Recipe: Grain and Bean Wraps

Ingredients:

• 2 cups plain grain/rice pilaf, cooked*
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
• salt to taste
• 1 small can water chestnuts, sliced
• 1 small can bamboo shoots, sliced
• 1/4 cup button mushrooms, sliced
• 4 oz kidney beans, cooked and strained
• 1/4 cup macadamia nuts
• 2 green onions, sliced
• lettuce
• soft tortillas

Directions:

Coat frying pan with olive oil and saute garlic, red pepper, mushrooms, and macadamia nuts. Add beans. Add water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, green onions, salt, and soy sauce. Add pilaf, stir, and heat through. Place lettuce in tortilla, spoon mixture onto tortilla, wrap, and enjoy!

Don’t be afraid to experiment with different spices, add tomatoes, add tofu, etc. These are great with green beans or pea pods as substitute for the kidney beans. The best thing about cooking is that you can make it you own, a recipe is nothing more than a guideline.

*Kashi 7 Whole Grain Pilaf is my favorite grain mix.

Benefits of Buying Locally Produced Food

More and more people are trying to buy organic and less processed food, but there is one option than many people don’t consider. Eating local food is one of the many things you can do to help improve your health, your community, and your environment.

Buying locally produced food helps stabilize, and even boost, your local economy, and supports local farmers and farm markets.

With gas prices rising, it surprises me that more people are not buying locally grown food. Instead people are relying more and more on imported products; today, nearly 817 million tons of food worldwide every year, that is four times the 200 million tons shipped yearly in 1961. When you purchase imported food, your not just paying for the item, your paying for its transportation too. Truckers all over the US have been going on strike because they are simply unable the price of gas. If the trucking business goes under, the effects on the country’s economy will be cataclysmic.

Pollution is also a concern. Food transportation is one of the biggest sources of green-house gas emissions. You can decrease those emissions by over 25% just by purchasing locally grown food. The chances of the food being contaminated is also much greater when food has longer distances to travel.

Some critics of the local food movement argue that buying more local food strains the global economies, especially those of third world countries, from which the US imports many crops. But the truth is, it is more profitable for commercial farmers in those countries to export food than it is to sell it locally, so in the end it actually hurts those already going hungry.

Besides, local food just tastes better. It’s fresher and better for your body. Every once in a while I can really go for foreign fruit like papaya (which, nevertheless, can be quite healthful), but by increasing the amount of locally grown foods you buy, or even growing some of your own food, you are doing a great service to yourself, your neighbors, and your planet.

k·a·l