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Health & Fitness

This Week at the Smart Markets Oakton Farmers' Market

Help fight childhood obesity and join our farmers' markets' campaign for healthier school lunches.

This Week at our Oakton Market
Saturday 10 a.m.–2 p.m.
2854 Hunter Mill Road
Map

Annie’s Back! Annie Sidley, our demo diva, will be with us to demonstrate some great breakfast and brunch recipes made with market ingredients. Just another reminder that you can buy local and eat healthy all year long. Her menu will include winter squash pancakes and sausage and apple sauté. She will begin her demo about 11 a.m., so come to shop and then to stop for a while to watch her cook, ask her questions and sample her food.

We will also welcome at least one and maybe two Boy Scout troops who will be visiting with our vendors, and the dads and boys will also be learning how to cook breakfast for their families.

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At Heritage Farm and Kitchen, there will be freshly processed pork from Nevin Hostetter. These pigs were finished on clover and apples. The chef at Mon Ami Gabi in Reston says the flavor is outstanding! There are a few new cuts including Canadian bacon and thinly sliced pork chops — the better for pan-frying in the winter kitchen. Come early. I’m going to be in line at the opening bell!

At Celtic Pasties, Nyall will have a big selection this week and maybe a surprise. And if you have not tried these sumptuous savories, you really should. They are great to have on hand for a quick lunch or afternoon snack for growing teenagers — they freeze and reheat beautifully. In Nyall’s own words, this is his menu: Beef with Carrots and Potatoes, Beef & Guinness, Chicken Curry, Pork and Apple, Cheese & Onion, Spinach & Feta, and maybe one more — “we’re debating a new recipe.”

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Our other bakers are working on party items and ideas for the holidays, so let them know what you would like for them to include in their party platters or gift boxes. They are here to please. Nancy Kahn (The Finger Buffet) will be putting together both savory and sweet party trays, and Rashmi Deshpande will have some examples of her holiday gift boxes. Both will be taking orders, as will Kristen D’Angelo at Sweet Hearts Patisserie.

From the Market Master

In case I am preaching to the choir here, please take a step back and consider the children of your neighbors or your co-workers or children you don’t even know as I rant about where we are headed in this country while paying little or no attention to the issue of childhood obesity. We are heading nowhere. As individuals and as a country, we are doing nothing about it.

I have spent time over the last two weeks culling and organizing newspaper clippings from three newspapers that go back 10 years. I have saved these because I have been interested in this health issue for that long. There have been a flood of studies; we are even spending tax money to investigate the problem. And there have been numerous stories that examine the implications of our overeating on our long-term personal health. There have also been business-news items about the impact of childhood obesity on our economy, which will pay in many ways to accommodate a generation of young adults with old-age health problems.

When was the last time a politician talked about this issue, except of course to stand up in Congress and charge that removing excess and empty calories from school lunches is encroaching on freedom of choice by telling people what to eat? As if serving unhealthy food is not also “telling them what to eat.” And where is the member of Congress or reporter — or anyone — who stands up and points out that whatever we feed our children in their school lunches imposes limits on their options? Improving the options does not change the school lunch system. It just changes the options. Choosing not to improve the options demonstrates a blatant disregard for all of those studies, a dismissal of the facts and a blind eye to the future cost to our economy.

In the same week that our nation’s pediatricians were advocating testing the cholesterol of young children and a new study emerged that linked early-childhood obesity with long-term heart issues, our Congress decided to cave into the pizza, salt and potato lobbies and refused to improve the nutrient value and reduce the calories in school lunches.

It galls me to watch countries around the world moving so earnestly toward democracy while we can’t use the power of the people we already have to get our democratic representatives to do the right thing — or at least to discuss it on its merits and treat it as an issue that we, the people, can influence.

But I am happy to be the one to remind you that you can do something. If you want to venture out and take this on as a project for the next year, let me know. There are simple things that we can do at the local and state levels. We may not be able to change what Congress decrees is a healthy lunch, but we can change what our schools offer to those children who are not learning at home what to eat at school. There are levels of participation and activism. You can be part of the educational or motivational program. You can work through an existing forum or help to bring the advocacy groups together around a specific goal. You can help develop a database to support our arguments, or you can help manage a petition drive.

I will continue to report on the status of the project — we do need to give it a name — and you are welcome to send us links or referrals to pass along even if you cannot spare the time to participate. If you really want to be motivated or want to motivate a group, watch Jamie Oliver’s speech at a TED conference last year.

See you at the market!

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