and unfavorable critiques, and you know where to find them if there is a problem. A lot more people are choosing to supplement their local purchases by growing more of their own food. This is where my mindset is, so a lot of the blogs I will be posting will be focused on helping people be able to do this. If you must buy from a grocery store, try to minimize the processed foods. Whole foods have less chance of being adulterated. Besides foods taste better when you prepare them yourself and they are much healthier.