There are many benefits to eating produce in season. Likewise, there are many benefits to eating local foods. Together you gain the benefits of both, better for your health, your community, and the environment.

Eat Seasonally

• Cost- The cost is usually lower for produce in season because there is an abundance of these items.

• Fresh- Produce is picked at their peak of freshness, offering more nutritional content, nourishing your body with vitamins, minerals, enzymes, antioxidants, and phytochemicals.
• Variety- You’ve heard the saying “all in moderation”. Eating seasonally helps with that component by switching things up from season to season and not eating the same foods all year round.  
  

Eat Locally

• Supporting local farmers- When you purchase local foods or visit the farmer’s market you’re supporting local agriculture and giving back to your community.

• Environmental benefits- It takes resources to grow the food, but also takes tremendous resources to transport foods to your local grocery store. By eating locally, you’re eliminating some use of our precious resources.

• Empowering knowledge- When you know where your food is coming from, you are empowered with knowledge of how your food was produced and may appreciate the farmers who put food in your belly more.

Here at The Growing Project, we value both of these options and would like to share some ideas you can use for cooking with seasonal, local produce. The month of May has a variety of produce that is in season and can be found locally such as asparagus, fava beans, green garlic, mint, morels, mushrooms, nettles, radishes, rhubarb, scallions, snow peas, and spinach.

For this month’s recipe, I would like to share a tasty strawberry - rhubarb treat. I made them to see how they would taste and they are delicious! Even if you’re not a fan of rhubarb, these are still tasty because the strawberries enhance the sweetness of the bars. The active time on the recipe says twenty-five minutes, but my first attempt took me almost forty minutes. Other than that, it is an easy recipe to follow, great for barbecues or just a special treat for the family. 

Strawberry – Rhubarb Squares

9 squares, 2 1/2 inches each | Active Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 2 1/4 hours (including 1 1/2 hours chilling time)

Ingredients

Crust

• 1 cup white whole-wheat flour or all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened

Filling

• 2 cups coarsely chopped strawberries, fresh or frozen (not thawed), plus more for garnish
• 2 cups coarsely chopped rhubarb, fresh or frozen (not thawed)
• 1/3 cup water
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice or lime juice
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• Confectioners’ sugar for garnish

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line an 8-inch-square baking pan with foil and generously coat it with cooking spray.
2. To prepare crust: Combine flour, confectioners’ sugar, cornstarch and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a medium bowl. Add oil and butter; using your fingertips, blend into the flour mixture until evenly combined. The mixture will be a little crumbly. Firmly press the dough into the prepared pan. Bake until just barely beginning to brown around the edges, 15 to 20 minutes.
3. To prepare filling: Meanwhile, combine strawberries, rhubarb and water in a medium saucepan. Cook over high heat, stirring frequently, until the fruit is very soft and mostly broken down, 4 to 6 minutes. Pour through a fine-mesh sieve into a medium bowl, pressing on the solids to extract all the liquid. Pour the strained juice into a glass measuring cup. You need 1 cup strained juice; remove any extra or add a little water if you are short. Stir lemon (or lime) juice into the strained fruit juice.
4. Whisk granulated sugar, cornstarch and 1/8 teaspoon salt in a medium bowl until well combined. Whisk in eggs. Stir in the juice mixture. Pour the filling over the crust.
5. Bake until just set, 15 to 20 minutes. (The center should still be a little jiggly—it will firm up as it cools.)
6. Let cool to room temperature in the pan on a wire rack, about 1 1/2 hours. Gently lift out of the pan all in one piece using the edges of the foil. Cut into 9 squares. Garnish with fresh strawberries and dust with confectioners’ sugar, if desired, just before serving.

Recipe retrieved from http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/strawberry_rhubarb_squares.html

In our country, consumers, retailers, and restaurants throw away more than 100 BILLION pounds of edible food each year. That means that even with 1 in 6 people going hungry everyday in the United States, over 40% of all edible food goes into the landfill rather than into the bellies of those in need. Additionally, more than half of the “food” produced in our agricultural system is not safe for humans to eat, but rather feeds livestock or needs extensive processing before human consumption. What would happen if these trends shifted and this food waste was redirected to feed the hungry? Well by numbers I have seen and research I have read, there is more than enough food wasted in the United States per year to feed every hungry person on the planet an adequate amount of food everyday for a healthy, nutritious life.

