SuperFood Sunday
Image by Rachel Kriger
I used to joke about the new fad of superfoods and make fun of the health nuts with their goji berries and spirulina. I was farming at the Adamah farm in Connecticut and feeling really good about eating the nutritionally dense seasonal produce that I harvested with my own hands. I was so connected to the land that I could soak up nourishment through my bare feet on the lush soil. I felt skeptical about importing tropical cacao beans and coconuts and other foods from foreign lands. I even went a whole year without eating chocolate!
Then I started to take interest in these so-called superfoods. I bought a bag of goji berries and researched their healing properties. I noticed the small seeds inside these dried fruits, took them to the greenhouse and sprouted my first goji plant. I learned that it is a medicinal fruit (also called a wolfberry) and, although native to China, it can grow here in Maryland where I live. Unfortunately my little seedlings never amounted to much. The kale and cilantro were still my go-to-greens.
Then wintertime came and my harvest was frozen in the ground. I started adding spirulina powder to my morning breakfast porridge to get the nourishment that I read that I needed for being a lifelong vegetarian. I noticed myself searching for the perfect foods that provide just the right nutrients that my body needs. Probably, since you are reading a food blog, you have had visions of your own perfect food/diet on at least one occasion. Then it dawned on me, like flakes of manna falling on my head… manna!
The Jews in the desert subsisted from this food that fell from the sky. It tasted good and was deeply nourishing (unlike spirulina and or the noni fruit whose tastes leave much to be desired). There was no need to follow the latest health fad or do an elimination diet. It was simply pure nourishment that fell fresh from the sky every day.
My quest continues and I know I can feel such ease, simplicity and nourishment from the foods that I consume. I feel blessed that I can “harvest” from the global market and from my backyard.
Last month, my husband Nick and I had the pleasure of taking our honeymoon in Hawaii. We flew on a super big metal bird across the super wide ocean, used our super muscles to backpack around the island and feast on superfoods! We ate cacao beans straight from the pod, purple sweet potatoes, wingbeans, rambutans, longan fruits, avocados, papayas and a mamay sapote (which tastes like sweet potato pie). We hiked down to a beach lined with coconut trees and no sooner than we put our bags down, Nick was busting open coconuts against the rocks. We drank coconut water right from the coconuts and joked that it tasted just like drinking it from the carton at the healthfood store. We felt the bliss of so much diversity of nourishment growing all around us.
So my blessing to all of you is to enjoy and have fun with the superness of food! May you discover the feeling of your perfect foods falling fresh from the sky to nourish and sustain you until the next time you eat. I bless us all humans with a sense of deep gratitude in and around our eating experiences!
This Sunday is the first Superfoods Sunday- an event that I am hosting as a fun way to continue this quest for my perfect diet. See details below and feel free to host your own! In honor of everyone who is not deeply nourished by the Superbowl, we’ve created an event to be sure we are nourished on this ever so awaited day…. Superfood Sunday!
Come, hang out, make superfoods, learn & teach about them and eat yummy healthy deliciousness!
If you do not live near this manifestation of Superfood Sunday, please get excited and host your own wherever you are!
Your job: Bring your favorite superfood ingredient or recipe with a little bit to teach others about it’s nourishing characteristics. Consult the internet if you are new to the concept of “super food”. Basically, it is any whole food that is nutrient dense. (If you prefer to bring a cash donation instead, please bring $5-10 per person.)
Our job: together we will informally take turns sharing our factoids & recipes. we will creatively combine ingredients that people brought to make up recipes on the spot.
Extra points for any person or group that creates an amazing superbowl style commercial for their food items.
This is an open event for both men and women and children. Let’s all get together and share some food and knowledge!
At the Adamah fellowship in Connecticut, Rachel Kriger learned to fuse her passions for farming, Jewish ritual, community and personal growth. Now, as an Acupuncturist, she helps people cultivate and maintain wellness. She lives with her husband and eighteen other people at Heathcote, an intentional community 30 miles north of Baltimore.
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