Change the Trajectory

We hope everyone will join us this Thursday for another mouth-watering Pathfinder Produce market at the Village Commons from 1 to 5 p.m.  Our market offers a great selection of fresh fruits and vegetables, and we cheerfully accept many forms of payment (checks, credit and debit cards, SNAP benefits) to better serve our customers. 

We want to send out a big thank you to our many regular customers who visit each week for their families’ mealtime needs.  We love seeing you and we are grateful for your support!

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I was web surfing one evening and came across a startling statistic: According to the Medical News Today site, two in every five American adults are expected to develop type 2 diabetes. This summary was based on a 2014 study in The Lancet: Diabetes & Endocrinology by researcher Edward Gregg, M.D., chief of the Epidemiology & Statistics Branch, Division of Diabetes Translation at the National Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

Those are sobering numbers.  The summary said: “The (research) team found that for an average 20-year-old American, the lifetime risk of developing type 2 diabetes increased from 20% in 1985-89 to 40% in 2000-11 for men, while lifetime risk for women increased from 27% to 39%.”  When one thinks about those findings in respect to our loved ones,  friends and acquaintances, that means that two of every five people we know will have to face the life-altering realities of diabetes. 

Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus is the body’s inability to process glucose into energy, either because the pancreas makes too little insulin, or the body doesn’t use insulin effectively.  In part, the spike in diabetes numbers is due to the increased amounts of processed sugars found in commercially sold foods, according to Fed Up, a documentary film produced by journalist Katie Couric and Laurie David.

But with knowledge comes power, and our collective health outlook doesn’t have to unfold that way.  The behavior changes we can make now aren’t difficult – we need to incorporate more exercise, and significantly reduce sugar intake by shopping and eating smarter.

According to the Mayo Clinic, to reduce your chances of developing diabetes and enjoy overall better health, you should do the following.  Check out this link to fully read the clinic’s recommendations.

• Get physically active to lower your weight, blood sugar, and improve your insulin response.
• Eat more fiber, which helps you fight hunger cravings and levels out your blood sugar.
• Make half of your grain intake whole grains.
• Skip fad diets and focus on healthier choices, like adding more fresh vegetables to your meals, cutting back on portion sizes, and avoiding foods that are high in sugar.

I would add you should cut back on any sugary drinks like fruit juices, sports drinks, sodas or sweet teas.  Just drinking more water could be a really positive first step!  And learn to read those labels to determine how much sugar is actually in the items you are buying.

If you are concerned that you are pre-diabetic, see your doctor for a blood glucose test, and discuss steps you can take to improve your health. If diabetes runs in your family, your chances of becoming diabetic are higher, so be sure to mention that in any medical history you provide to your health care team.

Until next time, eat well and move more!

Lori

Fun Finds in the Farm Share Box

We hope to see all our friends and neighbors at our next delicious Pathfinder Produce market tomorrow afternoon, August 20, from 1 to 5 p.m.  Our market staff will be introducing some new bulk items—raisins, walnuts, and sunflower seeds—and we offer such a great variety of your fresh fruit and vegetable favorites.

Enjoy this guest column by Martha Spiegel, who has explored and enjoyed new produce through a Community Supported Agriculture share this summer.

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This year my husband and I decided to invest in a membership in a Community Supported Agriculture share. The farm that we are members of delivers boxes (shares) of fresh-picked produce every week to several locations, and one is near our home. Our boxes are full of delicious items like lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, fresh herbs, etc., and sometimes we get some fun surprises. One week we got popcorn-on-the-cob!  A couple of weeks ago our box contained an assortment of carrots in colors I had never seen before. There were the more common orange, as well as yellow, light purple and dark purple varieties.

In doing a bit of research, I came across the website for The Carrot Museum (who knew?). Apparently, carrots were not always orange—purple was the original color! They likely originated in Afghanistan and Turkey before the tenth century. A later mutation resulted in yellow carrots, and Dutch growers—finding yellow varieties to be bitter—developed another mutation and the orange carrot arrived on the scene. (Tales that the orange carrot was bred to honor William of Orange are most likely historical fiction.)

The different colors have some different health rewards. Last week Lori spoke about carrots being good for healthy eyes. In addition, yellow carrots contain xanthophylls and lutene, which may help reduce the risk of astherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). Purple carrots have more beta carotene than the orange carrots, and also contain anthocyanins which give them their purple color and are powerful antioxidants. Red carrots contain lycopene, which may reduce risk of macular generation and also prevent heart disease and prostate cancer. White carrots contain phytochemicals which may reduce the risk of cancer and stoke, and may be an alternative for people with a carotene allergy.

