1. Down on the Farm: Pick-your-own (PYO) farms, farmers markets, farmstands, and roadside garden stands are all excellent places to go to for fresh local produce. You may find other foods here too - eggs, jams and preserves, honey, breads and other baked goods, fudge, and the like.

2. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), or Farm Share: For an upfront sum, subscribers get a weekly or monthly portion of produce - fruits and veggies, eggs, milk, and whatever else is offered in the particular package they sign up for. Some CSA arrangements require a little dirty work during the height of the growing season, but others are strictly pay and pick up.

3. Food Co-ops: These are not your mother’s co-ops! The food co-ops of today have come a long way in terms of both what they offer and who they offer it to. Count on plenty of organic dried bulk items, as well as an abundance of fresh local produce in season. Again, you may be asked to help out on a rotating schedule, but you may not. Some co-ops are members-only; others are open to the public.

4. Grow Your Own: Discover your inner green thumb! Indoors or outdoors, on patios, windowsills, balconies, or back-forties, gardens are fast becoming one of the most popular way to “eat green.” Many favorite varieties of fruits and veggies have been developed specifically for growing in small spaces. There’s no question that growing your own costs less, and there’s no way to get fresher seasonal produce.

5. Back to Nature: If you hear the call of the wild, answer it! Hunting, fishing, and foraging are time-honored ways of bringing food to the table. Make sure you have the proper permits as required by your state, and invest some time in learning the basics of safe hunting and foraging. Proceed with caution. Ideally, the best source of information is an experienced guide, someone who has been foraging for wild foods for years - and lived to tell the tale. Under no circumstances should you eat - or even taste - something the origins of which you can only guess at. Better safe than sorry. Way better.

And then there’s that thing that bees do. Actually, bees do many, many things that are incredible. The whole colony-of-insects-working-as-a-perfectly-ordered-system thing is pretty mind-blowing. But one especially intriguing thing that bees do is the “waggle dance.”

When a honey bee worker out scouting for food finds a good source of pollen, she rushes back to her hive and performs the waggle dance. The waggle dance is an elaborate series of movements that the bee uses to communicate the directions and even the distance to the food source the worker has discovered. The better the source, apparently, the more lively the dance.

And as unbelievable as it sounds, the waggle dance is pretty darn specific. Bees, apparently, rarely lose their way. Or, that’s how it used to be, at least. But now, with colonies collapsing at an alarming rate and bees dropping like, well, like flies, everything is up in the air. Scientists are rushing to study and hopefully reverse the current crisis that has led to an alarming rate of bee disappearance and as-yet-unexplained colony disruption and death.

The good news is, big corporations like Haagen-Dazs are taking the initiative to help support research into the colony collapse disorder (CCD). (According to Help the Honey Bees, sponsored by Haagen-Dazs, 40% of the company’s super-premium flavors are bee dependent.) 

It’s not just Haagen-Dazs that has a vested interest. Maybe you don’t care for honey, and bees have always made you a little nervous anyway. If you think this whole CCD has nothing to do with you, you better take a look at this list. Drink coffee or tea? Wear jeans or T-shirts? Like mustard or ketchup on your hotdog? Cotton, coffee, tea, mustard, and tomatoes are all included in the 80 percent of U.S. crops that are pollinated by honey bees. Some, like apples, almonds, carrots, and cantaloupes, are almost exclusively reliant on honey bees for pollination. So, to sum it up, roughly one out of every three bites we eat in the United States was pollinated at some stage by honey bees. Relevant, isn’t it?

For a fun, albeit gender-inaccurate (no boy worker bees in real life!) representation of the waggle dance, check out this video.

Then, for a slightly more serious demonstration of the amazing waggle dance (no knee pads! no males!), check out this video. (Warning: The narrator mistakenly refers to the forager as a “he.” I don’t know where this male-bee bias is coming from! In any case, foragers/workers are definitely females. The males are drones, and they stay put in the hive. They have no stingers, they do no work, and their sole task in life is servicing the queen. Nice.)

Hungry for more? Check out this NOVA’s “Dances with Bees” and see if you can interpret the bees’ directions yourself!

Picture by me.

