Back to the Earth   

By Angela Wright, Holistic Nutritional Consultant
 

As I'm fond of saying, changing your food habits and choices is all about tweaking, upgrading and baby step changes. Lately, I've been getting a little more back to the earth. This of course started with my backyard veggie garden, but also our friend's organic farm and their canning and preserving knowledge, as well as the fact that in the fall Mike (my husband) shot a deer for our freezer. First off, we had to buy a freezer! Then we filled it with tomatoes and greens from my garden, and peaches and other fruit from the farm. Now it's full of venison sausage as well. The fact that we're stocked up with many choices for the winter means much less reliance on out of country and out of season produce and other foods. Mike won't eat a tomato from the grocery store now that I've grown them in the backyard! So we've be concentrating a lot more on root vegetables, soups, and warming foods, and consuming a lot less out of season veggies and salads. No fresh berries or peppers for us until the spring! But we've got loads in the freezer to get us through. 

One of the new things I've been playing around with is bone broth. At a conference in the fall we learned was that it's one of the best things for bone health - making broth leaches the minerals out of the animal bones and into the broth for easy assimilation. Bone broth also is a great natural source of glucosamine, chondroitin, and collagen, for healthy joints, connective tissue, and skin! Here's a recipe to get your started, but it's about saving your bones from roast or chicken legs, freezing them until you get enough, and simmering them for a long period of time - from a day to a week if using a crockpot.  Drink a glass or two daily for therapeutic reasons, or use for homemade soups and such. I even saved the deer bones and made venison broth (just make sure to skim the fat to remove the really strong flavour). 

What something you remember your family doing to squirrel away for the off season? Perhaps it was canning, making jam, picking extra berries. Start your own preserving habits next season. I recommend starting with one or two things - like buying loads of strawberries from a local U-pick or growing tomatoes on your deck and squirreling them away for winter. From there you'll discover how satisfying it is to have that connection to our food again!

Angela Wright, RNCP, can be found at The Woman’s Place Thursdays 4-6pm and Fridays 9-11am. Book your free 15 minute consultation, or accountability package at the front desk today or visit our nutrition page to learn more.