Even with challenges such as convincing grocery stores to participate and recruiting a steady volunteer team, through a strength-based and community needs-based approach, Boulder Food Rescue is creating the infrastructure to one day eliminate food waste, hopefully nationwide! There are about 1 billion people in the world who are hungry and malnourished; but ultimately we are all food insecure to some degree because we are dependent on a corporatized, globalized food system that is increasingly unstable and will not be able to sustain the projected population growth and human needs for food in the future. By re-localizing food production and feeding ourselves through sustainable community practices and food rescue, we can come together in gratitude and dinner! Boulder Food Rescue and the movement to reduce food waste are ultimately building health equity, social equity, and an equal partnership with the environment. As we become co-conspirators in food security, we also can connect to each other and nature in an “ethos of sharing.” We are abundant in food. Share it forward. Thank you Hana and BFR! 

In order to learn more about how local organizations are playing a role in food justice, I talked with inspiring community heroes, like Bruce Wallace at the Food Bank for Larimer County. Guided by heart and a passion for change, Bruce, the Food Bank, and their partners are leading the movement in food security through collaboration, awareness, and service. I learned so much from our conversation about how we can all work together to ensure every person has their basic need and right for food met. 

Nutritious food is not equally available to everyone. When we do not struggle ourselves with getting enough to eat, it can be easy to forget this. But in reality, food insecurity can impact anyone at anytime, and those who are hungry today are “you and me, with a little more bad luck” (Wallace, 2014). Because of this, it is important to know where we can all go in our community to find support when we need it. These resources may include formal government programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Women, Infant, and Children SNAP; however, the true backbone in the fight against hunger is informal supports such as local food shares, food rescue programs, and Meals on Wheels. Nonprofits like the Food Bank for Larimer County and The Growing Project are “becoming the new social safety net” for our food secure future (Wallace, 2014).

Established in 1984, the Food Bank for Larimer County distributes millions of pounds of food each year to those in need. To meet their honorable vision for a “hunger-free Larimer County” the Food Bank has built strong community partnerships and a number of food-relief programs. Here is a summary of their programs:


Food Share: direct service food pantries in Loveland and Fort Collins offering free, nutritious food to over 13,000 people each month

Food Link: a partnership of over 80 community nonprofits, and 120 programs, such as kitchens, shelters, and childcare programs, that provides low-cost nutritious food and free produce to these agencies and at-risk populations;

Child Nutrition: Kids Café provides children 3-18 years old experiencing hunger access to a nutritious meal after school and during summer months; the focus of the Café is nutrition! Kids Link directly provides two-part snacks to students in schools with over 50% free and reduced breakfast and lunch enrollment; school staff can also shop at the Food Bank for snacks to take back to the students. Backpack provides homeless children in need (referred by schools) with a supplemental weekend food pack filled with nutritious food such as complete meals, snacks, and beverages that are easy for even young children to prepare. These programs are exceeding school and USDA standards for nutrition!

Nutrition Programming: the bi-monthly Tasting Table allows people shopping in Food Share to taste fresh produce in simple recipes, as well as take a copy of the healthy recipe home. The Food Bank focuses on cooking healthy food in their kitchen using raw, nutritious, and fresh ingredients. They also administer a Nutrition Survey to learn more about client fruit and vegetable consumption. Finally, the Food Bank partners with farmers, gardeners, and grocers in the Plant it Forward program to ensure surplus food is rescued, donated and redistributed to individuals and families in need. Over 300,000 pounds of produce was distributed in March!

To learn more about the Food Bank click here!

It is possible to eliminate hunger, but this is not happening at a large scale. With 50 million people (1 in 6) in the United States experiencing food insecurity, and 43,000 in Larimer County, it is clear that this social problem is huge and the need for food is high. Food insecurity does not only impact one demographic and is not just a symptom of poverty. Wallace (2014) recognizes that the USDA’s definition of food insecurity is truly a limited choice between giving you and your child food, or paying rent and bills so you can keep a roof over your head. Many food insecure people can be classified as “working poor” – those who hold a steady job but are not paid enough to care for themselves and their family. Many who are food insecure are veterans who fought for and protected us; our growing elderly population; people with disabilities; single mothers with children; and people with unfortunate life events such as accidents, physical and mental illnesses, and unemployment. Unfortunately, children are the largest food insecure population, and this trend is only growing locally, nationally, and globally.

Malnutrition points to another problem in our society – wage inequality. The cost of living everywhere seems to be increasing (especially in Larimer County), while at the same time wages are stagnant, our government is reluctant to increase minimum wage, and the income gap is only getting more severe. As the 99% become poorer and the 1% wealthier, the rates of food insecurity will only increase. This economic inequality is fueled by corrupt lobbyists and outdated, negligent food and farm policies in this country. For example, the cheapest foods have always been the least nutritious and the most processed, showing what the government has been willing to subsidize since the Great Depression and World War II! Come on – have we not learned anything since then? If fruits, vegetables, and whole foods keep getting more expensive, then as people become poorer, they may choose fruits and vegetables even less than they do now.