When I read about the new Shades cases for iPod - durable, fully recyclable, available in 9 different colors - I was more than a little enthusiastic to give them a test drive. I like the idea of a product that lasts long enough not to end up in a landfill a couple of weeks after its shipping container gets there. And if it’s stylish too, why, all the better.

But I wanted the testing to be thorough. I thought about the iPods in my family. My own spends most of its life languishing in a drawer because I still haven’t gotten the hang of downloading/uploading music, in spite of repeated attempts on the part of my husband and son to teach me. My husband’s iPod would have been a better candidate, as his gets a pretty good workout, between Audible.com and iTunes. 

But then I realized that a true test of durability, endurance, and sheer grit would be to slap the thing on my teenage son’s iPod. Now there’s a test that would count for something! I recalled the wardrobe of cases his iPod has worn in the past. Leather, vinyl, space-age materials that probably would have fared better coating the nose cone of some atmosphere-breaching rocket than my son’s pocket - none managed to survive long. 

Sure, some, like the leather one, were durable. But the plastic over the scroll wheel was so thick, it was a serious handicap. The vinyl was cute (I thought, like a little rubbery raincoat), but it was a magnet for pocket lint, and before long it looked like the business end of my son’s ear buds were plugged into a hamster. The other cases all worked fine for awhile, but they tore or got dirty and sticky too fast or just weren’t cool.

And then, there was Shades. Rosy Red and shiny as a candy apple, the sample Shades case immediately scored points for coolness. After some tugging and shoving (and eventual passing along to a more patient sister), the case was on. Scroll wheel testing began. Son became distracted by music issuing from iPod and wandered away. Scroll wheel sensitivity apparently not an issue.

Three weeks later . . .

The iPod is left unguarded for twenty seconds, so I had an opportunity to take a good look at the Shades case. I figure three weeks is a long enough time to assess durability. Some of his previous cases were barely hanging on at this point. I was a little surprised to find the Shades case is in great shape! No scratches, no tears, not a single speck of lint stuck to its (still) shiny surface. Pretty impressive. Other than the relatively minor drawback of being a tad difficult to wrangle onto the iPod (which may be because of a size discrepancy), the Shades case really does seem superior to the others he used.

And … it’s recyclable, along with the packaging it rode in on. Pretty sweet. And did I mention it comes in 9 colors? Check out the Shades Web site for pricing and ordering info.

Overall, testing this scale, I liked it quite a bit, though it’s environmentally friendly aspect was not the most relevant of all the attributes that appealed to me. True, the lack of batteries is a plus, but it’s not like my everyday digital scale is the Hummer of weight-monitoring devices.

The Tanita model is sleek, streamlined, and comfortable to stand on. Best of all, it has a huge display, which is easy to read even though it’s not backlit. To reset the scale, you need only tap the reset button, located on the near edge, with your toe. No need to get off the scale to adjust it.

Although Tanita claims that the scale is suited to ambient artificial light, I was skeptical. My bathroom is not well lit, having only one small, curtained window in addition to the lights over the vanity and the overhead. My fears were unfounded though. Even though the light isn’t particularly strong or focused, the scale performed consistently.

For about $35.00, you get a nice bathroom scale and save yourself from the guilt of adding even one more battery to the overcrowded landfills of America. You might just want to wait until your current scale kicks the bucket first.

Image from The Competitive Edge

My grandparents brought their ”old country” way of life with them when they emigrated, locavores before the term even existed. They bought neighbor-made rye bread in loaves as large as couch pillows.  My grandmother pickled cucumbers and bottled raspberry juice. My grandfather made yogurt on a sunny windowsill. They bought their honey by the quart in squat square jars from a local guy who delivered it.

My grandfather would stir honey into his coffee, tip it from mug into saucer, and sip it from there. Old country.

Things have changed quite a bit since my childhood summers in the country. Some things haven’t changed so much. I find myself making bread. Making yogurt. Buying honey by the quart. I drink my coffee black, no sipping from the saucer, but like honey in my tea occasionally (still no saucer).

And as much as I find myself turning to the “old-country” ways of the past for practical wisdom, every now and then, an innovation comes along that I’m intrigued by. That I find genuinely helpful, useful. (I wouldn’t be making yogurt every week without my Salton machine, I can tell you that.) Now Honibe has come up with the Honey Drop, and I bet my grandfather would have gotten a kick out of these!

