Organic Food of the Week

"We didn’t set out to become the nation’s leading natural frozen food brand. All we wanted to do was create a business that would allow us to earn a living by providing convenient and tasty natural vegetarian meals for people like ourselves, who appreciated good food, but were often too busy to cook from scratch."








If I had to choose a favorite organic food to purchase, one that's delicious, and easy to find - I would have to say the first thing that comes to mind is the brand "Amy's" You can find their stuff in any major grocery store, and even some convenient stores! They're a company with great morals and values, their products are competitively affordable, and they're a great vegetarian alternative for those days where you have already eaten your share of meat - and believe me, you wouldn't know you weren't eating meat in these products!

My best friend introduced me to this brand about 2 years ago when he was telling me about his favorite quick and healthy dinner, Amy's Chili on Rice (currently what I'm eating for dinner right now actually) Since then I've found myself gravitating towards their products on most occasions when I'm in the soup isle of the grocery store - not even the organic section, but if you go there, you'll find even more of their products.

One of my favorites so far has been Amy's "Not Chicken Noodle Soup" It had all the heartiness, and even more flavor than the regular canned chunky soup, and none of the processed crap - and especially not MSG or MSG alternatives.

I have an MSG allergy, where when I eat it in large, and sometimes in even small quantities in processed food, I get overwhelming migraines, where I'm often sick to my stomach for hours, and the first food I can go for when I feel up for eating again is soup - which is one of the most common places to find MSG - I'll elaborate on that in my next article though.

For now, consider a healthy alternative for yourself, or your family, where if you're not ready to start cooking organic, let someone do the cooking for you, where all you have to do is heat it up!

Illegal!

Where in the world would we be without those brave officers working the border to protect us from the dangerous things that people try to smuggle into Canada, weapons, drugs, cheese... WAIT...WHAT? CHEESE? Really?

Did you know that in Canada and the United States it is outlawed to have unpasturized cheese that is aged less than 60 days? And that it's actually quite the criminal offense to be caught trying to smuggle cheese into the country!

One article I read tells of the valiant efforts of our border officers stopping a car from bring about 100lbs of a soft Mexican cheese over the border. They state at the end of the article that the smugglers had their visas canceled and the cheese was destroyed! I think I'd like to sign up to be one of the officers who helps to "Destroy" said cheese.

Give this a thought - unpasturized cheese is quite common in Europe - one of the healthiest parts, if not THE healthiest part of the world! Why should it be illegal here? If you really want to break the law and get some of this cheese, I read the best way to obtain some without leaving the country is to make friends with your local cheese maker, and ask them about their "French Cheeses"

Goodbye Gluten =(

It was a cold sad day in November when I realized that I was gluten intolerant - a problem in fact that I've seen becoming more common every day. Mind you after being sick to my stomach almost every day for just over a month, part of me was more than overjoyed to learn that it was gluten intolerance, as opposed to other things that would be a much bigger inconvenience in the life I currently lead. It's been an uphill battle, and a very odd one at that where some things bug me, other things don't - in fact - I can eat a slice of our lemon poppyseed loaf here at the cafe, but one bit of the chocolate banana bread makes me violently ill, yet both are made with the same flour.

I've been so luck to find that London's only Gluten Free bakery is just down the road from my apartment, and I paid them my first visit last week and was just completely overwhelmed at the thought that I could still eat cheese bread, I could still have pasta, I could even have deserts like buttertarts and pies! They even sell gluten free all purpose flour! So if I wanted to, I could make chocolate banana bread that doesn't make me sick!

Slowly I'm learning to not be so impulsive with my bread cravings, I'm learning that you find gluten in weird places (like soy sauce - it's the second ingredient... before soy even!) But it's been one of the healthier disfunctions that we all run the risk of developing at some point or another. And day by day, my stomach hurts less, I have more energy, and I learn to live a gluten free life!

As Organic as I can be

Hello there Blogland, and welcome to my quest for organic lifeforms. Let me tell you a little bit about myself, my life, and why I've chosen to start this blog, as well as why I think it could possibly help you!

I'm Amanda, I'm 23 and currently I'm on 2 completely different career paths, one as a fashion designer, the other as a cook/server in an amazing cafe. This blog is going to focus more on the culinary world, and my journey through it. My training? I'm currently enrolled in (and have been for about 4 years) The Culinary Institute of being addicted to the food network - and to be honest, I think I'll graduate with honours. Tuiton isn't much, really only as much as your cable bill every month, even just your internet since you can now stream most of their shows off of their website. I for one seem to be on the fortunate side of a cable fuss up where they have cut it off my bill - but not in my building, so now I'm getting free cable - Amazing!

I've been working in this lovely little cafe since the end of September '09, in this cafe I do the cooking for both here, as well as another cafe owned by the same people on the other side of town. We've been on an amazing quest of learning the perks of having a commercial kitchen, and how great it feels to be able to say goodbye to the unsatisfactory processed world of ordering food in, and hello to healthy food we can be proud to put our names behind. We're constantly in the position of David against the corporate Goliath in an ongoing battle against fair prices, and healthy delicious food.

The first thing you'll hear from so many people about why they don't choose organic is the cost - everyone always complains about how much more expensive organic food is compared to your standard grocery store brand that is jam packed with god knows what! Sadly we're in the same boat as most people, as a small business, it's not easy to be 100% organic - but we can atleast be 100% as organic as we can be!

But what does that mean? What that means is watching what you buy, reading ingredients, and questioning those random words that you really don't know how to even pronounce on the ingredients list. We've found amazing things in the most unsuspecting places! Did you know that Bulk Barn carries a vegetable soup stock that is both MSG and Salt free? Neither did we, but now it's the only stock that we use in our soups!

The other thing I wanted to mention, if you can't eat organic, atleast try to eat local when you can! I had a discussion once with a customer about the moral responsibility of buying organic vs buying local - ask yourself which means more to you - The organic apple that had to drive 1000km to get into your stomach - or your neighbors apples that may need a wash to clear some pesticides off of them - which has a bigger impact?

There's also one major health factor to being as organic as you can be, the weight loss. I was never a big girl, in fact I'm quite tiny, reaching only 5 feet on a good day. Just by eating as organic, and as healthy as I can, I've managed to lose close to 20 lbs since I started here at the cafe, and I am now at a weight that is absolutely ideal for my height!

So keep an eye on me, I'm going to be posting as often as possible, I'd like to post recipes, strange food controversies, and talk to you about eating locally, and organically. I'd love to be able to help you change your lifestyle and become as organic as you can be in our quest for Organic Lifeforms!