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local gluten free bakery

Local gluten free bakery

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / October 11, 2017

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

FOOD ARTISAN SPOTLIGHT: MEET ANNA B’S GLUTEN FREE

We’re excited to welcome Anna B’s Gluten Free Bakery to our year-round online farmers market! Together we’re helping more people to eat better, live better.

Gluten free food is trendy these days, but for people suffering from Celiac disease, going gluten free isn’t a choice – it’s a life-changing requirement. Gluten is …

Continue reading about gluten, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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fall superfoods health benefits

12 fall superfoods to look forward to

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / October 5, 2017

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

12 FALL SUPERFOODS TO LOOK FORWARD TO
The health benefits of local food just keep coming!

Many farmers markets shut down or scale back as temps drop, but not us. No way do we want to miss out on the superfoods of fall! They’re just now starting to hit their peak – the perfect excuse to gather in a warm, cozy kitchen on cool nights and enjoy these superfoods that are super-charged because they’re local and super fresh! Here’s what you can look forward to…

Continue reading about fall superfoods, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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How to dry fresh herbs

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / September 27, 2017

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

ENJOY YOUR FRESH LOCAL HERBS ALL WINTER LONG
Drying herbs is easy, intensifies flavor & health benefits!

You buy fresh local herbs from farmers like Gerardo and Omar Flores on Virginia’s Northern Neck because you want to use them fresh, right? But did you know they can be just as beneficial if you dry them? Drying actually concentrates…

Continue reading about drying herbs, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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recycle boxes reduce carbon footprint

2 easy ways to reduce your carbon footprint

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / September 13, 2017

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

2 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT…
…you’re already doing at least one of them!

The first thing you can do: Eat local food.
The second thing: Reuse your Seasonal Roots delivery box.

So first things first: You’re already eating local food from Seasonal Roots. Here’s why that reduces your carbon footprint. Local food doesn’t travel as far as most food you find in the grocery store.

Compared to the global industrial food complex, food from local farmers and artisans uses less…

Continue reading about reducing your carbon footprint, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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online farmers market

When Virginia farmers markets close for winter…

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / September 13, 2017

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

WHEN VIRGINIA FARMERS MARKETS CLOSE FOR THE WINTER …
…where do the farmers go?

With the warm days of summer behind us, many Virginia farmers markets are folding up their tents for the winter. It’s not because farmers have nothing more to sell. It’s because most of us shoppers would rather stay inside where it’s warm and snug when it gets cold and blustery outside! And when it gets really cold, farmers have to keep their harvested produce from freezing while they’re shivering out there, trying to sell it to the few hardy souls…

Continue reading about Virginia farmers market, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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Local food helps local community

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / September 6, 2017

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

RESTAURANT FIRE LEAVES WORKERS JOBLESS… SO SEASONAL ROOTS STEPS UP!
Local food helps local community

Early on a Saturday morning, a fire broke out in the kitchen area of a taco restaurant called Don’t Look Back, which is located in the Carytown section of Richmond. The good news is, the restaurant owner is determined to reopen. The bad news – it’s going to take at least six months to make that happen. That means six months of unemployment for Don’t Look Back’s crew…

Continue reading about how Seasonal Roots stepped in, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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Fire It Up!

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / August 30-31, 2017

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

THE LABOR DAY GRILLING ISSUE
HOW TO THROW JUST ABOUT ALL YOUR LOCAL FOOD ON THE BARBIE!

You can cook a whole Labor Day meal on the grill, even if the food you’re making varies in how it should be cooked. The key is to create two zones, one for direct heat and one for indirect heat. So in a gas grill with two burners, turn one to medium high, the other to medium low; in charcoal grills, heap the coals to one side. The hotter side is your direct heat zone – the rest of the grill is…

Continue reading about grilling your local food, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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Fight Food Waste

EAT BETTER LIVE BETTER NEWSLETTER / August 23-24, 2017

Tips, hacks, recipes, stories, and the weekly special all help you eat better live better with fresh local food!

WHAT YOU DO IN YOUR KITCHEN CAN HELP CHANGE THE WORLD – HERE’S HOW

Adapted from Sherri Brooks Vinton’s EcoCentric blog post “Taste it, don’t waste it”:

In the peak of the season, your online farmers’ market has tomatoes of all shapes and sizes, colors, and nuanced flavors. Grocery store tomatoes, on the other hand, are grown by Industrial Ag with a list of characteristics in mind – good looking and tough enough to travel. (Flavor’s not on the list.) Tomatoes that aren’t pretty enough for the industrial system are thrown away.