For everyone who’s ever carried a teabag or a packet of liquid honey in his or her pocket or purse, this one’s for you. Honibe’s Honey Drop is a tablet of dried honey, 100% pure and completely free from artificial coloring, flavoring, or preservatives. Unlike other dried honey products, the Honey Drop contains no supplementary sweeteners. It’s simply a teaspoon of honey, in solid form. Period.

Available in plain or with natural lemon flavor, the Honey Drop is perfect for carrying in a purse, backpack, or briefcase. Because it contains no liquid, there’s no danger of your honey packet rupturing and making a mess - making it ideal for travel. Tea and coffee drinkers who avoid white sugar and artificial sweeteners don’t have to compromise now. You can have your honey and take it with you.

You can order Honibe Honey Drops online at their Web site. While you’re there, be sure to take a look around. In addition to the Honey Drops, they offer a unique selection of creamed and liquid honey varietals. And that’s another bonus - I like that this “convenience product” comes from folks who really know their honey and have a personal connection with it.  Just like in the old country.  

This just in . . . Honibe’s Honey Drop has been named a Top 10 Innovation of 2008 by Food in Canada magazine. Congratulations!

I sampled a four-color pack of multipurpose cloths. As it turns out, the colors are arbitrary. With the exception of the window cloth (blue in the above picture), the cloths are materially identical; the colors are for the purpose of telling them apart so you can assign them to different tasks. For example, the lime cloth can become the bathroom cloth, the coral cloth can be used expressly for cleaning kitchen surfaces, and so on. The blue window cloth has a different texture and is designed to clean windows, mirrors, and other glass surfaces.

The cloths are designed to be used either dry, for dusting, or damp, for wiping and spot removal. I tested both methods.

Armed with a dry cloth, the first thing I attacked was my leather couch. Because it is coffee colored, it showcases every speck of dust that clings to it. Normally, I use disposable electrostatic cloths to clean the couch and do other types of dry dusting. The ACT-tex cloth performed very well here, certainly just as well as the disposable cloths I am accustomed to using. Pleased, I decided to move on to something a little more challenging . . . the baseboards.

With forced-air heat, the baseboards in my home are a natural repository for dust and cat hair. I could dry mop on a daily basis (as if!), and still, there always seems to be a gentle surf of gray fur lapping at the molding. I dropped to the floor and went to work with the cloth.

Friends, I was sorely tempted to show you the vast amounts of dusty cat hair the ACT-tex cloth picked up, but that would have necessitated showcasing my housekeeping shortcomings on the Internet and, well, no thank you. So imagine, if you will, hair-ball dust bunnies the size of their real-life counterparts clinging to the dust cloth. And the beauty of the reusable cloth is that you can simply shake off the dust outside and go back for more (there’s always more!). I did, tackling the venetian blinds in my bedroom next. I won’t recount that saga, but I will say that the cloth did a bang-up job of removing dust from those, too.

Next, I grabbed the green cloth and headed into the bathroom. The press materials for the ACT Natural cloths claim that the cloths were as, if not more, effective at removing harmful microorganisms from smooth surfaces than the usual bathroom cleaners — using no chemicals at all. I don’t know about that . . . I was just wondering how on earth they’d manage to get the caked-on toothpaste and hairspray residue off the sink.

Here is where I was most surprised. I generally use either Scrubbing Bubbles or plain baking soda (depending on how ambitious I feel about cleaning the bathroom) to clean the sink. I seriously doubted that a cloth dampened with only water was going to be able to remove the grime — at least not without some serious elbow grease on my part. But the cloth worked surprisingly well. It was not difficult at all to clean the soap scum and toothpaste residue from the surface of the vanity and the fixtures using the ACT-tex cloth dampened only with water. Afterward, the surface felt completely smooth and clean under my hand.

And how to clean these wonder cloths? The package recommends throwing them in the washing machine with a mild, low-sudsing detergent on the hottest cycle, or boiling them on the stovetop for 3 to 5 minutes. I haven’t had to wash my cloths yet; rinsing them in hot water has proved sufficient so far.

Available in several packages, including a mop set, ACT Natural cloths worked for me and struck me as a good alternative to disposable electrostatic cloths for dry dusting and harsh chemical cleaners for wet cleaning. For more information or to order, visit EURONET USA.

