Wishing you a Happy and Healthy New Year!

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Today we reflect on the past year and make resolutions to better ourselves for next year. It is a time to spend with family and friends and welcome in the new year! With each new year we also welcome in possibilities, exciting opportunities, new friendships and relationships as well as future challenges and obstacles. Take some time today to reflect on 2013 and get in the right state of mind for 2014. Set goals and challenge yourself. Eat healthier, travel farther, exercise, be more outgoing, smile and laugh, be confident, make people happy. Whatever you wish for 2014 make it positive and attainable. Set the bar high and exceed your expectations! Good luck on sticking to your goals and I wish everyone a Happy and Healthy 2014!

My 2014 Goals for Ryan's Local Roots:

1. Post more frequently! Final exams and the holidays kept me very busy and I haven't spent enough time posting and sharing important health and local food tips. This is something I will improve in the new year.

2. Be more interactive with social media and comments.

3. Delve into stories of farmers and local merchants!

4. Conduct a local food review of Downtown Harrisonburg and other communities I visit.

I look forward to sharing these stories with you in the new year! Thanks for your support! Keep reading, sharing, and posting comments!

~Ryan

"You don't need a silver fork to eat good food." - Paul Prudhomme

Banana Peanut Butter Protein Smoothie with a Twist Recipe

Banana Peanut Butter Protein Smoothie with a Twist Recipe

Looking for a healthy smoothie meal replacement, a nutritious snack, or a guilt free dessert? Well I have the perfect thing to try. Making fruit smoothies isn't really an art, I tend to just think about what I have in the kitchen and wonder if their flavors will blend well and try it out. Sometimes you end up with a terrible result and other times it's delicious! Here is one that I tried out yesterday and thought it was a good combo of flavors. 

Yield: 1 serving

Ingredients:

1 frozen banana

1 heaping tablespoon of all-natural peanut butter

1/2 cup of your favorite milk

1/2 teaspoon of local honey (I used Mud-E Acres)

1 splash of vanilla extract

1 handful of fresh spinach

Directions:

In a blender, blend together all ingredients until well combined and smooth. Pour into a glass and enjoy! I used a recycled jar so I could put a lid on it and take it for the road!

   Nutrition Facts:

Calories: 300

Protein: 12.3 g  25%

Total Fat: 10.9 g  17%

Potassium: 892 mg  25%

Vitamin C: 61%

Calcium: 23%

Vitamin D: 12%

Vitamin K: 510%

Vitamin A: 165%

Health Tip: For fruit smoothies, superfood spinach adds a bunch of nutrients and provides a high percentage of vitamins and minerals and does not provide flavor. So toss a handful of spinach in any flavor smoothie and enjoy the nutrients without disrupting the great taste you love!

Have a healthy and happy day!

Sincerely,

Ryan

"Food is symbolic of love when words are inadequate" - Alan D. Wolfelt

Tuesday Pick-Me-Up

How are we supposed to be happy when each day we are exposed to this:

Iconic photograph from the Boston Marathon Bombing that occurred on April 15, 2013

Gas prices reach record highs over Labor Day 2012

Hollywood actor, Paul Walker dies in flaming car crash on November 30, 2013

Super-Typhoon Haiyan makes a catastrophic landfall in the Philippines in early November 2013. 

Well here's my theory; life is all about balance with every yin there is a yang, every defeat there is a triumph and every fall there is a rise. Yes things like this are happening all over the world and have been happening for centuries. We have become conditioned as consumers to feed off negative news. It is evident on websites and tv programs such as CNN, ABC, Fox News, NBC and the like. We have become an audience that thrives off sensationalism rather than facts. Well in a world like this many of us including myself find it hard to be happy day in and day out when all around us is negativity. So my question is how can we sustain happiness? Here's my answer:

Luckily because we live in a balanced world there is happiness everywhere, we just need to realize it:

Funny Faces

Funny T-shirts

A beautiful day in a beautiful country

A great concert

Fall Foliage

A beautiful sunset sky

Fulfilling a bucket list item with pride

Disney World

Making Wednesdays exciting

Face paint

Laying in the grass

Recognizing beautiful food

Seeing shapes of hearts in bread

Looking at old family photos

Making a sandwich

Discovering blueberry soda

Big blocks of cheese

Cars decorated like rudolph

And of course music makes us happy like these super-happy songs that just make you feel good:

Hopefully those songs made you happy!

Have a great day!

~Ryan

Happy Friendsgiving!

