Challenge #10– March 8, 2010

Week Ten: March 8, 2010

Challenge: Celebrate Food…From Field to Table

As promised, this week I challenge you to think “locally” as you make your grocery and food purchases each day.  Each March, Canada celebrates National Nutrition Month®, providing resources, information and education surrounding a specific topic of interest —- this year, we “Celebrate food…from field to table”.  Although the winter months and those leading into the spring make it a little more difficult to purchase locally grown food in Canada, I challenge you to choose local whenever available this week.  Additionally, I encourage you to choose a plethora of foods in their most natural, whole form, or in other words, non-processed!  This is definitely a challenge when we are faced with the numerous pre-packaged food availabilities right at eye level, but remember, the better we fuel out bodies with whole, natural foods, the better our bodies will be able to function at their most optimal level. [Visit “Let’s Take a trip…to the Grocery Store” under the ‘Nutrition’ tab for more information]

Some tid bits of information The Dietitians of Canada (http://www.dietitiansofcanada.ca/) have put together to further spark our interest and knowledge on locally grown food products are shared below.  I encourage you to navigate through the Dietitians of Canada web page for more practice-based information on the wonderful world of nutrition!

• Eat your beans!!  Chickpeas are one of the fastest growing Canadian food products.  They fuel our bodies with a good source of fibre and fullness at any meal enjoyed at.
• Our smallest province…PEI…produces most of Canada’s potatoes (24%) followed by Manitoba (21%), Alberta (17%) and New Brunswick (15%).
• ‘Our Home and Native Land’, Canada, exports more mustard seed than ANY country in the world! 
• ‘An apple a day’ —this crunchy satisfying mid-day snack is Canada’s  largest fruit crop in terms of weight of food produced
• In 2006, Statistics Canada noted over 200 000 farms operating in Canada.  One Canadian Farmer can now produce food for about 120 people for a whole year!
• Local foods are usually fresher, and you have the opportunity to support local farms and farming families!

So, carry on this week, and think about how you may want to start your own mini vegetable garden, whether on a balcony, in small planters, on a little spot in your yard, or really get into it and think about your favourite fruits and vegetables to plant in your own full-sized garden this spring, summer and fall —–because it’s just around the corner!

For more information on Nutrition Month®, visit www.dietitians.ca/eatwell