You stumble to the medicine chest for cough syrup, only to find that there is none. You threw it all out this winter, after the medical powers that be put the kibosh on OTC cold and cough medicines for young children. Seems those erstwhile soothing elixirs had more potential to harm than to help. And as you stare at your baggy-eyed reflection in the medicine-cabinet mirror for the fourth night in a row, grimly fantasizing about sneaking out to the backyard and curling up in the doghouse to get some decent shut-eye, you realize that the same could be said for an otherwise loving mom with a bad case of offspring-induced sleep deprivation.

So what do you do now?

Call Grandma. Apparently, that’s what researchers from the Penn State College of Medicine did, because they’ve come up with the same bit of conventional wisdom grandmothers have been spooning into us for years: Honey is good for coughs. Not just good, but super. 

According to the results of the research, a nip of buckwheat honey before bed works better than dextromethorphan (the active ingredient in many over-the-counter cough preparations) for quieting a cough due to upper respiratory infection and helping the child sleep. And you know what that means, Mom. (Or Dad.)

Sound too good to be true? Let’s see. Honey—it’s cheap, natural, and non-narcotic. And unlike that poison-flavored cherry or grape stuff, you won’t have to wrestle your child to get him or her to part lips for it. In fact, you might even want to let on that you are doling out the good stuff as a treat. It’s honey, for crying out loud!

And honey, as it turns out, has been used for hundreds of years to soothe, cure, heal, and salve a number of different human maladies, not the least of which is a cough. It has antimicrobial properties and  contains a variety of antioxidants and minerals, including niacin, zinc, iron, and magnesium. Also, honey is good source of easily digested carbohydrates—a boon for little ones under the weather. The soothing properties of honey are welcome for easing cough-irritated throats, too.

Your best bet is to buy locally produced organic honey. Made by your friendly neighborhood bees from the plants that grow in your area, local honey is believed to be beneficial in helping the body adapt to its environment. What does that mean? Well, briefly, it could mean that eating honey derived from pollen in your immediate environment may actually mitigate some of your hay fever symptoms. Worth looking into, no? 

However, honey should not be given to babies under 12 months of age. Clostridium botulinum spores may be present in honey, posing a risk to babies less than a year old.  Although these spores are widespread in the dust and dirt of our everyday environment, they do not typically pose a threat to older babies and children, whose nervous systems are more mature.

So the next time your little honey has an upper respiratory infection and a cough that is keeping everyone (but especially Mom) up at night, try soothing it with a little bit of honey. And then call Grandma and tell her she was right all along.

(Image by Scott Liddell, courtesy of Morguefile.)

Plain yogurt, like Brussels sprouts, beets, and kale, is one of those foods that makes me feel slightly virtuous each time I eat it. Not because it’s a struggle to choke down these foods, I hasten to clarify, but just because there are so many health benefits associated with them.

Although in the past I’ve purchased store-brand plain nonfat yogurt or that produced by the big-name commercial yogurt manufacturers, I recently decided to experiment with two plain nonfat organic yogurts, both available at my local large-chain store where I shop for groceries.

The two I tried, Brown Cow and Stonyfield Farm, were both available in 6-ounce and 32-ounce sizes. I purchased the latter. I’ll admit that in this day of high and rising dairy prices, it pinched a bit to pay about a dollar more per container for the organic yogurt. (Since then, however, I made a happy discovery. Both brands feature printable coupons on their Web sites.)

Once I tried the yogurts, though, all concerns about the price difference fled. Turns out that there’s no comparison between the store brand and the organics. The latter were far creamier, richer, and did not give off nearly as much liquid as the store brand and even the big-name brand did. But even more dramatic was the flavor difference. Both of the organics were milder, smoother tasting, and much less sour than the others. Tart, yes, it’s yogurt after all, but missing was the acidity that makes eating plain yogurt, even when mixed with fruit or applesauce, sometimes so unpleasant, especially for children. Really, the flavor was a surprise to me, and it has been the biggest factor in my continued purchase of these brands (I tend to alternate between the two, week to week).