Thanksgiving has recently passed and many of us Americans sat around dining room tables and

expressed our thanks. Many of us were thankful for the food before us, the family and friends that surrounded us and our good health. A similar event took place 8 days before Thanksgiving in my apartment in Harrisonburg, VA. As a co-celebration of Thanksgiving and Max's 21st birthday (my roommate) we decided to have our very own Thanksgiving with our friends a week before the actual holiday. This is a tradition that is becoming increasingly popular in the U.S. and is becoming known as "Friendsgiving". NPR mentioned it on their Thanksgiving radio show this year, there are Pinterest
pages dedicated to Friendsgiving ideas and it is even defined by Urban Dictionary. Similar to the traditional Thanksgiving it is a potluck and one friend hosts the dinner and cooks a turkey and all other friends prepare their seasonal specialty. For college students I was impressed that we were able to come up with such a delicious meal. We had friends bring pies and cornbread, Katie brought her first-ever-made mashed potatoes and helped prepare the turkey, Carly brought over cranberry sauce and I prepared candied sweet potatoes and stuffing for the turkey! The sweet potatoes came from the Tuesday farmer's market and were delicious! I'll post the recipe below!

Something to consider is that we only just moved in this past August and we felt comfortable enough by mid-November to have all of our neighbors and friends over for a great dinner. We went around the table and discussed everything we were thankful for and for just about all of us we were most thankful for meeting each other. It is funny because 3 months prior to this dinner none of us were friends or even knew the others existed and now we are sharing a big meal together. There is something about the holiday season that forces people together and to be kind and cheerful and we did just that. As Christmas draws nearer I challenge you to bring a group of friends together and have a potluck and it may even serve as a reunion of old friends. 

I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving and that you will hold a sense of joy in the upcoming weeks leading up to Christmas. Happy Friendsgiving Everyone!

~Ryan

P.S. I apologize for the long break from the last blog post to this one. I was busy with school and celebrating the holiday with friends and family. I thought you'd all understand! :) I will be posting more frequently once finals end next week.

"Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers." ~ William Shakespeare

Candied Sweet Potato Recipe

Yield: 1 group of hungry friends

Ingredients:

5 lbs of Farmer's Market fresh sweet potatoes

1/4 cup of butter

1/4 cup of brown sugar

cinnamon

2 cups of mini marshmallows 

1/4 cup of mini marshmallows to sprinkle on top

1/4 cup of mini marshmallows to eat while cooking :)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and spray a 9x11 pan with cooking spray

2. Wash, Peel and Cube the sweet potatoes

3. Boil sweet potatoes in a big pot of water for about 15 minutes or until slightly undercooked

4. Drain sweet potatoes and let sit in a bowl while preparing the next step

5. In a big pot over medium heat melt the butter, brown sugar and 2 cups of mini marshmallows

6. Stir in the boiled sweet potatoes until well covered by the butter mixture

7. Mash some of the sweet potatoes and keep others whole and sprinkle the whole mixture with cinnamon

8. Pour into prepared pan and spread evenly

9. Bake for 15 minutes

10. Remove from oven and sprinkle 1/4 cup marshmallows on top and bake for 3 minutes or until marshmallows are slightly browned.

11. Let cool and enjoy with friends!

United States of Amnesia

Generation Y, Millennials, or sometimes referred to as the Technological Generation is the demographic of those born between the early 1980's and the early 2000's. I was born in 1993, in the heart of this multitasking and overstimulating generation. I often think about my generation's addiction to technology, to artificiality, and to self image. I see this addiction pretty much everyday and in a variety of circumstances. On the bus, walking around campus, in the classroom, in my apartment, out to eat, and even in nature there are "millennials" that just can't separate themselves from technology. You may wonder why this is but it is so simple to see. We were the first generation to grow up in a home with a desktop computer. I can think back to 1998 when my family purchased our first computer and see myself playing cd-rom computer games on a Dell that would take 10 minutes to turn on. The connecting internet that sounded like screeching cats and the friendly "You've got mail" message from AOL. This was the greatest technological advance of the decade and I was amazed. The days of playing manhunt and cops and robbers with the neighbor gang quickly seized and instead the "cool" thing was to enter the constructed world of video games and the internet. 15 years later, in 2013, we have personalities on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, and Pinterest. We have newly defined verbs such as "click", "scroll", "like", "tweet", "selfie" "google", "pin", "post", "tag", "share", and "comment". We receive instant notifications from all means of social media and from phone calls, text messages, and weather alerts. We can always be contacted and interrupted from daily life by a phone call or text message.

