Friday, June 7, 2013

Good-Bye!

Thank you for reading our posts and following the Gladstone Farmers Market through this blog over the last year.  We are choosing to end our posts for now and put our focus into our new location at Gladstone Hy-Vee (7117 N. Prospect). 

Please come visit us at your new location beginning Wednesday, June 26, 2013. 


Tuesday, April 9, 2013

When Life Happens



I like to think I'm like most other moms out there.  We give a good effort to feed our families food that is healthy and then when life happens we slide back.  Since I was in one of my slide back times this past month, I quickly became interested in a post I received from KC Food Circle advertising a Eat Local & Organic exhibition. 
Beth Bader...Mom, Author

You can imagine my daughter's excitement at having to attend this event on a Saturday morning, especially when I tell her that the first thing we're doing is attending a "Real Food Your Kids Will Love" workshop.  Beth Bader, co-author of The Cleaner Plate Club is a great example of a busy, working mom who has found ways to overcome the obstacles thrown into her path while trying to feed her family in a healthy way.    The  statistics she gave on the status of children's health was saddening"If obesity levels continue at the current rate, the lifetime risk for a girl to be diagnosed with Type II diabetes is 40 percent. For boys, it is 30 percent."  We could be raising the first generation that will not out live their parents!  


What can we do as parents?   Beth had several good tips that are shared in her book.  Simple ideas like sneaking peppers, squash and other veggies into meatballs and sauces.  Another thing we need to keep in mind...it can take as many as 15 tries before a child accepts a new food!  It actually makes sense.  How many times have you reminded your kids to pick up their shoes?  


Veggies as far as the eye can see!
I just wanted to buy the whole basket!
After the workshop, we headed into the gym.  It was filled with vendors from all over the Kansas City area selling local, organic and free-range food.  Immediately I could smell the freshness.  It was so exiciting to see the season's first greens filling beautiful baskets with color.  It was like walking through the "best of the best" Farmers Market.  There were a lot of different meat vendors:  beef, pork, chicken, buffalo, lambEmu anyone?

Homemade lotions, soaps, handmade crafts.  They had it all.  This was a great way to get an early sampling of what's to come.   The vendors were happy to be there.  I overheard a ranch hand explaining to some kids what goes on at their horse farm.  At other table people were in line for coffee samples.  I spotted a bumper sticker that said "NO FARMERS- NO FOOD."  Very true, I thought to myself and grabbed it.   

Worms.  Probably some mom's ideal gift!
Rounding the last row I saw a young couple staring down at a plastic box and a man scooping things from it into a bag.  My daughter and I squeezed in to see.  Worms for sale!  That's not one you see every day.  The woman was saying that there was also bugs in the bag, at which the vendor replied something like, 'there are going to be bugs...there is a complete ecosystem in this box.'

Who doesn't love books?
Ah, the books!  Books on everything.  I love them so much I wanted to stop, but needless to say my companion was getting restless.  But I made sure I got a picture. 





Overall, it was a great event and time well spent.  So there we are back in the car and I'm all pumped up about eating healthy.  I'm talking about new things we can try and about throwing out Pop-Tarts, chips and fruits snacks when my daughter says, "Mom, you always do this.  You talk about eating healthy and we do it for a while and then we start eating junk again!"    I laugh.  She knows me well.   
 
Just a mom trying to keep up!









Monday, January 14, 2013

My Most Unfavorite Comment

             


An on-going discussion in my workplace surrounds my most unfavorite comment, "we've always done it like that."  Do you ever find yourself doing the same thing but then one day saying, "Why am I doing this?"  I had that very thought last week when I was cleaning the bathtub and the fumes were so bad that I grabbed a mask we had in the garage and put it on to finish.  (Okay, so it didn't look quite like this, but you get the idea.) 
The green & purple bottle was the killer for me!

Later that day I got on-line and started looking for some cleaning products that could suffice for my load of supplies. Of course there are tons out there, but I started simple with vinegar and water.   This worked but I wasn't crazy about the smell, so I added a couple of drops of peppermint essential oil.  That helped quite a bit.  Those who know me will understand that I was a little concerned about sanitation, so back I went to look for something to replace my Clorox wipes.  Living on a Dime.com gave an easy recipe that I already had the supplies for.  I put mine in a spray bottle, but I'd like to try the baby wipe container next.  
1 Tablespoon per load!

While looking for cleaning supply recipes, I also came across making your own laundry soap.  Now that just  makes $ense, I said to myself! Another thing that made this appealing is that this detergent isn't supposed to fade clothes as quickly.  I found all the ingredients at Walmart and spent about $10.  I've been using it for about 2 weeks now and it seems to be working fine.  

White & blue spray bottles from Walmart (.98 cents)

 

My next step is to purchase Castile soap.  It seems to be able to do all kinds of things. It can even be used for dishwasher liquid!  It  comes in different scents like Almond, Citrus and Lavender, which is good because the first complaint I received at    my house was how bad vinegar smelled. 

I'm anxious to hear from those of you who have tried products such as these.  I'm clearly late in the game on this.......or am I?  Have you seen how crowed the cleaning aisle is at Walmart?