Over all, in America we throw away 40% of our food supply every year.

Its a crazy system that needs to change…

Continue reading how to fight food waste, below, or view this issue as a PDF with clickable links.

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fight food waste eat raw food

Why you should eat raw food & keep it on hand…

…even if sometimes it goes bad before you can eat it!

By the Veggie Fairy Team

Your body needs the live enzymes found in fresh fruits and vegetables. Enzymes activate and carry out all your body’s biological processes, including digestion and nerve impulses – and it’s theorized that those enzymes need to be replenished regularly for you to stay healthy.

So what’s the #1 way to replenish enzymes?

Eat raw food.

Actually, for overall good health, you should eat a mix of raw and cooked food — cooking makes some nutrients more accessible to our bodies while killing other nutrients. Spinach is good example of the unexpected pros and cons. So a mix of raw and cooked covers all your bases.

Anyway, keeping fresh fruits and vegetables on hand is worth it for the live enzymes, not to mention antioxidants, vitamins, and other fragile things that are good for us… even if those fruits and veggies go bad occasionally before you can eat them all.

Still, why let any fresh produce go to waste?

To avoid wasting produce, prioritize it. Eat the stuff that goes bad the fastest first, like salad greens or green beans. Once they’re eaten, the more long-lived produce will be waiting for you, with most of the nutrients still intact. Asian pears, for example, store well: 2-3 weeks at room temp, several months in the fridge. That should give you plenty of time to:

  • Serve Asian pears on a cheese platter (skip the crackers).
  • Add thin slices to sandwiches.
  • Add chunks to salads.
  • Make Asian pear slaw. (Scroll down to the bottom of the link for the recipe.)
  • Fight food waste and save money… and the world!

    When you don’t waste food, you’re saving yourself some money. But you’re also helping change our world for the better — you’re blooming where you’re planted. Because the fact is, in America we throw away 40% of our food supply every year!

    We’ve talked about ugly food before, and why we love it (as long as it’s fresh and local!) — it just tastes better. For example, in the peak of the season, Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market has tomatoes of all shapes and sizes and colors because they’re grown for their nuanced flavors, not their looks. Grocery store tomatoes, on the other hand, are grown by Industrial Agriculture with a list of other characteristics in mind – good looking is one, tough enough to travel is another. (Flavor’s not on the list.) Tomatoes that aren’t pretty enough for the industrial system are thrown away.

    In a country where many go hungry, it’s unconscionable to discard nutritious food simply because it isn’t cute enough. It’s a crazy system that needs to change. As a Member of Seasonal Roots, you’re already helping to bring sanity to our nation’s food system.

    But even so, this time of year it’s easy to wind up with more fresh local tomatoes than you can eat raw all at once, even if they are loaded with live enzymes and other good things.

    More ways to fight food waste

    Here’s how you can get those fresh local tomatoes (and other veggies) eaten, with most of their nutritious benefits still intact:

  • Drizzle with olive oil, roast, and use them to top a salad, bruschetta, or pasta.
  • Simmer into sauce and can or freeze. (Check out our 3-part series on maxing nutritional value by freezing, along with other tricks.
  • Skin, seed, and simmer to a paste.
  • Bake into a tomato pie or tart.
  • Make tomato jam.
  • Add to fruit salad.
  • Bottom line: Eat fresh and local

    So… eat ugly food. Eat raw food. Eat cooked food. Just make sure it’s fresh local food! If it’s fresh and local, it’s so good for you that it’s worth it to always have plenty on hand… even if it goes bad now and then.

    But there’s no need to let that happen. If you can’t eat it all fast enough, just throw it in the freezer. When you defrost it later, if it’s not as appetizing to eat raw, it’ll still be great cooked… and just about as nutritious as it would have been if you’d cooked it instead of freezing it in the first place.

    Parts of this post were adapted from Sherri Brooks Vinton’s EcoCentric blog post “Taste it, don’t waste it: Tomatoes”.

    ABOUT SEASONAL ROOTS

    Since 2011, Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market has connected Virginia families with local family farmers who use sustainable, humane practices. Our veggie fairies – mostly moms who believe in living better through scrumptious, healthy eating, being kind to animals, protecting the environment, and spreading joy – home-deliver freshly harvested produce, pastured eggs, grassfed dairy and meat, plus artisan fare. We empower our members to eat better and live better with more nutritious, flavorful food that’s good for us and good for the planet. More info at seasonalroots.com.