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Lake Sunapee Region.

SHARED CHOICES essay series

Shared Choices is the name of our series of essays where we write about and explore the values that drive our food decisions.

Shared Choices analyzes those values common to many: eating whole foods, spending more time together around the table, living a sustainable life, respecting our environment, and sourcing our foods locally.

Shared Choices focuses on thinking about our values and making conscious decisions about how we live our lives, considering our goals, resources, and means.

When we make individual decisions based on our values, and combine them with similar decisions by others, we create a set of Shared Choices and utlimately shift the tide in favor of our values.

This is our Shared Choices movement: one person and one decision at a time.

ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!

Asian Long Horn Beetle Threatens NH's Forests.

Coming from China in wooden crates in the early 1990s, this black and white beetle with two long "horns" on its head has slowly moved north from New York, where it was first found in 1996. These beetles can kill our trees, ruin our maple syrup industry, and negatively impact our 4.6 million forested acres. Please read this important message from UNH's Cooperative Extension.

	..............................What's New? New contributor! gg.org welcomes Sarah Jacobson. Sarah is currently pursuing a B.S in Nutrition and Eco-gastronomy at the University of New Hampshire. This will be her second year as the president of UNH Slow food, and an active member of the Organic Gardening club, UNH community dinners and Slow Food USA. She'll be writing on a number of topics concerning nutrition, organic foods, and whole foods. New Summer Bounty Appetizer Recipes listed under great recipes section above. My version of Spinach & Garlic Scape Hummus, Sweet Pea and Chive Risotto in Lettuce Wraps, and Pastina Salad with Organic Spring Vegetables and homemade Apple Cider Vinegar and Cilantro dressing. Ciao! (as introduced to the Local Harvest CSA in June!--my thanks to sous chef Jessica for her culinary skills!) The Myth of Self-Reliance. I'm asked often about how much of my food comes from King's Grant Farm. I think it's a good amount, in terms of bulk vegetable and fruit, but certainly not that much in terms of calories. That got me thinking about an essay I read that debunks the myth of living a totally self-sufficient life. It simply does not exist. And if a life of total self-sufficiency did indeed exist, it would not be healthy nor happy. Here is a link to a great thinker and author, Toby Hemenway, who wrote this incredible essay about the myth of self-reliance and the need for strong community. Toby's essay. Conventional tomato prices in the super stores are up 182% over last year! Solution: grow your own...and grow them using organic methods. NYT article: A Push to Eat Local Food is Hampered by Shortage. Excellent article, on the ground in Vermont, speaks to the lack of slaughter houses for the increase in locally-raised food animals. NYT Shortage. New Federal Dietary Guidelines contain some pretty different ideas that we're used to. A preview from Marion Nestle's article from The Atlantic is here: Changes we Can Believe in? .............................Take a Break and Find out What's on Your Food go to www.whatsonmyfood.org ...............................Events in New Hampshire and Vermont Valley Food & Farm Guide is now on the news stands! If you cannot find this incredible source of information, then visit the online searchable guide at Vital Communities. This four season guide to fresh foods, CSAs, farmers' markets, and farms sets the standard for those of us who live along the Greater Upper Connecticut River Valley region of New Hampshire and Vermont. ..............................What's New on greatgrandmother.org? --Our Focus: we're slowly but surely getting to that point where the information on our site is duplicated and found at other sources that may have more timely information, such as calendars of events. Therefore, we're transitioning to our long-time goal of becoming a source of essays and longer stories about values. We'll still offer our popular recipes and book recommendations, but more and more you'll have access to thought-provoking pieces. 2010 Vegetable Seed Selections for New Hampshire! I am often asked about which seed selections work well at King's Grant Farm. In our Great Gardens section, we list what worked (and didn't) in 2009 and what I'll be ordering in 2010. I share because I care. (I really do. Seriously, I do care. Honest, I do. Why wouldn't I?)

	--New Link in our Great Gardens section! We are pleased to welcome one of the Granite State's true treasures--Henry Homeyer--as our new link for our Great Gardens section. Nobody does it better than Henry! (A bit of hyperbole brightens the soul.) --No More Book Reviews Until Summer: Taking a break from reading in order to get the crops planted, spend time writing the Community Gardens book, and work on some special projects. --Best sources of vitamin C, B1, A, B6 and Folate in our Whole Foods section. New lists of the most bioavailable whole foods and how they help keep you healthy.

	--Liquid Gold. I know we talk often about shifting to new sources of energy that are not fossil fuel based. But we must remember that there is a lot of embedded energy in each gallon of gasoline. Fact: every time you fill your car up with gas--10 gallons--that tank is equivalent to three years of human labor. In other words, the weight you move and the miles you move in a car on one tank full would take a human being three years to do the same. Just think!

	Spending more quality time around the table is good for our families and our communities.
	Locally sourced and homegrown foods and home products are healthier for the environment, the economy, and our hearts.
	Sustainable lifestyles, with an emphasis on organic, have unchallengeable benefits to our well-being.
	Whole foods, sourced and prepared in the fashion of our great grandmothers’ time, will help change the course of our current commodity-based agribusiness model.
	One person at a time…we’ll tend to our sensitive and often fragile environment and shift the trend for the health for all life.

To provide information and create a forum for active thinking and community change based on the five core values of spending more time around the table, sourcing our foods locally, living a sustainable lifestyle, eating whole foods, and tending to our sensitive environment.