My philosophy professor coined the phrase, "United States of Amnesia" to describe the times we are living in today. As Baby Boomers, our parents were the wealthiest, most active, and most physically fit generation up to that time. What are we? What will/have we become? What have we changed? Unfortunately I don't believe that we've done much but become addicted consumers. 97% of the Millennial college students born between 1983-1992 own a computer, 94% own a cell phone, and 56% own a music playing device. Additionally, 76% use instant messaging with 92% saying that they multi-task while using instant messaging.

Those statistics certainly appear to be true at my university. I visited one of the three Starbucks locations that we have on campus today and each of the tables were topped with Macbooks with distracted students zoning in on their iPhones. It seems as if students can't get a thought processed without being distracted by a device. The corresponding vibrate or chirp from every message we receive makes it all the more intriguing to read. My professor coined the phrase "United States of Amnesia" because he was aware of this phenomenon and its impact by shortening students' attention spans. His thoughts are that we are constantly being fed information and are becoming overloaded by it that we cannot focus on something for an extended period of time. Even in his class when we talk about the most mind-bending and interesting topics concerning God, Meaning, and Morality there are students on their phones and iPads browsing Facebook or Twitter to pass the time. Their confidence is measured by the amount of "likes" they receive on a Facebook status or an Instagram picture. 

Socrates and Plato described these "temptations" that we face daily as "appetites". They believed that we have a human desire for hunger, thirst, and sex. But they say that one needs temperance and moderation to control one's appetites. Fulfilling one's appetites is believed by them as the lowest form of human potential. The desire for technology can be defined as an appetite that needs controlling as well.  I can't say that I am a master at controlling my appetite for technology, I too have an iPhone and am typing this blog post on my Macbook Pro. The key is using these devices for purposes of productivity and not allowing them to cloud our ability to think for ourselves, to think rationally, and to think originally. Too often do I see individuals completely focused on their devices like they have an "anti-social bubble" surrounding them, ironically they are probably on social media. When the reality is that social media is surrounding us everywhere. For instance the people sitting next to us on the bus, the bus driver, the other students in class, our friends, etc. All of these little interactions are becoming overlooked when they could really lead to something great; a friend, a relationship, or simply a great conversation. We shouldn't sell ourselves short and get too distracted by technology. If we have a passion we should go out there and do it! Try turning off your phone for one day, you may actually like it and make it a habit to turn it off once a week. Defy the social norms and do your thing!

~Ryan

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it." ~ Ferris Bueller

Get Stung by the Bee!

On Wednesday Night at the Clementine Cafe, a local restaurant and lounge downtown, something interesting happened. Community members and students alike gathered in Clementine's basement, also known as Ruby's Lounge, and partook in a grassroots gathering with a twist. As I entered the side door of the cafe and crept down into the dimly-lit basement I noticed artwork on the walls. No this wasn't your typical artwork such as paintings or photographs, this was expert graphic design with a meaning and a message. I smiled at some familiar faces and friends and began appreciating the artwork at a deeper level than at first glance. When I approached the posters I noticed that each scene was finely drawn and each figure was a metaphor that represented a grander meaning. Small chit-chat occurred within small groups as we awaited the presentation. Molly and Kyle took the stage and introduced the Beehive Design Collective (check out their website and facebook page)!

Here's the gist: The Beehive Design Collective uses graphic design to bring to light environmental, social and political issues happening in the United States and abroad. The really amazing thing about the Beehive Design Collective is that it is 100% volunteer-driven and a non-profit organization. Its purpose is to "cross-pollinate the grassroots" by creating collaborative, anti-copyright images that can be used as educational and organizing tools. Based in Machias, Maine this organization now prints 20-30,000 graphic prints (posters) in a full run which are then distributed all across the world and sold for donations at events such as the one on Wednesday. The goal is to create both awareness and grassroots action. 

Wednesday night's presentation was focused on "MesoAmerica Resiste" a graphic design, 9 years in the making which was released this past summer. The Beehive Design Collective spent 4 months traveling from Puebla, Mexico to parts of Panama and interviewing a broad spectrum of people from students to union organizers, factory employees, agricultural workers, entomologists and more. The issues addressed in "MesoAmerica Resiste" include free trade, globalization, privatization, the war on drugs, and megadevelopment, all of which are social and political issues affecting Central America. The presentation encourages a conversation amongst its viewers to express their feelings on the topics discussed. 

