Jenny at Nourished Kitchen commented that enjoying fruits and veggies is the key to getting kids to eat them and eat healthier.  She says it as well or better than I could.  I especially enjoyed her comments about the long-term effect on food preferences of eating a varied diet when breastfeeding.

I am lucky to have boys with broad tastes and an appreciation for good nutrition.  Two things I think have helped immensely:
First, the family garden:    My boys help plan the garden, choosing species and varieties they want to eat.  Our garden time is treated as special time with Mom, not a chore.  Sure, they might not always be the most help, but hearing them have adventures as they pull paths through the weeds to rescue “John Porter” (a tomato variety) is better than hired help any day.   Choosing varieties such as purple carrots, purple beans and red lettuce, growing and harvesting make eating them a celebration, not a chore.  Add in having them help cook it, and you’ve made huge strides in expanding their palate.

Second, a supportive school program.  The Montessori school they attended for the past three years made lunch part of the curriculum.  It was delightful to have my then-5-year old lecture me about needing to have fresh vegetables, not canned for dinner.  They are now in public school, they have a great perspective on the school lunch menu.  They will often choose to take their lunch based on what they helped prepare or on the “junkiness” of the school food.  I realize I am indeed lucky to have children opt for homemade meatloaf over the school corndog and tater tots.

Selling at the three local farmer’s markets is usually a high point of my week.  After three years, Wild Type Ranch has a solid customer base.  It’s like catching up with friends, as I ask about how the roast turned out that they cooked for visiting family, how the steaks cooked for the hot date, or about someone’s ailing wife who has been absent for a few weeks.

Even though each of my markets (Sun City, Georgetown and the Vineyard at Florence) is only open a few hours, participating in a market day is pretty much a whole-day event.  There is the 90 minute drive each way to the market, an hour to set up and 30 minutes to take down, not to mention the packing and unpacking back at the ranch.   Even the shortest market is an 7 hour commitment.

Lately, attendance at the markets has been dismal.  Not just for me, but for all the vendors. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem, if you’ll pardon the pun.  Taking 7 or 8 hours out of a day and $25 worth of gas to sell $75 worth of beef (that probably cost $50 to produce) is not a sustainable business plan.  So, fewer vendors show up.  Less vendors, less variety and less reason for the customers to show up.

A farmer’s market really is a community function, and it takes the community to make it function.  One of the markets in which I participate is a brand-new market.  The vendors there attend, knowing that each week will likely be a wash.  We do so as an investment in the future of the market.

If you enjoy the occasional visit to the local market, make it a point to become a regular.  The benefits reach far beyond your plate.

A new USDA initiative was recently launched (thanks, SlashFood) designed to reconnect consumers with their food and to stimulate local food economies. The $65 million dollar “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” program aims to break down some of the barriers that keep local food systems from thriving.

It’s great to see the USDA getting involved in embracing local food, rather than seeing it as a threat.   Wild Type Ranch produces pastured beef to sell locally, but half of our business is raising top-quality breeding stock, most of which is used as parents of more conventionally-produced beef.   I often feel that I’m one of the few who don’t see the two businesses as antagonistic.

I hear both sides of this issue, at the farmer’s market, at cattle sales and around town.  Getting consumers in touch with producers has got to help with understanding some of the conventional production systems that sometimes unfairly come under criticism.  Having the USDA embrace local food economies has got to help conventional agriculture see that anything that promotes ag, helps keep farmers on the land and farming and educates consumers is good for all agriculture.

Kudos, USDA!