Thank you for keeping me up to speed on this.
This is Potlatch weekend, our annual attempt tp derail the holiday train. We send out the call for people to come to the church vestry and drop off gift quality items and take home the same. We also take holiday decorations and outerwear as well as good quality household things. The biggest problem is that some people see this a sway to clean out junk before the holidays and we get stuck getting rid of it before Sunday services. Puzzles with missing pieces and electronics that don’t work are not gift quality but we always get some of them. The junk is a small price to pay for keeping a lot of useful stuff out of the landfill and helping folks provide gifts without spending any money. In the midst of taking donations I snagged a bookcase and a carpet for Ben and Maggie’s new place from a woman who was downsizing.
I’m on an apple rant today. I had been reading about arsenic in apple juice so I got online and did some research. It turns out that upwards of 60% of our apple juice originates from China! The problem is that China allows some arsenic based pesticides that are banned in the US. It just boggles the mind that we are importing apple anything. This country has an embarrassment of apples. I find it impossible to believe that we need to rely on some other country, a long, oil soaked boat trip away, to grow or process something so adapted to our ecosystem. The solution is to buy only organic juice but organic juice in my little market is nearly $5.00 a quart. I can get it for less if I buy a case but this still leaves most poor people, and lately that seems to be most people, out in the cold. They are forced by economics to purchase juice they know is unhealthy.
The only solution is to stop buying juice at all. I know that going juiceless would be hard for me and I can imagine for many others. I still have nearly 50 quarts of home-pressed cider and cran-apple juice as well as some grape juice in the basement. I am committed to canning much more next year. I’m delighted every time I open a jar of the canned cider. The flavor is wonderful, the process easy and the price unbeatable. For those who don’t remember. I heated the cider to 160 degrees, held it there for 60 seconds, then bottled it in sterile jars and capped it with sterile lids. They all sealed and the resulting juice has none of the cooked flavor of commercial juice. My summer kitchen will be perfect for this kind of assembly line food production.
I made a chicken for dinner last night and, while we ate, I cooked up a stock and thickened it while I did the dishes. The chicken was really expensive and I don’t want to waste a shed of meat. I did the math and turkey is much better value. I am hoping I can order a few more but I’m betting that I can’t. I think the farm I get them from only does birds for Thanksgiving. Part of food prepping is figuring out value and attacking waste. A simple calculator and a few minutes is all it takes.
Bruce replaced two more windows last night and now the whole upstairs is finished. The windows were in terrible shape and this will help keep the girls’ room a bit warmer. I’m still going to add a layer of plastic film as these windows are on the north side of the house. Doing the widows one or two at a time is a pain but it means that we can do them as we have the money to pay cash and the time to get it done. Doing all at once would have meant taking out a loan (I don’t think so) and hiring help (again, I don’t think so). Patience is a virtue. I keep telling myself that.
I did some thrift store shopping and came away with some nifty educational stuff for Phoebe. I have a used bin and I’m putting all of the school things in there and that’s Phoebe’s big gift. She loves to play school with her dolls and she’ll be delighted with this. I also picked up some sleds for kids and grandkids as we have a terrific hill. A lot of the younger kids end up sliding here as the hill is safe and extra sleds are always welcome. My criteria for gifts is to buy used whenever possible and to concentrate on things that promote health and well-being. That means few things that pug in although I an on the look-out for a small CD player for Phoebe. She loves music and loves to dance but has no way to play music in her bedroom. I saw one in the potlatch and if it doesn’t find a home it just may do.
December 2, 2011 at 8:06 am
I didn’t know so much of our apple products come from China! That is truely a disgrace…no doubt some politicians idea of fair trade and completely unnessesary!
Yesterday I was working on the remaining apples I have, making juice. The news came on talking about the arsenic and my husband piped up with “No arsenic in MY juice!”. It’s nice to see such thinking resulting from my effort…especially as I was grumbling about how many apples I had left! If you go by the price of organic apple juice @ $5 per quart, I have madea ton of money savings this year…paid for the cost of the juicer steamer and the apples and left us with 50 quarts of juice and 50 pints of sauce…all natural and organic. What is wrong with people buying that crap from China! It cost me less than $100 for what I made.