Now, I don’t eat my yogurt straight up, out of the container and into the bowl. (I said virtuous, not ascetic!) I layer my plain nonfat organic yogurt on top of about 1/2 cup of frozen unsweetened raspberries or strawberries (it’s still too early for fresh here on the East Coast) that have been microwaved to thaw them so they’re nice and juicy. (If you eschew the nuker, just macerate your berries with 1/2 teaspoon of sugar and let them sit on the countertop, covered, to thaw for half an hour or so.) Drizzle the yogurt with a teaspoon of honey if you like – I do – and fold the berries into the yogurt. Enjoy!

Since I am not the primary consumer of ketchup in my household (that distinction belongs to my kids), I decided to enlist the whole family in taste-testing this product. We sampled Wholemato’s Organic Agave Ketchup on roasted potatoes, which were otherwise flavored only with sea salt, black pepper, and a little bit of olive oil.

Upon opening the bottle, I gave it a sniff. Vinegar. Not usually a fortuitous sign with ketchup, however, in this case, it turned out to be a pretty good thing. Number 2 in the list of ingredients is cider vinegar, and it does come through as an assertive flavor. The texture of this ketchup is perhaps the most obvious departure from standard ketchup: on the plate, it looks more like a pulpy tomato sauce than like the smooth, somewhat liquid ketchup produced by the most common brands.

While the predominant advertising and labeling focus is on the agave nectar in this product, leading me to expect a much sweeter ketchup, I was pleasantly surprised to discover a tangier, more dominantly tomato-flavored condiment. To me, this ketchup did not taste nearly as sweet as the corn-syrup-sweetened commercial varieties, a fact that I appreciated. (Oddly enough, my 12-year-old disagreed—she perceived it to be “just as sweet as regular ketchup” and that was a fact that she appreciated. Go figure.)

According to the Nutrition Facts panel, this product contains 3 grams of sugars per 1 tablespoon serving. Heinz has 3 g as well; Hunt’s has 4 g per 1 tablespoon serving. The major difference is that because Wholemato Organic Agave Ketchup is sweetened with agave nectar, it scores only 7 on the glycemic index (as opposed to regular ketchup, which has a score of about 55), making it a great choice for diabetics.

This is tasty and somewhat sophisticated for a “plain” ketchup. Well-seasoned and zippy, with a mellow sweetness, it is somewhat removed from the condiment that flows from the spout at your local fast-food outlet. If your kids are conditioned to expect an extremely sweet, smooth ketchup, Wholemato’s Organic Agave Ketchup may take a bit of getting used to. But for those whose palates are perhaps more adventurous, it’s a good example of what ketchup can be—rich in tomato flavor, onion and garlic notes, nose-tickling vinegar aroma, and soothing sweetness. If you are trying to avoid corn sweeteners, this condiment is a great find.

Wholemato Organic Agave Ketchup comes in a 13-ounce glass bottle; suggested retail price is $4.99 (U.S.). For more information, you can view their Web site. 

The Smoooshed Grape flavor my kids sampled has all of two ingredients: organic apple puree concentrate and organic grape puree concentrate (in that order). It looks like a wide, flat piece of dark purplish fruit leather, weighing in at 0.4 ounces (12 g), and contains 40 calories. Other flavors available in the Smoooshed Fruit Flats include apricot, apple, strawberry, and raspberry.

The makers of Smoooshed Fruit Flats, the Stretch Island Fruit Company, originated in 1976. According to its Web site, their values – “optimism, social conscience, simplicity, and health” – are pretty much in sync with their product. The Smoooshed Fruit Flat is simple, healthy, socially consciencious (organic), and I was optimistic that my kids would not be trading it for a Devil Dog the second their lunch bag touched down on the cafeteria table.  

So what does it actually taste like?

First, I asked the kids. Both of them, independently, gave me the same answer: “Grapes.” Opening the package myself, I gave it a sniff. Grape juice. The color is brownish purple, as you would expect dried fruit without coloring to look. (This product is miles away from those alarmingly violent green and blue “fruit” snacks next to it on the shelf.) And the taste is quite nice, not overwhelmingly grape with a capital G, but more of a subtle grape, balanced with apple. Not too sweet, pleasingly tart, and not nearly as sticky as some fruit leathers I’ve sampled.

All in all, thumbs-up for Organic Smoooshed Fruit Flats from FruitaBü.

Image from Amazon.com.