While there are many ways to cook carrots, we chose just to peel and eat them raw. (Note: as with most purple vegetables, the carrots will lose their color when cooked.) This led to the wonderful discovery that the outside color doesn’t always match the inside color. The yellow carrot was yellow all the way through, but the dark purple ones had a white ring inside, and the light purple ones had yellowish rings which produced a target pattern when sliced into coins. All in all, it made for a very colorful dish of carrot sticks! I will report that we didn’t taste much difference with the variation in color, but they were all delicious!

A listing of many Community Supported Agriculture farms can be found at www.localharvest.org , and a share is another way to get fresh fruits and vegetables to supplement what you can find at Pathfinder Produce. We hope to see you at the market, open from 1-5 p.m. every Thursday!

Until next time, enjoy all the colorful produce you can!

Martha

Supporting Better Vision

We hope everyone will join us for the next scrumptious Pathfinder Produce market at the Village Commons on Thursday, August 13, from 1 to 5 p.m.  With so many fresh flavors, there’s no end of dinner menu and snack ideas that you can share with your family.

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For the past week or so, I’ve been thinking a lot about eyes and how they function.

There’s a little back story first:  The left lens on my two-year old glasses, which I truly need to see anything at all, had started to pop out at the most inopportune times.  I tried to tighten the screw, dab on a little super glue, etc., but nothing worked well.  I finally took the specs in for repair, but was a little dismayed that the counter-help didn’t really do any more than I’d been doing already.

Well, about a week after the pseudo-repair, my family was enjoying a summer picnic at a local lake, one with a very silty bottom.  Of course, Murphy’s Law reared its ugly head.  I was enjoying the cool breeze, and was just getting ready for a kayak ride.  That’s when the lens decided to take its final fatal plunge.  The thick oozy mud quickly buried my expensive piece of glass for all eternity.

So since that time, I’ve been relying on older pairs of glasses to get through my days, keenly aware that my half-century-old eyes don’t see as well as they did even four years ago.  The new glasses are on order, but the whole episode serves as a reminder to never take one’s vision for granted.

There are things we should actively do to protect our eyes:  RULE NUMBER 1 is to wear safety glasses, even if you don’t wear glasses, when you are doing activities where there is a risk of flying debris, splashes, or sparks. Just yesterday, we were doing lots of mowing and landscaping, and I was using the weed eater to clear out an overgrown ditch.  There were times when small twigs and plant juices would rocket toward my face, and I was mindful of how my larger protective glasses shielded my eyes and saved me from further issues.

Nutritionally, you can improve eye health by making sure you get lots of antioxidants in your diet, and it is definitely true that carrots and other Vitamin A rich foods are helpful.  For a complete read on how best to help your vision, here’s an article from the Harvard Medical School, which suggests that eating right may prevent two common vision problems, cataracts, and age-related macular degeneration, (vision loss in the part of the eye that controls central vision).

There are other articles on the internet regarding eye health, and how you can safeguard your eyes through better nutrition.  And don’t hesitate to speak to your doctor or other health care providers if you experience any changes in your vision … it could just be “getting older” or it could also indicate that something else is happening and should be looked into. 

Until next time, eat well and look at all the beauty that surrounds us!

Lori

A Quick Column

We hope everyone will join us for another friendly Pathfinder Produce market, this Thursday, August 6, at the Village Commons from 1 to 5 p.m.  Our market offers a great selection of fresh fruits and veggies, flexible payment methods, and helpful, friendly service.  It’s a winning combination! 

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Today, Tuesday, is our annual American Red Cross Blood Drive here at Pathfinder Village, so I’m off to assist the Red Cross staff in setting up and organizing the event.  A big thanks goes out to all donors who are participating in this summer’s blood drives in the area.  Your donation truly makes a difference to local families, who are contending with serious illnesses or injuries. 

In keeping with last week’s column on zucchini, here are some recipes that my colleague, Martha, found for you to try during this season of plenty.  One truly may enjoy zucchini at every meal:

Breakfast:  Zucchini & Rosemary Frittata

Lunch:  Marinated Zucchini & Yellow Squash Salad

Dinner:  Tomato-Zucchini Bake, and Zoodles!

Snack:  Zucchini Parmesan Chips

Dessert:  Zucchini Bread

Until next time, get creative with your veggies and think of new ways to cook and serve them.  A sense of fun and adventure can make ordinary tasks special, and what a great way to teach your kids or grandkids to learn about eating well and preparing fresh foods.

Be well, eat well,

Lori