food patriots & revolutionaries

this food revolution thang, it's a biggie.

i mean what are we thinkin?!  what can one person, one family, one school district, one community, one food movement really accomplish against obesity, diabetes, ADHD, sensory processing disorders, autism, cardiovascular disease, cancer etc...?

doesn't it make your head hurt?  my butt hurts sometimes.

there is no.way.jose. i would ever have tried a food change (this massive) unless my panic button was pushed with abbie.

so what if there hadn't been a panic button for me?  what would have spurred the old me - mrs. pre-sept 8th - to make a change that was perhaps less crazy, difficult and expensive sounding?  cuz i was cozy.

i practically jumped out of my skinnies after i was introduced to the the food patriots.  a few weeks ago, i was lucky enough to meet jeff at a rough cut screening of his documentary due out in 2013.  the spitz family had a panic button moment when their son contracted a foodborne illness.  it completely changed the way they looked at food too.  

it's funny how big change often develops from panicked, horribly stressful experiences.  oh darn you mr fear.  the fear of losing a loved one, the fear of a diagnosis, the fear of starting scary medication...yucks.

i love their simple & straight forward message: a "food patriot" is a person who advocates access to fresh, real food for all people.  young, old, rich, poor, college students, retired folks...you, me & all of us.  you may not be able to change all of your food purchases, but how about a 10% change?  can we change the way america eats?  can our collective buying power, our food demand, create a real shift?  if you build it, they will come.  this mighty little documentary sure lights it up for us.

now this is a message both the pre-panic-button-me & the present-day-food-ambassador-me can have a party with.

here is a sneak peak - you food patriot you.  doesn't that have a nice ring to it?

ps

i fooled around with a new template on the blog last night...i hope it doesn't crash on me:)

hot mamas - super soup and oatmeal

 another hot mama in the mullies!

christina has rocked my culinary world for quite a while now.  

her girls are so freakin cute and her hubby kurt cooks like an iron chef too...maybe he'll be the first hot papa to post someday:)  no pressure dude.

i am literally serving her oatmeal recipe as this posts...mac gobbled it up, abbie and tommy are suspicious.  not surprised at all:)

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"As a full-time working mom it is hard to get dinner on the table at a decent hour, thank goodness I have a wonderful husband who does a lot of the cooking!  In the fall and winter we love soups because they can be very quick, affordable and yummy.  The other day I stopped at the grocery store on the way home and picked up a roasted chicken.  I love grocery store roasted chicken, it is easily a once a week convenience for us.  At Marianos, they use Bell Evans chickens for their roasted chicken.  It's not organic, but it might as well be, great brand, love their chicken.  We do a multitude of things with them, one of which is soup.

I have also recently started getting a weekly fruit and vege box (thanks Linds!) and had a bunch of carrots, celery, and zucchini to use.  So easy! 

Chicken and Veggie-Bean Soup 

chop: 3 carrots, 2 stalks of celery, 1 onion and 1 zucchini

smash: 3 cloves of garlic (to remove skin)

Add olive oil to bottom of pan, add all veggies to cook a bit.

While that is cooking I pick apart the chicken, cut into bite size pieces.

Add 2 containers of organic chicken stock & chopped chicken.

Bring to a boil, add 1 can organic beans.  I usually use white beans (butter or cannelini is what I use but really any bean would work).

Add some chopped herbs, whatever you have on hand.  I used some flat leaf parsley from the garden.

Kids loved it, were slurping up the last bit of broth!  Took about 30 minutes total, not too bad!  We had plenty of leftovers for lunch the next day.  You can use any veggie, even leafy greens work in soup too, maybe I'll do that next..."

Oatmeal with Sunbutter, Chippies and Bananas

"When the weather is like this I love oatmeal for breakfast.  Not instant that is mushy and goopy, but real oatmeal!  I love the John McCann's brand, it has 1 ingredient, that's right ONLY 1, when do you ever see something with only 1 ingredient?! 100%whole grain Irish oats, that is it.  Be forewarned, this is not quick to cook, about 45 minutes, but there is an overnight way to do it if you plan ahead just read the label.  I like the time to drink my coffee and read the Sunday paper."

"I followed the directions for the stovetop, used water and nothing else.  When it was done, I put about a cup in my kid's bowls, topped with a tablespoon of sunflower butter, a sprinkling of choco chips, and half a banana.  I let the kids stir it up, all part of the fun ya know...  They loved it and so did I!!  Now if I could get my act together and use the overnight recipe my life would be even better!"

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thank you so much for the real food inspo christina!

you rock the hizouse and i can't wait for some more real food recipies:)

to the mullies we goooooooooooooo!!!!