{"id":1017,"date":"2009-05-20T10:09:06","date_gmt":"2009-05-20T16:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/wordpress\/?p=1017"},"modified":"2013-08-22T21:39:25","modified_gmt":"2013-08-22T21:39:25","slug":"summer-eating-made-simple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/d\/summer-eating-made-simple\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer Eating Made Simple"},"content":{"rendered":"

Memorial Day signals the start of summer in most households.\u00a0 This brings to mind picnics and cookouts and local fresh fruits and vegetables.\u00a0 This year, consumers have purchased more than 10 times the usual amount of seeds to plant.\u00a0\u00a0 This means LOTS more home grown vegetables!\u00a0 Fresh spinach, lettuce, beets, and green beans\u2014oh my.\u00a0 Are you growing your own this year?\u00a0 Are you frequenting more local farmers markets?\u00a0 Maybe purchasing more fresh produce from the grocery store?\u00a0 No matter where you are getting your produce, it is very simple to add more to your daily diet.\u00a0 We all know produce is healthy for us.\u00a0 What we have forgotten is that it tastes good.\u00a0 That\u2019s right!\u00a0 Fruits and vegetables taste good.\u00a0 We have ruined the joy in eating by only focusing on the health benefits of fruits and vegetables.\u00a0 The sweet taste of watermelon on a hot summer day, or the taste of an ear of corn at a picnic.\u00a0 Healthy\u2014yes; yummy\u2014extremely!<\/p>\n

With this in mind, I challenge you to increase the amount of fresh produce you eat this summer.\u00a0 Eating it at its peak of ripeness will offer the best flavor and highest nutritional values.\u00a0 Shake things up a little; add spinach to your salad or sandwich.\u00a0 Place grated zucchini or squash in casseroles, or make patties out of \"\"<\/a><\/span>them.\u00a0 Roll fresh tomatoes and bacon in a whole wheat tortilla and add spinach to it\u2014what a great change on a BLT!\u00a0 Use your imagination.\u00a0 The sky is the limit.\u00a0 Grilling vegetables gives them a great flavor and keeps the heat out of your kitchen.<\/p>\n

This year, we are growing lots of fresh veggies and herbs. We have already had a few meals of fresh spinach.\u00a0 The packet of spinach seeds we purchased cost $1.\u00a0 We have had $5 worth of spinach already\u2014and the garden isn\u2019t done producing it yet.\u00a0 What a savings to our grocery bill!\u00a0 The lettuce is almost ready and the beets are doing great.\u00a0 The green beans, jalapeno peppers and tomatoes are in their infancy stage, and the monster pumpkins haven\u2019t been eaten by the\u00a0woodchuck (yet!).\u00a0 In total, we spent around $15 for plants and seeds.\u00a0 This is the price of a fast food meal for two.\u00a0 I consider this a bargain\u2014considering I am already planning on a juicy tomato \"\"<\/a><\/span>around the Fourth of July!\u00a0 Watch for the next installment of summer eating\u2014Making Wise choices on Vacation.\u00a0 Have a great Memorial Day!\u00a0 Let me know if this is your first summer growing produce, I\u2019d love to hear from you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Memorial Day signals the start of summer in most households.\u00a0 This brings to mind picnics and cookouts and local fresh fruits and vegetables.\u00a0 This year, consumers have purchased more than 10 times the usual amount of seeds to plant.\u00a0\u00a0 This means LOTS more home grown vegetables!\u00a0 Fresh spinach, lettuce, beets, and green beans\u2014oh my.\u00a0 Are you growing your own this Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,780,55],"tags":[168,200,169,145,201,160,202,203,204,205],"class_list":["post-1017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-d","category-nutrition-2","category-c","tag-fruits-and-vegetables","tag-garden","tag-gardening","tag-healthy-eating","tag-money-saving-meals","tag-saving-money","tag-seeds","tag-spinach","tag-summer-meals","tag-summer-meals-gardening","cat-43-id","cat-780-id","cat-55-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/garden.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8747,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions\/8747"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}