Category: Goods & Goodies

Get ½ off, Give ½ off, Win a Juicer!

Are you ready to shed those bulky winter clothes? It is not unusual to let your attention to healthy eating lapse a bit in the winter. After all, aren’t those cozy — and bulky — woolen sweaters sometimes just a little too comfy? But spring is here, and it's time to get back out there and show the world what you're made of.

A strong support system is key when it comes to keeping healthy eating habits. Friends, family members, and neighbors are not only a pivotal part of your success, you can play a huge roll in their health as well! This season, we want to partner with you in the goal to Share the Good!

Here are the details: Refer your friends to our delivery service and get your next Box of Good 50% OFF. PLUS, you’ll be entered into our contest for the chance to win a Champion Commercial Juicer valued at $320!

How it works: 
    •    The contest takes place April 1-30, 2013.
    •    When we receive a referral from you, BOTH you and your referral will receive 50% OFF your next box of good when the person whom you refer to our service signs up for delivery, he/she must give your name as the person who referred him/her.
    •    Each time you refer a person, your name will be entered into the prize drawing once. The more people you refer, the more times your name will be entered into the drawing and the greater your chance of winning. 
    •    We will choose the winner through random selection on May 1, 2013. The winner will be notified immediately thereafter.

Now for the small print:
    •    You must be a current customer to win.
    •    Your referral person must actually sign up and place an order to qualify. New customers who create an account, but do not place an order within the April 1-30, 2013 time period do not qualify as a referral.
    •    For each person you refer, you will still receive one of our standard referral gifts as a thank you.

We are excited about making your referrals more rewarding! So spread the word—email, Facebook, tweet—and share the good!

A few years ago, I was invited by the director, Robert Kenner, to attend a screening of Food, Inc. in Los Angeles. This invitation was all thanks for my brother who filmed much of the movie. I jumped at the opportunity to see the film.

Food, Inc. “lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA” (www.foodincmovie.com). It does so in a way that is honest and not intended purely for shock value but to inform and educate the often misguided and undereducated consumer. If you haven't seen the movie yet I highly recommend it.

What struck me the most while viewing the film is that food works best if we let it do what it was created to do. Tomatoes left to ripen on the vine are sweeter, have a much greater nutritional value and a flavor that cannot even compare to the tomatoes that were plucked while still green and left to ripen on the truck while in transit. The same goes for cows.

Cows were created to eat grass. Their digestive systems were designed to consume grass and yet lately, due to ease, cost and control, many cows are being fed grain. Now we all know that grain, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, but when cows start eating something other than grass things start to go wrong.

As things have started to go wrong for cows because of their unnatural diet, science has solved the problem by creating antibiotics that combat the diseases that arise. Rather than solving the problem by changing their diet, which would eliminate the need for antibiotics, we are now consuming meat from "cows that are essentially being kept alive by drugs" (baronbeef.com).

So now that we got that out of the way, let's focus on the benefits of grass-fed beef. For me the most important part is that it just plain tastes better. Richer, meatier and more complex in flavor. But there are other reasons as well. "The animal itself thrives because it is getting the food it was designed to eat and it converts that food to muscle and fat that is higher in minerals, vitamins, CLAs (conjugated linoleic acid) and Omega 3 fatty acids, and lower in cholesterol and fat" (baronbeef.com). Even though grass-fed beef isn't injected with antibiotics you have a much lower risk of getting diseases associated with beef such as E-Coli and Mad Cow Disease.

To learn more about this and in general where our food comes from I can't recommend the film Food, Inc. enough. Also, any of Michael Pollen's best-selling books like the Omnivores Dilemma provide a very thorough look into the world behind the food on our plate.

In the meantime, I highly encourage you to take advantage of this great opportunity to purchase and enjoy grass-fed beef. Not only can you eat it in good conscience but you will be thrilled with the wonderful taste that comes from cows that eat a diet they were created for.

by Ashley Rodriquez
Chef, food blogger, and full-time mom. You can read more of her writings at www.notwithoutsalt.com