Yesterday, I visited the Dekalb Farmer’s Market where I love to get all of my organic fruits and veggies when the small farmer’s markets are not yet open for Spring.  I thought I would highlight a few of the things I picked up…many of them new to me!

I wanted to add more greens to my diet so I got 2 bunches of kale, red leaf lettuce, mustard greens, and watercress.  A coworker said he loved mustard greens so I plan to saute them with lemon and garlic as he recommended or throw them in my salads.  The kale I will saute or make kale chips.  I washed a chopped my lettuce and put in a bowl with the watercress. Why watercress?  Watercress boosts our detoxifying capabilities. It is also a great source of vitamins B1, B2, B6, C, E, manganese, carotenes, calcium, fiber, iron and copper.  Everyone needs a little more green in their diet and I thought this would be a neat one to try!  (I’ll let you know how it goes!)

I picked up a big bag of lemons to add to my water.  Lemons help rejuvenate the liver which is our biggest fat-burning organ!

You know that delicious chocolate you love?  Cacao nibs are partially ground cacao beans and do not have the added sugar and fat that are in processed bars.  Cacao nibs are a bit bitter so they are great to add to smoothies and other recipes.  If you love super dark chocolate, like me, you may like them as a snack.  Cacao has the highest amount of flavonoids of any superfood and up to four times the amount of antioxidants of green tea!  Yes, chocolate IS good for you!

I purchased the coconut flour as something fun to have to make a treat. Not sure what I will do just yet!

Millet is a gluten-free seed, not grain, that is high in protein and a lot of nutrients like magnesium, calcium, and manganese.  It provides serotonin to help calm your mood and hydrates your colon and feeds your microflora in your intestines.  Millet is an alkaline forming food (I will do another post about acidic vs alkaline for those unfamiliar).

That is an overview of some of the new products I picked up.  Would it be helpful to share what I do with them in a follow-up post?

Have a great week!

Amy

Stacking cinder blocks into the wheel barrow to build the new raised beds

In researching local food and urban gardens in Atlanta, I came across a group called Crop Mob – Atlanta who organizes volunteer events at local farms in the Atlanta area.  The purpose of Crop Mob is to allow wanna-be farmers get experience working on local farms and learning more about how food is produced and also create a ‘mob’ of volunteers to help our local farmers.

I have wanted to learn more about urban gardening, organic farming, and gardening in general.  I think it is so important that we know what we are putting in our bodies as fuel and, the majority of the time, I don’t think we even consider how our food got to where it is when we eat.  After reading a lot about industrial agriculture, GMOs, factory farms, and the like, I know I want to learn more about sustainable agriculture and local, organic farming and help educate others on what they are putting into their body.

This Saturday, I went to Patchwork City Farms where I met founders and farmers Jamila and Ceci.  Patchwork City Farms is on a plot of land next to Brown Middle School in the Westend area.  Jamila and Ceci have a commercial business and also have an area for the middle school students to learn and grow produce.  They were so welcoming and helpful in guiding us to build 4 raised beds for the Spring crops.  Although rain was impending, it turned out to be a perfect day and a lot of hard work!  We started out putting down a layer of mulch to kill the grass where we were building our beds.  After the layer of mulch, we started pulling up the cinder blocks from the raised beds from last year.  And, what did we find!?

BLACK WIDOWS!!!

The red is characteristic of the black widow. They were everywhere!

Luckily I am not afraid of spiders and we were all just cautious we watched where we stuck our hands before flipping around the cinder blocks.  We wheeled the cinder blocks to the mulch and built our beds and then filled them with dirt.  All of that took several hours and was quite the workout!

After a bit of weeding the garlic patch (and chewing on some wheatgrass), Ceci and Jamila provided a GREAT spread of food for lunch.  A fresh salad with fruit and homemade dressing, rice and lentils, and a tuna pasta salad.  It was a perfect end to the hard work!

I enjoyed meeting the other Crop Mobbers and loved spending time with Ceci, Jamila, and her family.  We received some advice on buying organic seed and Ceci was kind enough to throw out some ideas on building a garden on my balcony.

If this sounds interesting to you, I would recommend checking out Crop Mob – Atlanta and make a visit to Ceci and Jamila’s Patchwork City Farm.  They have a CSA which is accepting members now and will be attending farmers markets this spring.

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

Amy

The course is one year long and began in January.  Ever since I began, my creative juices been flowing with ideas on how I can make a difference to help people live a healthy, happy life!  I have gone through ups and downs with my eating, workouts, stress, relationships, and more and now have realized what a big role they play in my choices.

I will begin posting interesting things I learn in my studying with IIN along with a variety of other projects and hobbies I have going on.  One exciting event coming up is the IIN Mega Conference in Long Beach, CA in March.  I plan to blog and tweet from the event for those who can’t attend or who are interested.  Speakers like David Wolfe, Mark Sissan (Mark’s Daily Apple), and Geneen Roth will be present.  I am psyched!

For anyone interested in learning more about IIN, here is a link:

I am excited to share with you as I progress with IIN and in my personal life.  Feel free to click on the Contact tab at the top of my site to reach out to me!