What I’ve Learned Wednesday: Links from Real Food Blogland

 

One of the things I like most about being a Real Food-er is discovering all the amazing people who make up this worldwide community of crunchy food fanatics. Many of them can be found blogging about their traditional-fooding lives, and most of them have been doing both of those things a lot longer than I have. Thankfully, they are around to teach me.

Whether about gardening or gadgets, farming or fermentation, pudding or politics, real food blogs are always buzzing with new things to learn, recipes to try, or inspiring stories to read. So I thought it was time that I start sharing with my own readers what I’ve discovered from them.

Here’s what I’ve learned in the past week:

 

• A simple way to make garlic peeling much easier. How many times have you struggled to peel off those annoying, sticky little papers off a clove? This ingenious solution from Whole New Mom makes things go much smoother. I’ve tried it already, and can vouch that it totally works!

• Just like with grains, nuts, and seeds — sprouting beans will increase their nutrition profile, and make them tastier! I haven’t really delved into sprouting yet, and I’ve never been much of a bean person, but I’d kinda like to start. Beans are cheap, can be really healthful, and preparing them properly by sprouting seems super doable thanks to this post from Project Family Cookbook.

• Nettle leaf is a potent source of several important vitamins and minerals, and has many healing properties as a blood purifier and anti-inflammatory. Wow! I learned so much about this plant from a very informative article filled with facts, graphs, and even a cute video of this blogger’s son at Traditional Foods. Taking nettle capsules worked so well for me back when I lived in an area which triggered seasonal hay fever — now I can see why!

• The government doesn’t know what healthy eating is, so we really shouldn’t allow them to start taxing what they consider “unhealthy.” I became convinced on my stance against the proposed soda tax (which I once was for) thanks to this brilliant post from Local Nourishment. Incredibly thought-provoking, straightforward, and profound.

• Store-bought OJ is laced with artificial flavoring, but you won’t find it on the label. This post was aaaall up in the real food blogosphere last week. Yet another dirty little secret from the food processing industry, exposed by Kristen, the Food Renegade. I know I’ll never buy orange juice again, and after reading this, you won’t either.

• Donkeys make great guard dogs. Whether used for fending off goat predators, pulling a cart, or breeding special handicapped helpers, miniature donkeys can serve several useful purposes on a small farm. I just may have been inspired to try to find me a little mini braying beast thanks to this post from The Morris Tribe.

• How to milk a goat. Can you tell I’ve got homesteading on the brain? This video post (okay, okay, I’ll be a cool blogger and call it a…) “vlog,” from The Prairie Homestead is actually going to come in quite handy once we have lactating dairy animals aboard this hippie ship. And believe me, we will. More to come on that subject later!

 

What have you learned lately from your favorite blogs? Do you have anything else new and exciting to teach me? I love hearing from all of you, so please share!