Last week was Food Revolution Day!  I realize I missed posting on the actual day but if you follow me on Facebook, you know I had some non-blogging emergencies that needed my attention. Things are slowly getting back to normal. But I figured, the food revolution shouldn’t be only on one day, it should be the kickstart to an every day attitude. It’s a global day of action for people all over the world to come together and make a stand for good food and essential cooking skills. It’s a chance for people to come together within their homes, schools, workplaces and communities to cook and share their kitchen skills, food knowledge and resources. Food Revolution Day aims to raise awareness about the importance of good food and better food education for everyone.

This year I asked a few of my Real Food Advocate team members to let me know what they were up to lately to help  spread the word that cooking real food is not only delicious but it can be easy too. I’ve rounded up a few of their stories which I’m sharing here but first I wanted to let you know what I’ve done to observe this day.

 Foodie Field Trip To Find New Foods

Earlier this week, a group of friends and I left our suburban bubble to head into the big city of Houston for a Foodie Field trip. I personally go into Houston far more often than they do so was a happy tour guide for some neat specialty food shops in town. Our first stop was at Trader Joe’s. The first of three stores in the city and surrounding area opened just under a year ago and I’ve made many a trip there  myself. What I love about Trader Joe’s is that you can find natural foods at great prices (compared to places like Whole Foods for sure). If you have a store in your city and have never been, make plans to go soon. Some of my favorite purchases are the trail mixes and dried fruits.

Spices and herbs everywhere at Penzey’s! And there are little jars for each so you can smell the goodness.

Our next stop was at Penzey’s  Spices. I LOVE this place! It’s a great way to get high quality spices at a good price (you can buy them in traditional jars or in bulk, which is what I do). Once you start cooking and baking with Penzey’s spices, you’ll likely never go back to anything else. They have a few retail stores throughout the country, but since they started out as a catalog-sales only company, you can also order online. I love their magazine style catalogs too…filled with fun facts about the spices and also recipes. Yum!

Canino’s Market is HUGE! There is a main market and then beyond that is a more traditional farmers market with individual vendors selling produce, dry beans and other things. Neat!

We made a quick stop at Canino’s Produce Market which is huge and has a large selection of produce to choose from. In the back, not part of the actual Canino’s are all these little farmer’s booths and they have some really neat things to choose from. I love all the colors of the produce and spices they sell!

Revival Food Market had locally source groceries including meats & cheese too (didn’t take a picture of that though!)

Our last stop was at Revival Market, a local meat and cheese market that sources their food from local farmers. It was neat but pricey so we only bought a couple of things. We stopped for lunch at a neat little restaurant called Paulie’s. It was DE-licious and best of all, it’s a locally owned little restaurant that serves fresh-made real food. A perfect ending to our little outing.

Four of us filled up the back of my van–loaded down with real food goodness. Yum!

We had so much fun discovering new foods that we’re already planning future trips to other parts of town including a specialty foods market that sells a lot of Middle Eastern foods and another stop at a giant Asian food market.

What Are the Real Food Advocates Up To?

• Jennifer at Crunch A Color is coordinating a second round of the Healthy Lunch Challenge. I’m contributing my BLT Chicken Salad recipe for this round. She’ll have a wrap up of everyone’s lunch ideas by the end of the month but you can check out round  one’s challenge by going to the Jamie Oliver website here.

• Amanda with The Organic Trail has been busy learning more about GMOs and how they impact our food system and becoming active in local government to help educate and encourage about GMO labeling. She is also planning a few grocery store and farm tours in her area. Can’t wait to see how that all goes for her!

• Thippi with Grow Your Brain is a busy lady! She’s always on the go spreading knowledge about how to start school gardens or hosting fun activities like the Smoothie Challenge as part of a restaurant unit at her daughter’s school. She also leads educational programs at her local farmers market and this weekend will be sharing the winning smoothie recipe and all the poster entries from the challenge. I love it!

•  Kim with Out of the Box Food is the blogger who started our (not so) little Real Food Advocates team just about a year-and-a-half ago. She’s busy in the Los Angeles area spreading the word about real food and this year’s Real Food Day is no exception. Her current projects include:
• Working with Handpickednation to produce an inspirational video for Food Rev Day: http://bit.ly/112O2to
• Out of the Box Collective, a farm-to-table home delivery service is offering a Food Revolution Day box Giveaway contest
• City Farm, a Los Angeles Farmers Market group (lacityfarm.com), together with Jennifer Schaefer, C.Ht. of Complete Wellness is hosted a Family Day at The Autry Farmers Market: http://lacityfarm.com/city-farm-special-event-food-revolution-day-at-the-autry/

• Gwen with Simply Healthy Family is a blogger whose day job is in the health care industry. She’s been been trying for three years to talk to my co-workers about the importance of healthy eating but has surprisingly found it frustrating that there are few there that share her interest. When she does though, she finds that some of them are a bit misguided because they feel that microwave meals and packaged snacks are the way to go. Add to that the notion that cooking real food is “too much work” or that the ingredients are too “weird” or that their “kids would never eat that” she’s planning to bring in healthy, simple and homemade snacks to work to show her coworkers just how yummy healthy eating can be. Who knows, maybe they’ll start a regular healthy eating potluck day and others can start sharing too!

How can you share the goodness of Real Food? This year’s motto for the Food Revolution folks is “Cook It. Share It. Live It.” It’s not just one day, it’s for a lifetime. Why don’t you start today?