Green Gifts

Before you go out and buy that present....

If you are thinking of giving a gift to a person who enjoys gardening or someone who loves to cook, why not consider a donation in their name to The Dinner Garden a non-profit group whose goal is for people to establish food security for their families by planting their own food to eat and also sell for income. End Hunger. "The solution is in your own backyard." Give light and people will find their own way.

Do you know someone who loves jewelry? Bead for Life fights poverty in Uganda by teaching women skills they can use to start their own business. You can buy their products from the website or make a donation to the program. He who obtains has little, he who scatters has much.

Do you love animals or do you have a pet at home? Donate to your local SPCA. Norfolk  or Virginia Beach Seek joy in what you give, not in what you get.

Do you like people and love to give parties? Why not give a gift of love to Architecture for Humanity which supports a network of architects, designers and building professionals to lend their talents to communities where their services are most needed and can least be afforded. You make a living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give.

Here in Tidewater there are many of us who spend a lot of time in and on the water. The Ocean Foundation  is fighting to repopulate the ecosystems of the Gulf Coast - a region recovering from the recent British Petroleum oil spill. The generous man will be prosperous, and he who waters will himself be watered.

Do you have children or grandchildren? Replace a stuffed toy you would normally purchase with a donation to The World Wildlife Fund Symbolically adopt a panda, tiger, polar bear or humpback whale for $50.00 and they will send you a stuffed animal, a photo, adoption certificate and information about the animal. Teach your children that it is impossible to love without giving.

This season especially, please remember that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

The Swinging Pendulum

This morning as I was pouring milk into my second cup of sugared coffee (having just finished a breakfast of bacon and eggs).  I sat down and reached around my husband's newspaper for the strawberry jelly to spread on my buttered biscuit, when I realized (with a guilty pang) that sitting in my refrigerator were 4 cups of YOGURT, a bowl of leftover FRUIT SALAD, and that I had GRANOLA cereal in the cupboard!

After all the reading (and preaching) I've done lately about the importance of eating fresh, whole foods I still can't seem to break my inclination to reach for the stuff that tastes good, but isn't necessarily good for you.

I suppose I could blame it on my upbringing, but I did later live a very healthy, natural foods type of life for many years.  So,  I do know better - and I know I CAN do better.  I just don't anymore and I guess it's laziness.

I was raised by an educated mother who enjoyed her career and hated cooking .  Her meal plans were determined by what was quickest.  This was in a time before prepackaged meals, so weekday suppers usually meant  boiled potatoes, a can of corn and  fried Spam doused with ketchup.

On weekends, when she had more time, she might (over)cook a roast or put on a pot of beans.  I don't remember many salads, unless you count her shredded carrots in Jello concoction.  We ate sliced tomatoes, but I don't think I ever tasted a cucumber that wasn't in pickle form.  Fruits were limited to apples, oranges and bananas.

My sister and I ate lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches washed down with Kool-Aid.  Our parents lived on coffee and cigarettes.

In later years, when my parents finally retired, they bought my Grandmother's old farm house and property, planted a garden and raised chickens.  My Mother would call me and proudly say, "We're eating like poor folks!" Meaning, of course, that she had gone back to her roots and was once again eating sweet potatoes, turnip greens and black-eyed peas she had grown herself and was cooking cornbread and drinking iced tea.

But, it was too late for my sister and I, who were raised on Fruit Loops, frozen fish sticks and Tang.

However, in that statement of hers, I finally got a flash of insight.  My mother grew up in a large family during the depression.  They depended upon their garden to eat.  They canned what they grew and baked their own bread by necessity.  So success -to her generation- was having a career that gave you enough money to buy your food from a store.  You didn't have to nurse your babies! You worked and, therefore, could afford to buy canned formula that caretakers could feed your child in a bottle.

Those bottle-fed babies (my generation) grew up to become "hippies".  We rejected our parents way of life and went back to the land.  (Well, for awhile anyway.) We identified with our grandparents.

Our children, tired of living on bean sprouts and tofu, swung the other way.  They craved Happy Meals and rejoiced in grandparents (our parents) who bought them Slurpees and served Pop Tarts for breakfast and Chef Boyardee Spaghetti and Meatballs in a can for lunch.

Their children (our grandchildren) - those now in high school and college - have tipped back towards us.  They are the vegetarians.




It all depends on your point of view. 



In between all these generations are lots of confused people!  How else can you explain the simultaneous popularity of Starbucks with its unnatural, flavored coffees and Sushi - the ultimate fresh food?  There has to be a happy medium out there somewhere.

Maybe I'll just put a dab of Cool Whip on that fruit salad.
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Please Read:

Twinkie, deconstructed: my journey to discover how the ingredients found in processed foods are grown, mined (yes, mined), and manipulated into what America eats  by Ettlinger, Steve

Dr. Earl Mindell's Unsafe at any meal: how to avoid hidden toxins in your food  by Mindell, Earl

Fast food nation : the dark side of the all-American meal by Schlosser, Eric.

The paleo solution: the original human diet  by Wolf, Robb

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