Let’s Eat!

Summer is almost here and one of the rituals of summer and the up coming holidays is eating outdoors and having a good barbeque. Yes picnics are nice but you can’t beat a good old barbeque with family and friends. Cooking outdoors is one of our basic instincts from when the caveman rubbed to stick together to make a fire and thought it might be a good idea to hold his catch of the day over an open flame.

We’ve come a long way from the caveman (although some might differ with that statement) and have brought cooking outdoors to a much higher level. With more awareness of taking care of the environment and eating good healthy food its time to try a “green’ barbeque. It’s not as bad as you think. No tofu spare ribs, although the tofu hot dogs are not bad. If you are a meat eater, you can choose to grill grass fed beef, pork, hot dogs without fillers and chicken without hormones. The vegetables and fruit you prepare can be locally grown. Go to a farm stand and chose what is grown locally. If you live in a large city, there are many open-air markets that local farmers bring their produce to sell to city folks.

Instead of using disposable paper plates and plastic knives, forks and spoons, use recycled plastic durable dishware and bamboo cutlery. Glasses can also be of durable plastic instead of disposable paper cups. This will cut down the items that will end up in the trash.

If your taste for liquid refreshment while cooking or waiting for that delicious feast goes beyond an ice cold ice tea and an ice cold beer is your pleasure, you can always have an organic beer that comes from the many microbreweries that have popped up all over the country like Green Valley Brewing Co., Wolaver’s, Butte Creek Brewing Co., Eel River Brewing Co. Even the larger breweries are marketing organic beers like Green Valley Brewing Co and Crooked Creek Brewing Co. from Anheuser-Busch and Miller with Henry Weinhards Organic Amber.

If beer is not to your liking but wine is, well there are a number of wines that are made from organic grapes that have not been sprayed or sulfites added to the wine. You cannot go wrong with wines from the Coturri Winery, Marcel Lapierre, Frey Vineyards, Spartico from Spain, Battle of Bosworth from Australia, Pierre Frick and many more that I’m sure your local wine merchant can help you select your Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir or Beaujolais to your liking.

So enjoy and have a good time in partaking in that good old American tradition, the barbeque, but with just a different twist to benefit your health and mother earth’s too.