No Wonder

No wonder people that do all of their shopping at mainstream grocery stores think buying organic food is pricey. It is!

I was a participant in a brainstorming session with my healthcare insurance and received a $25 gift card to Safeway. I finally drove by one on my way to the bank and I decided to drop in and buy some organic lettuce since I was out and to look around. I love grocery stores- all kinds and could spend many hours just looking around at how they are laid out and what they sell.

Safeway smelled like my childhood- donuts and rotisserie chicken. Growing up my grandparents both owned grocery stores. I think this is where I started my love of food and grocery stores.

When I walked in the produce section was large but the organic produce section was so very tiny and the organic romaine lettuce was about 6 leaves big, droopy, and cost $3.59! Whole Foods had huge romaine lettuce on sale this past week - 2 for $3 and normally we pay anywhere between $1.50-2.99 at Vitamin Cottage. Although at Costco we can get the huge bin of organic baby lettuce and mixed greens for $3.99 (I believe that is $2 cheaper than at Whole Foods).

I instantly put it back and decided to just look around and see if there was anything else I could find. They had an entire section devoted to "natural" food but the prices were out of this world. Bragg's Liquid Aminos was just under $10 and Amy's Roasted Vegetable Pizza was a whopping $11.25.

It's really sad that our mainstream stores are selling terrible organic produce at outrageous prices and their selection of other "natural" foods is terrible and even non-existent. I know I sound a little spoiled here because I am lucky enough to have 2 natural food stores within 15 minutes of me. And I know that many people in our country don't have that luxury and that even in their stores they don't have the option of organic. But, I only pay a tiny bit higher for all organic produce that is gorgeous! So, why don't more people start shopping at our local natural foods store?

After watching The Future of Food on Hulu (for free) the other night I am more committed to eating organic and I am so thankful for our local stores. The next time I hear someone say how high organic food is I'll be sure to ask what store they are shopping at because I can bet that for only a few cents more they can have healthy organic produce which will probably save lots on medical bills in the future if they shop at a natural food store or their local co-op or even farmers market.

Singing Clams!

As a vegan parent I am always looking for good books about kindness towards animals. While there are some really great books about kids and vegetarianism I like to look for more mainstream books as well.

I found a fun book called Singing Shijimi Clams written by Naomi Kojima. Here is the Amazon product description.

Take one older, not-so-wicked-anymore witch, add a slightly grumpy cat, and one large bucket of singing shijimi clams, and what you do NOT end up with, (no matter how hungry you are), is miso soup with clams. What you DO end up with is plain miso soup. What you end up with is a quiet, delicately illustrated tale of another country. What you end up with is a friendship that needs determination, ingenuity, and kindness - but no translation.

I would recommend this book for kids 4 and older. It's a sweet story about how the witch couldn't cook the clams for dinner because she saw how sweet and gentle they looked while sleeping. Then the clams wake up and start crying because they aren't in the ocean. The cat makes a point by saying "they must have been taken away while they were sleeping...that's why it's such a shock."

So, the once mean witch raised money to take them all on the train (over 100 clams) to return them to the ocean. Then the clams are so happy that they ask the witch and cat to live at the beach so they can sing to them all the time.

I really like this book for it's different layers of storytelling. I wish I knew more about the author and if her other books have the same spirit of kindness towards animals in them.

Earth Day

To celebrate Earth Day Keller and I made plans to go to the top of Dinosaur Ridge with a group of local mom's and kiddo's. We were going to see the Hawks migration through Colorado. When I told him this morning that's what we were doing he was excited. When I told him it was Earth Day he got even more excited and told me that "we needed to pick up all the trash that we found."

This kind of blew me away because while we try to pick up trash when we see it we don't make a huge deal of talking about it or making him do it. But, somewhere he has picked up what Earth Day is all about. A few minutes later he came into the kitchen and said "we need to bake Mother Earth a chocolate cake to celebrate her." Who can argue with that! We are making a Chocolate Chip Cake (chocolate chip bars).

The muddy hike up Dinosaur Ridge was pretty cool. Keller got his own set of binoculars and a bird book. He took it all very seriously. It was neat to see him try to interact with our guide, Cassie, and get her attention to show her the tracks and insects that he saw. We had to walk fast to stay in the front of the group so that he could hear everything Cassie said.

At the top we didn't see any Hawks until we were headed back down but we learned all about Hawks and got to feel actual wings from the birds. After the hike we headed to another trail and ate a picnic lunch next to a stream. It was a beautiful place to play and Keller had a great time. He pretended to fish with a stick and leaves and he built a house out of sticks. He even waded across the stream and got to climb some trees. He was in his element!

Vegan Easter

Everyone at the Whitney house is awaiting the much anticipated Easter Sunday. Keller for the fun Easter basket and Easter egg hunt. While we don't use real eggs (yes, we use and reuse the plastic eggs from the store) I like the symbolism of birth and growth that an egg has. Steve and I are excited to watch our child enjoy finding hidden treasure among Mother Earth and we can't deny we are excited to eat some good food with good friends.

I found an adorable ceramic bunny holding a basket at Goodwill and I look forward to putting it out in the yard with some special treats in it for Keller to find. I'm sticking to simple things for the egg treats this year; chocolate earth balls, vegetarian jelly beans, stickers, seeds, shiny colored glass from Michael's, and possibly some nuts. I might also stick on a few grape tomatoes since they are almost egg shaped and Keller loves them!

About a week ago we did some indoor planting and have joyously found new sprouts in the past couple of days. A few even popped up while we were outside playing baseball yesterday afternoon. Keller and I planted an experimental garden in one part of our yard but so far nothing has sprouted. Hopefully, all the Spring snow is behind us and we can look forward to warmer weather.

I'll write later about the Vegan Easter Brunch food that we will be having! Let's just say I bought my first bottle of Truffle Oil today!

Update: Our meal was delicious. We had Stuffed Zucchini with red quinoa and golden raisins, Creamy Asparagus soup, Green Salad with Strawberries and Green Beans, Root Vegetable O'Gratin.