About

 Welcome to Food and Nature! One of my favorite topics of conversation is food, from gardening to cooking and preserving. The more time my friends and I spent sharing our experiences the more I thought about how fun it would be to create a blog of my trials and successes, recipes, discoveries, etc. I also love to spend time outside, enjoying our natural world. I tend to have a camera with me so don’t be surprised to see some pictures of recent adventures (both in the kitchen and outside). When I was toiling over what to call this blog, I was mentally separating my interest in food from my interest in nature. I don’t know why I was doing this since I am a big advocate for knowing where our food originates. As I thought about gardening and cooking/preserving, it dawned on me how easily the topics of food and nature go together. A blog on both topics actually made sense because they are completely intertwined. 

I also have an interest in the effects of our food choices on our personal health as well as the health of our environment.  Growing up, my mom taught us about putting together a balanced meal and my dad had us helping in the family garden.  As an adult, I have always worked to put together healthy meals and we've always had a garden, even if it was just a container of tomato plants on our apartment balcony (back in the early days).  About 8-10 years ago I began learning about how our food choices effect our environment, reading Michael Pollan's books and watching the documentary Food, Inc.  This led to an effort to eat as locally and organically as we could afford.  We even joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and kicked up our gardening efforts.  Three years ago we saw the documentary Forks Over Knives.  After evaluating the research, we decided to become a Whole Foods, Plant-Based Family.  In November 2015, I earned a Certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies and eCornell.

I hope that you enjoy looking through Food and Nature. Feel free to send any comments, questions or posting suggestions. I may not be able to post everything, but I do appreciate the feedback.