December 2, 2011 at 9:26 am
Running a juiceless house is really not all that hard. With my father being diabetic and my son haveing bowel issues we ditched juices in favour of fruit – fresh, canned or cooked. Really fruit juice, unless you are making it fresh each day carries very little value and is mostly liquid sugar. Most even add vitamins. We all just decided we’d rather have a homemade cookie and a fresh apple.
December 2, 2011 at 5:17 pm
I am a label reader and discovered the China connection last year. We live in Minnesota – a major apple growing region- and Target (headquartered here) was selling apple juice from China! We have a great orchard near us which sells a gallon of their juice for $5 which is a bargain all things considered. I am planning a trip out there next week to stock up for the freezer. Your Potlach church gift exchange sounds great.
December 2, 2011 at 7:12 pm
I used the few apples I harvested this year at Thanksgiving making an apple custard pie with oatmeal crust – http://livingthegourmet.blogspot.com/2010/02/apple-custard-pie-with-oatmeal-crust.html It was really tasty! I can totally recommend it. And it was sooooooo satisfying to bake a pie using my own apples, milk, and eggs ~
We don’t drink fruit juice here. I’m not sure why; I think my four just sort of outgrew it. We drink water and milk – and hot cocoa
December 3, 2011 at 11:45 am
Buy apples from North Carolina!
December 4, 2011 at 9:58 am
Got your note this morning! You made my day!
I would totally trade a few dressed turkeys or chickens from my place for some pressure canning lessons or other skills you could teach.
December 4, 2011 at 10:10 am
When my kids were very, very small, I ended up taking them with me to a dentist appt just so they could see me doing the process and not be scared when they had their turn. At some point, the dentist asked me if I gave them apple juice and I said no, it was just not my favorite, I would rather they drank milk or water. Good! he said. Little children should not drink the amount of juice we give them because it really sticks to their teeth and is one of the major reasons for tooth decay in small children.
When they got juice boxes at school in a goodie bag or whatever, it was a ‘treat’ for my kids. We eat tons of apples here in Georgia. I buy mine from a local organic apple orchard and if I wrap them in newspaper, they store pretty well up through May or so when the local strawberries come in.
December 4, 2011 at 6:32 pm
You mentioned your windows and keeping out the cold. Multiple layers really make a difference. My windows (working from the glass into the room) have window quilts hung on a wood dowel held to the frame with cup hooks; room darkening window shade (if you can afford it get honeycomb room darkening shades as they have insulating value all on their own); sheer lace curtains (privacy during the day); and the drapes consisting of three layers: fashion fabric, insulating layer of light weight flannel, old white sheets as a lining. Over all is a padded valance of the fashion fabric, quilt batting, and muslin/old sheet lining. I made all the drapes, sheers, and window quilts myself buying the material on sale or repurposing old sheets and blankets.
The key is the multiple layers trapping dead air and keeping down drafts. Each layer has dead air space between it and the next and it does make a difference. Every evening and morning someone does the window dance: opening and putting away window treatments or hanging them and closing them up. Room darkening shades have a summer bonus: they keep the heat out by reflecting the sunlight during the day.
I have now been forced to replace my first generation replacement windows. (The previous owners did this to the house.) I hate them. I would have gotten BETTER energy efficiency at a lower cost up front and over the lifetime of my house by repairing and reglazing the original double hung windows, installing good storm windows, and Duette honeycomb window shades. Original wood windows can be repaired. My mother’s 150 year old windows still work. Replacement windows will NEVER last like the solid wood ones.
I hope you have better luck with yours than I did with mine.
December 11, 2011 at 10:44 am
Count mine as another (practically) juiceless household. We only have cider and grape juice from our own production, and that in very limited quantities. I used to drink orange juice but gave it up due to the expense and the fact that it wasn’t remotely local to us. Now I can’t justify the expense, nor the packaging for any beverages at all other than milk and alcohol. At least the booze comes in glass, and we drink it very moderately. Whenever I can, I get local raw milk, for which I use my own glass jar. Also, I agree that juice just isn’t very healthy for us on a regular basis. As an occasional treat it’s fine, but the whole fruit or else fermented booze that eliminates most of the sugars is far better for us. And booze is a fine way to preserve the harvest.
Really I think this is just another example of those things that seem unimaginable to give up entirely, but when we do, we stop missing it pretty quickly. Soon going without juice seems perfectly unremarkable. People can get used to just about anything.