Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It! (46 page)

Other essentials for the Crazy Sexy kitchen include a salad spinner, strainer, vegetable peeler, measuring cups and spoons, garlic press, spatulas, large salad bowls, large cutting board, and glass mason jars with lids. I like to use the latter to store grains and to carry juice. Stainless-steel containers are a great way to tote water but get kinda stinky with juice.

A mostly raw,
organic lifestyle costs a bit more—or maybe not. Look at what you would likely spend if you ate three meals a day at the popular drive-through feeding trough known as McDonald’s.

Even though I’m not a big fan of counting calories, that works out to about 2,200 calories, about 400 more calories than the average adult woman needs. I can certainly eat very well, and quite healthfully, for $19.70 per day, especially if I lovingly prepare the food myself. Plus, eating out takes a toll on me, even when it’s good food. Simple Kris-style food makes the healing difference for my God pod. It’s easy, it’s cozy, and it’s all yours.

Farmers’ markets and farm stands
are a great way to get the freshest fruits, veggies, and other locally grown products. Not every small farmer has done all the piles of paperwork necessary to be “officially” organic, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t—many use sustainable methods. Do a little research so that you feel confident that the food isn’t full of artificial fertilizers, insecticides, and hormones.

If you get to the market first thing, you’ll have the best choices—but if you wait until the last half hour or so, you’ll get the best bargains. Packing up is a drag, so the farmers are usually willing to haggle (a blood sport in my family).

Well, not the whole thing, just a sweet little piece of it. I followed in my mom’s high-heeled steps and joined a nearby farm offering community-supported agriculture (CSA). Why? Because when I asked the lady at the CSA farm how many cucumbers I could have, she said, “As many as you want.” I nearly orgasmed (in front of my mom, which was … awkward)! “As many as I want? Mom, get the truck!” Since I juice about twenty-one-plus cukes per week, CSAs are better than Christmas, better than Saks!

Your CSA share buys you tons of peas and peace for months. And you don’t just get the standards. Unusual chlorophylls, like garlic scapes and kohlrabi, are abundant. Flowers, too! Here’s how it works: You buy an advance share of the produce the farmer plans to grow. When the crop starts coming, you swing by the farm and pick up your share on a designated day. It’s just amazing what a share gets you. In fact, your portion might be too much to get through. If that’s the case, find someone to go halfsies.

Want to find a CSA farm near you? Ask at the local farmers’ market and farm stands, and also check localharvest.org, a great Web site for tracking down CSAs and local farms.

If you really want to know where your food is coming from, grow it yourself. It’s surprisingly easy to sprout your own beans, grow your own wheatgrass, and raise an herb garden on a windowsill. Tomatoes, cukes, zucchini, lettuce, herbs—they’ll grow like crazy on a patio or on that favorite urban perch, the fire escape. If you have a yard, consider turning part of it into a Crazy Sexy victory garden.

Think of it this way: A packet of cucumber seeds costs about two bucks. Plant just half the packet (unless you want them to take over your neighborhood), water, give them an old piece of trellis to climb, and about forty days later you’ll see tons of cukes. Not bad for a buck. Even a small garden can give you hundreds of dollars of produce each season
for very little investment. Plus, you save money on your gym membership. Pushing a wheelbarrow really tones the ass!

Another big money saver is buying frozen veggies and fruits (or vacuum sealing and freezing your overflow from the CSA). Because these foods go straight from field to frozen right after picking, they can actually contain more nutrients than the fresh versions that have spent a week (or more) in transit on their way to the store. Look for organic brands (Cascadian Farm is widely available in conventional supermarkets) for frozen berries for smoothies and frozen veggies for soups, stews, and casseroles.

Buying in bulk is one of the best ways to save. Warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam’s Club now carry a lot of organic produce, and the prices are very good. Okay, these stores are big corporate monsters, but when the farmers’ market is closed for the winter, they’re the way to go. Plus, when you buy organic at these behemoths, it sends an important message. Organic food rules! The package sizes are large, but you can always freeze what you don’t use or share it with a pal. If you have time to volunteer, food co-ops are another good way to save through bulk buying. To locate one, go online or ask around at the health food store.

Of course,
we all want to buy only organic, but that’s not always possible. Fortunately, not all your fruits and veggies need to be organically grown to be relatively safe. Wash all conventional veggies well. You can also soak them in a little white wine vinegar or food-grade hydrogen peroxide (you can buy this online or at the health food store—it’s not the same as the hydrogen peroxide sold in the pharmacy, do not use that!). Since agricultural chemical sprays stay on the surface of the food, be sure to peel certain produce to remove any residue. Check out the following advice to guide you.

When buying veggies on a budget, choose the conventional option from the Clean Fifteen and try to go organic for the Dirty Dozen. What’s that? It’s a handy list put together by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) that will educate you on produce grown with the least and the most amount of pesticides. Here’s the list of worst offenders and best choices: