Grounded Grub Weeklies! 03.17.2020
Hello Grounded Grub Community!
Every week we’re sent amazing articles, books, podcasts and other content from our community. We love hearing from everyone and having these resources, so we decided to start pooling together these recommendations, as well as some of our favorites, and sharing them once a week on Tuesdays. We hope you enjoy and feel inspired to share with us if you see/hear/try something that inspires you in the future!
Today: March 17, 2020
What happened on Grounded Grub last week:
Contributor Jenna Benkso shared her personal connection to food and her health. She shed important light on the connection between food and health and current legislation in Massachusetts to support more Food as Medicine efforts at a policy level. Read "The Missing Link in Healthcare" here.
This week we tried a new article format with a restaurant review of GoodChoice Kitchen and owner Laurie Gershgorn. Good Choice Kitchen is a restaurant/cafe in Ben’s hometown of Ossining, New York, which embodies so many amazing tenets of sustainability, wellbeing, and community engagement. In this captivating interview we learn so much about Laurie Gershgorn, and her journey through food sustainability and wellbeing that led her to where she is today! Read all about Good Choice Kitchen and Laurie in our latest article.
Coming up on Grounded Grub…
We’ll be working to share relevant resources about COVID-19 and the food system whenever we find them relevant—see the beginning of this below. We’re going to continue with our schedule content that isn’t virus related (we all need to take a break sometimes!), but if we come across anything we think is relevant we’ll share!
We’re headed into US avocado season. And while we have avocados in grocery stores year round thanks to imports from Mexico, we’ll take a closer look at production in California and think about how to make avocado toast sustainable. Thanks to Hannah Rudin for this great article recommendation!
This weekend we’re whipping up some classic crispy brussel sprouts and we’re already so amped to share this steadfast recipe with you.
Have any other ideas for things we should cover? Reach out on Instagram, Facebook or email. We love hearing from you and some of our best articles have been from community suggestions.
Media articles of the week:
Turn 1 Can of Beans into 27 Easy Convenient Recipes. The Blue Zones Project. Honestly this sounds like a series Grounded Grub should do but Blue Zones really beat us to it! This collection of recipes features lots of soups, hummuses but also fun protein rich brownies and ways to rethink meat heavy recipes. Read this collection of recipes here. Thank you for sharing this piece, Kasi Allen!
COVID-19 effects on the Food System: A comprehensive list. This Google document was started by Vanessa Garcia Polanco at Michigan State University and is a collective of food systems media articles related to coronavirus. Two warnings: 1. It’s incredibly long and is very easy to get sucked in. Handle with care. 2. It’s editable so please be careful and respect the work of those who have put it together. Handle with care. Dive into the "Coronavirus Food Systems Media Articles and Other" Google document here.
Book of the week:
The Farm Dies Once a Year - Arlo Crawford
I stole this book from my parents bookshelf when I was in college and was quickly swept up into this sweet memoir. A Farm Dies Once a Year follows Arlo, a 30-year-old disenchanted by city life as he returns to the organic vegetable farm where he grew up in Pennsylvania. He commits to really farming with his parents and reconnecting to the land, their lifestyle and the food they grow. It is a sweet and lovely book that many of us who live in cities can relate to. Buy the book here, find it at a local library, or borrow from a friend!
Podcast of the week:
Talking Tastebuds — Guest Jack Harries: Do You Have To Be Vegan To Be An Environmentalist?
Venetia Falconer is a social media influencer that got her start in acting and then became an activist against fast fashion. She is also a vegan who created the Talking Tastebuds podcast. She interviews a variety of people and talks about food, sustainability and wellness with all of them. I love her perspectives and find this piece, with Jack Harries a really wonderful perspective for all of us on identifying as “vegan,” the gender dynamics around veganism and sustainability activism. Plus their British accents are wonderful. Please note that they say that you must be a vegan to be an environmentalist without mention of the privilege that it takes to go fully vegan, something that we think is essential to acknowledge.
“It’s difficult to talk about environmentalism without being a hypocrite. It’s almost impossible to leave the house without having some kind of negative impact on the environment - unfortunately that’s just the way it is. But I don’t think it should stop you being able to have these conversations if you’re not the most perfect environmentalist because then no one would have these conversations and nothing would change. You have to have these personal inner conflicts because it forces you to think about your own lifestyle.”
Check out this episode and other Talking Tastebuds episodes for perspectives on our food system. Listen to this episode by following this link, or searching the title wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Letter from the editor:
It’s Hannah here, writing from a healthy social distance at home. The coronavirus crisis has put us all in a high stress mode, and it’s hard not to get sucked into our phones and the constant stream of news. It’s also impossible to not get stressed about having enough food in the house. As we enter life in quarantine for the unforeseeable future, I know I’m not the only one worried about making the most of the food I have, keeping things interesting and getting the essential nutrition I need to be healthy and happy. We all know that food is more than just calories and is essential for comfort and feeling our best physically and emotionally. When thinking about how to make the most of what you have (and maybe how to get creative with that can that you found in the back of the cabinet) I would think seriously about your food groups and how to vary them, along with flavors. If you look closely at the cover for this weekly you’ll notice that my latest clean-out-the-freezer meal consisted of some vegan chicken nuggets and some roasted brussel sprouts and sweet potato on a bed of rice with some hot sauce on top. Okay so this wasn’t the most glorious meal… but it tasted delicious! And it was also a different way of consuming food that had been in the back of my freezer for a while (the nuggets) and leftovers (the veggies) in a different way than I’d ever had them before. They say that creativity is most often fostered under some kind of restriction, which in this case is weeks of quarantine.
Essentially you want to break your meals into four core parts: your protein, your grains, your veggies and most importantly spices. I think that spices and sauces are the most important thing to vary in the coming weeks because they can make the same food taste totally different. For example, chickpeas can be roasted with curry powder for a delicious crunch, or tossed in pasta with oregano for extra protein, or spiced with chili powder to make taco fillings. The same can be done with vegetables, which are even more versatile. Something like spinach can be sautéed in eggs, pasta, stir fry, blended in a smoothie, or eaten as a base for salad. When you’re considering what to stock up on, try to find things that are versatile and you could imagine eating in multiple ways, so you know that you have the capacity to mix it up! Spices are expensive but a great thing to stock up on if you’re able to make the most of whatever you have. Try to buy in bulk in the coming weeks, but also remember that your health is the top priority and if you’re nervous about using bulk bins do not feel guilty for using something in plastic packaging right now!
While many of us are lucky enough to be able to stock up, families living paycheck-to-paycheck may not be able to buy more than they need for the distant future. Consider making a donation (money is always better than food) to your local food pantry or food bank for those in need.
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