Why We Won't Eat Veggies

We love the idea of eating fresh, organically grown vegetables and fruits. However, we don't always do what we should, and house guests in the past have asked where we keep the vegetables and do we, in fact, ever serve any with meals?

Thanks to an article (no longer available online, I checked) published in the local newspaper, we have recently discovered that we can buy a weekly harvest box directly from the growers in Mesilla. [Later note: Some of the produce comes from their "partner farms"]. We are pleased to report that it contains an amount of fresh produce that we can actually eat in a week. No more strange, soggy unknown masses down there in the vegetable drawer--this produce is so lovely that we actually want to eat it, and we are learning to eat fresh fruit for snacks instead of cookies. Really.

The contents of last week's box--kiwis, roasted chile peppers, mushrooms, baby spinach, etc. 

Do we get stuff we have never tried? Yes--how about collards and green cabbage! I discovered that collard greens don't have to be cooked forever with fatback--they can be steamed. I also found that green cabbage can be made into a lovely vegetable stew that smells pretty darned good while it's cooking.

However, I think it's an insult to label this good stuff with that modern slang word--"veggies." It's entirely too familiar a form of address. These dignified and beautiful vegetables deserve our respect, and I insist on calling them by their proper names. "Veggies," indeed!

*****

Harvest boxes ready to pick up on Friday afternoon. Nice farm guy, too!

You might want to spend some time visiting the Los Poblanos website. Here is the link for the Las Cruces page. You can also read about how the Los Poblanos Ranch got its start. 

A Modest Proposal

Those luscious peaches again--put some of these in your cart!

In 1729, Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal (for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to the Public) satirically suggested that the impoverished and starving Irish sell their children as food for the rich.

Fast forward a few hundred years to our population, which is oftentimes "starving" on junk food, and lose the satire...

Researchers at our very own New Mexico State University here in Las Cruces have been looking into ways to help people make healthier food choices when shopping. They hit on the perfect solution--so easy, it seems almost ludicrous: They simply painted a line down the middle of grocery shopping carts and labeled one side "fresh fruits and vegetables" and the other side something like "everything else."

That's it. That's all there was to it. They found that people bought 102% more fruits and vegetables, with no other encouragement, and that the profitability for the grocery stores wasn't affected.

It takes a simple idea, sometimes, to make a big difference. Ever since I read about that study, I've looked at my grocery cart in a new way. I find that I am eating more fresh fruits and vegetables. You just need a little imagination to see that line down the middle of your cart, and you might just find yourself eating better and getting a little healthier.

To read about the study, click here. Interestingly enough, the last time I looked at that link there was an ad for a junk food meal right in the middle of the page; the researchers were right, we are bombarded with messages to do the wrong thing.