Tomatoes, like all the other veggies we grow, support our healthy living choices. We've been on a food journey for some time: learning, discussing, experimenting, and growing more and more varieties in an organic way. I have found a vegan diet brings my diabetes into control, increases my energy level, clears my skin, and just 'feels right'. This choice didn't begin as, and still is not, a social or political choice. It just makes good heath sense for me. Since my colectomy last year, I have added fresh goat cheese and fresh local eggs back into my diet, but these are not daily occurrences.
So, what do we eat? LOTS of fresh fruits and vegetables, many from our own garden, grown in raised beds on our 1/5 acre of increasingly urban suburbia. LOTS of beans and whole grains. Almond and some soy milk (although I do limit the soy). Some tofu, but only in smoothies, pies, puddings, or other baked goods. Nuts, nut butters, quinoa. Again, the occasional egg or some fresh goat cheese. I will also admit to an addiction to Trader Joe's Meatless Corn Dogs, but don't spread it around. Every now and then, though, I'll buy my dear husband a lovely piece of grass-fed beef from Polyface Farm, just as a treat for being so sweet and supportive.
What about those tomatoes? This year, we planted and are now harvesting cherry tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, Lemon Boy yellows, and heirloom Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra, and a German one I can't even pronounce. We eat them in salad, we eat them sliced with our breakfast/lunch/supper, we eat them in wraps, we eat them in guacamole, we eat them in salsa. We savor every fresh-from-the-vine-outside-our-backdoor bite, letting the juice run down our chins.
Grab a tomato, bursting with goodness fresh from the garden, and slice up some healthy joy to slap between your slices of bread!
Cherokee Purple, Lemon Boy, and Brandywine from our garden
"I have provided all kinds of fruit and grain for you to eat. And I have given the green plants as food for everything else that breathes. These will be food for animals, both wild and tame, and for birds."
Genesis 1:29-30 (CEV)
I bought some lovely tomatoes from a road side stand outside Surry/Smithfield. $2 per pound. Later was at Harris Teeter and saw pale tomatoes for $2.49 lb that could not compare! Growing your own does have better flavor and money saving too!
ReplyDeleteYour tomatoes look so good. We just got our first flowers, so we are not as far along but I can not wait for that taste of the first warm tomato...it will not even make it in to be sliced or have a picture taken. Yummy.
ReplyDeleteCottage Girl, you are SO right: those poor anemic tomatoes in the stores cannot compare! And nothing beats a warm heirloom variety just plucked from the vine for flavor.
ReplyDeleteLorie, our first several tomato pickings didn't make it very far either! Enjoy your when they arrive!
Okay Donna Rae, you're making me hungry (: Your diet change sounds much like ours, but with no soy and more grass fed beef, free-range chickens and raw milk and cheese...okay...now I'm REALLY hungry (:
ReplyDeleteMichele
XOXO
Your tomatoes look great! I wish it would cool off a bit here so mine could ripen. We've been trying to eat healthier and more locally. We love quinoa!
ReplyDeleteManuela
Thanks for stopping by and enjoying a peek at our tomatoes, Michele and Manuela!
ReplyDeleteI love tomatoes! Our tomato plants have a few small tomatoes on them now...can't wait until they grow and ripen ~ yours look delicious!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for stopping by my blog today and for your kind comment!
Blessings,
Katie