Moving! (Photo credit: enigmabadger)
We’ve Moved!
Recently our club voted to change our name, we are now known as “SunPower Food Cooperative“. We feel this better reflects who we are and what we do. With this change we have moved to a new blog! Head on over and check it out!
Our new blog has weekly posts including recipes, healthy living & eating, gardening tips, recycling/upcycling and much more!
There will be a short business meeting tonight at 6 pm to decide on a new name and logo for our club. Afterwards we will be watching Soul Food Junkies. Beverages will be provided by our host, bring a snack if you’d like! See you there!
Southeast Kansas Buying Club
Whole foods for less!
Serving Independence Kansas
and surrounding areas.
Do you use Pinterest? I have found many good alternative health resources there as well as recipes and natural cleaning tips.
I have used Pinterest for some fun personal projects like this one. I have many other projects done in my mind’s eye too. 😉 But that’s for another time.
Check out these resources:
Raw Foods    Fermented Foods    Vegan Recipes    Smoothies
Gluten Free    Natural Cleaners    Essential Oils    Organic gardening Â
If you’re on Pinterest, share some of your favorites with us in the comments!
Southeast Kansas Buying Club
Whole foods for less!
Serving Independence Kansas
and surrounding areas.
Inspired by luscious looking verdigris concoctions I did something that I normally wouldn’t do. I signed up for Young and Raw‘s 30 day Green Smoothie Challenge. It starts today. I am not ready. I am a reluctant green smoothie guzzler.
So convince me. Tell me how good green smoothies are for me. Tell me if they are really going to make me feel better. What benefits am I going to gain? But most of all, tell me that they are really going to taste good!! (please!!)
Talk me into it folks!
Southeast Kansas Buying Club
Whole foods for less!
Serving Independence, Kansas
and surrounding areas.
Healthier Homemade Butterfingers « Detoxinista.
If you like “Butterfingers” candy bars, perhaps this recipe will make your mouth water. 🙂
Southeast Kansas Buying Club
Whole foods for less!
Serving Independence, Kansas
and surrounding areas.
Across our vast nation, food clubs can be found everywhere, and in various shapes, sizes and styles. I believe that food clubs hail from a bygone era when area families came together to get the work done. Ladies of the community would pool their resources to “put up” the harvest by canning, drying or other preserving methods. The men would do their own work, butchering animals and processing for winter storage. Working together, house by house, to lighten the individual load and catch up on the latest gossip.
Besides our buying club, here are a few examples of other food clubs:
Variety of cheeses on serving platter (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Food clubs fill the void left by our commuter lifestyle. We’ve grown away from tight-nit communities into larger metro settings. This is a great way to reclaim some of our agrarian heritage and rediscover the joys of preparing and eating food together!
One of the most important reasons to belong to our buying club-using our volume buying power to get better prices. I would not be able to eat this way (healthier whole foods and organic produce) without the benefit of the buying club. Our organic produce supplier has great prices and I can often find organic produce that costs less or the same as conventionally raised produce in the store. Right now, on our current order database, organic haas avocados are 50 cents each!! FIFTY cents! I can’t get them in the grocery store here for that price. Organic tomatoes, 52 cents each, still a great deal! Three pound bags of Granny Smith Apples for $1.94 a bag, really that’s less than $1.00 per pound for ORGANIC apples!
Belonging to a cooperative where we can pool our resources is the way to go!
Southeast Kansas Buying Club
Whole Foods for Less!!
Serving Independence, Kansas
and surrounding areas.
The state of food production and flavor creation in the United States is pretty terrifying. When you look at coal tar used for caffeine and the antibiotic laced chickens we are basically poisoning ourselves constantly. Most the information I know about these aspects of the food industry make me want to run away, live in the country, grow my own vegetables and fruits, and raise my own chickens. But there is an issue with the utopian plan, apart from the fact that I have no idea how to grow food or raise it, the damage that all of pesticides and antibiotics have done to the ground could still be contaminating whatever you grow. So what are we supposed to eat?
It seems responsible to buy as much free-range organic food as possible because that should be healthier. The problem is that this is a solution for the wealthy. Probably the…
View original post 106 more words
Daffodil blooms from seasons past.
I’ve been trying really hard to avoid catching the fever, but with each passing sunny day, the calendar changing over to February, each new seed and poultry catalog, spring fever is starting to rise. The few really warm days we’ve had recently haven’t made it any easier! I can’t help myself. It’s quite involuntary. Similar to the urge to push in childbirth, it just happens! So does my longing for spring. When the bulbs start to push up their tender green leaves and flower buds, (yes already have some of those poking through the soil), it’s just natural to want spring to get here faster and faster!
This year will be a different one for us. The last two years, we have not had a garden. We let our garden plot lay fallow. I had containers for gardening. We grew tomatoes in pots, plus a couple of pepper plants and herbs. We missed having okra, potatoes and zucchini squash. We missed connecting with the soil. I find myself needing to garden this year. And not simply for the food production, but to get out there and dig in the dirt, to recharge myself.
As I look out my window, and see the dormant grass and trees, the neutral shades of winter I am filled with hope as I know that the bright spring greens are right around the corner. Soon the perky yellow blooms of daffodils will cheer me and the grass will green up. Soon enough the lawn mower will be needed… *sigh*. But that’s life here in the ‘burbs waiting for spring’s new beginnings.
Blessings to you and I hope that you survive spring fever as well!
Sandplum blossoms from previous years
Savage recipes…
Paprika is one of the spices we discussed during our Soul Food Junkies presentation. A delicious addition to many ethnic dishes, it adds flavor and color. Always remember to sprinkle some paprika over your potato salad and deviled eggs before you serve them!
Paprika is a savage red, and though it might sound strange, I like a bit of savagery. I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown LA yesterday where there was a lot of visual angst on display. Cavernous warehouses full of ripped metal and brown swaddling, swirling red daubs and matted roadkill. The colours were rust and grey and dried blood. Nothing had a frame, the frame was no longer needed. The only room I liked was the one housing the permanent collection, the ones always there: Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns.
But it was a small, angry picture, the first one I saw as I entered, that held my attention. It was by Dubuffet, and it was called Le Havre. It was a map of sorts and the colours were wild and fierce. There was little attempt at verisimilitude. The painter’s quote next to it caught…
View original post 526 more words
Julia and I attended the viewing of the film Soul Food Junkies last evening at the Labette Community College. The film was an interesting mix of history and culture. It was quite enlightening as to some of the influence that soul food has had on my cooking style, that which was handed down through my Grandmother and other family members. This film would be a great educational resource for Black History Month, coming up in just a few days, as there is much history in the context of slavery and civil rights and how food played a part in these pivotal moments in history. The conclusion of filmmaker Byron Hurt is that indeed, we are a nation of soul food junkies, but we can make some adjustments with healthier food options and still enjoy our “beloved soul food“!
Afterwards, guest speakers such as ourselves, Farmer Josh Mitchell of Mitchell Family Farm, Cherryvale, Ks, and Sheila Simmons of the Parsons Community Garden gave presentations about local food sources, CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), growing your own foods, and organic food options. The small yet interested crowd engaged in discussion readily.
Some of the concerns expressed by the audience were: the inability to grow their own food due to time constraints or lack of space, cost of “healthier” food options, & the rising toll on our nation’s health due to poor diet. Many suggestions were made to help address these concerns such as: community gardening spaces, container gardening, acquiring produce from gardening neighbors, and becoming a member of a CSA or buying club.
It was a wonderful evening and I am delighted to have participated!
Southeast Kansas Buying Club 