The best part of the evening is after the presentation when all the attendees roam the room and talk about what they experienced. There is a real sense of community and a passion to make a positive impact on these negative social issues. It is nice to talk to people within the community and share ideas. It is the exact goal of the Beehive Design Collective, starting a grassroots gathering and "pollinate" the positive conversation. Check out their website for a grassroots gathering near you!

Molly educates listeners on social, political, and environmental issues
happening in Central America

The intricate design of the posters uses symbolism and animals to
illustrate these issues

Posters for sale by donation

Grassroots conversation sparked

~Ryan

"Community organizing is all about building grassroots support. It's about identifying the people around you with whom you can create a common, passionate cause. And it's about ignoring the conventional wisdom of company politics and instead playing the game by very different rules." - Tom Peters

Happy Monday!

Today is November 4th, 2013. The only November 4th, 2013 that will ever exist in all of time. Isn't that beautiful? We will never be able to live this day or moment again however millions of us will treat it like any other day. Heck, I will treat it like any other day. But perhaps it is important to think about how precious each moment is in our lives. How are we thinking, what are we doing, do we love it, or are we left feeling empty? I know it's a lot of thinking for a crisp November Monday but thinking in this way makes me appreciate the things around me. For instance, the curly haired and colorful shoed guy sitting next to me doesn't realize I am appreciating the sound of his keyboard tapping fingers. Or Ray Charles can't understand that his melodious tunes are making me smile and wonder why everyone's feet are not tapping to his tune. This lack of understanding about everything around me is incredible and oddly comforting. The fact that none of us are certain about anything at all make us all equal. Now you might be thinking, does this have anything to do with eating local? And the answer is maybe.

What if we denied social norms. We didn't fall into the trap of what we were told to do. If we have a song stuck in our heads why not sing it? If we feel like dancing why not show the world our awesome dance moves? Instead we give these people weird looks and judgements. So today instead of doing the norm try out something different...eat new foods, take a new route to work or class, and most of all make yourself and others happy! Happy Monday!

~Ryan

Project Grows Crop Mob

What the heck is a Crop Mob? A better question may be what is the Valley Crop Mob organization? The Valley Crop Mob is a service organization dedicated to helping local and sustainable agricultural enterprises in the Shenandoah Valley. We are a group of volunteers from all over the community who assist farmers with big projects that are difficult to do alone. Each month we bring people to a local farm to complete such projects. We provide our volunteers with a good way to become more integrated with our local communities, gain useful skills, learn more about the benefits of local, diversified food production. At each crop mob we also share a delicious meal with our farmers after the work is done. The Valley Crop Mob strives to keep the local food movement growing in Virginia's beautiful Shenandoah Valley! I recently joined the executive committee of Valley Crop Mob and I work with 4 other amazing JMU students to bring this opportunity to other JMU students and Harrisonburg community members alike. Together we plan each monthly crop mob, a variety of promotional and informational events, and fundraisers. It has been one of the greatest opportunities presented to me thus far at JMU and it's a blast! Check out the website and like the Facebook page!

Our most recent Crop Mob was to Project Grows, a community farm where children and youth grow, eat, and enjoy. They inspire younger members of the community and teach them about healthy living through many hands-on experiences such as growing crops from soil to seed to harvest! This past Sunday, October 20th, eight of us met at Friendly City Food Co-op and car-pooled over to Verona, VA where we met farm manager Sam, assistant coordinator of marketing and outreach Jenna, and assistant coordinator of education and programming Lisa! The day was beautiful for farming, it was about 55 degrees without a cloud in the sky! We all were educated about the history and founding of Project Grows and its mission to educate children about healthy and sustainable lifestyles. After a tour of the farm and an explanation of all the crops growing there we began to weed an overgrown area of beds. We were prepping the land to plant garlic. After we finished weeding we popped and planted the garlic in the prepped beds about six to eight inches apart and about 6 inches into the ground. We then placed hay on top of the beds and got ready for lunch! The weeding, popping, and planting process took about 3 hours and the garlic will be ready to harvest in June! 

We then prepped for lunch which was a pot-luck of delicious foods and a salad from the Project Grows farm with freshly picked spring mix, lettuce, tomatoes, and green peppers! It was a delicious meal and a great bonding event for everyone involved! Sam, Jenna, and Lisa then offered fresh green and hot peppers for us to take home, which we all took advantage of! We then hopped back into the car and traveled back to Harrisonburg! It was a great day for everyone involved and we are all looking forward to our November Crop Mob! Check out some more pictures from the day below and like Project Grow's Facebook Page!

 

 ~Ryan 

"Nature provides a free lunch but only if we control our appetites" - William Ruckelshaus