AdAgrA 2014 Conference

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Principles of Simple Living

Deidre Dealy

3- Preserving the Harvest

Okay, well I will just start by introducing our simple living seminars going so wonderfully.

That's weird because it hasn't done that the whole time.

And we're just so thrilled to see everyone here, especially the children.

And you know, in the Bible, in Proverbs 17, 22, it says, a merry heart worketh good like a medicine And we can learn that from children can't we?

Okay, so before we start let's have a prayer together Dear Heavenly Father we want to thank you for this amazing day for the sunshine for the food that we've eaten that we're now nourished.

Lord we pray now that we can be mentally nourished with some information here, that it would be blessed by you, that you would give Deidre all the words to say that would be a glory and honor to you and we just thank you so much in Jesus name, amen.

So just a brief introduction of myself, my name is Deidre and my husband Matt and I have served for the last 2 years at Black Hills Health and Education Center.

We moved this September to Utah to Daystar Academy and he's helping run the farm at Castle Valley Farms there now.

We've been involved in agriculture for several years and you know he gets to do a lot of the work side of it while I get to work a lot too, but I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and I spend a lot of time helping put up the stuff that he grows, and doing all the other farming stuff too, but we're going to talk a little bit about that today.

And we have 3 beautiful kids that are a huge blessing to me.

Josiah, Hadassah, and our little Hannah is 10 months and she's taking a nap.

So, we're just going to talk a little bit about preserving the harvest and carrying our produce into the rest of the year when we're not growing actively on the farm.

So just a couple housekeeping things before I actually get started.

Cell phones really distract me and if someone's cell phone rings, then...

And if you guys can turn your cell phones off too, I'd appreciate it.

And then I'll have time for questions at the end, so if you guys want to hold your questions for the end, that would be great too.

I tend to be kind of a fast talker, so if I get too hurried, you guys can just kind of let me know I'm going a little fast and I'll slow down because some people say I tend to talk fast and sound like I'm out of breath so I'll try not to do that.

All right so why are we going to talk about food preservation?

Well like I said we want to extend our food into the time where we're not actively producing.

Preserving helps you to make less of a consumer impact because you're not buying all of the packaged goods from the stores.

You're using your canning jars and things like that.

And of course there's a monetary value there.

I think that we are called to be good stewards.

We're called to be good stewards of our finances, of our time, and I think that includes our money.

Just like Jennifer and Pam talked about this morning, about simplifying and about minimizing our grocery bill, this is a big part of that, especially when we're working on tight budgets, which farmers usually tend to be.

So Food preservation takes a lot of work, and it takes a lot of work at the time of year where it's really crazy when you're growing your own food.

But I think it's well worth it, and I think that we really gain a blessing from it, and we know what we're eating.

That's a huge thing, because a lot of people don't know what they're eating.

So food preservation is definitely important to me and I think it should be important to all of us.

So when you select produce to preserve, you always want to preserve produce that is in peak season.

It's going to taste better, it's going to look better, and it's going to store better.

So you always want to choose produce that's fresh, and you don't want it to have any type of spoilage on it, any moldy spots or rotten spots or anything like that.

And obviously it's just going to preserve better if you stick to those standards.

So preservation takes place in many different methods.

This is probably not all inclusive, but those include freezing, dehydration, canning, fermentation and pickling, and curing and smoking.

So those last 2 bullet points we're not going to talk about today for several different reasons, but we are going to talk about freezing, dehydration, and canning.

Freezing is suitable for most fruits and vegetables, things like sauces and soups.

Their quality can be maintained for 12 to 18 months with proper storage.

And the bad thing about freezing is that you have a limited capacity because your freezer is only so big or you have to get another freezer or another freezer.

And really you're using a lot of energy to keep those freezers running and if at any time the power goes out, you have to think about what you're going to do with that food or it's all just going to go bad and your time is wasted.

So it may be easy, but then it's also kind of, it can be a chore.

So when you freeze produce, the first thing you want to do of course is wash it.

You want to process it however you're going to, so remove stems, chop it, make it into usable pieces.

A lot of times when you freeze stuff you want it to be smaller pieces so you can take out just a portion at a time.

It may require blanching or you know just heating it a little bit if necessary.

And then you want to determine what type of portion sizes you're going to be using because it's nice to be able to just take out 1 little bit at a time rather than opening a larger container and taking out little bits.

And then you want to place them in freezer containers.

So I want to talk a little bit about blanching vegetables because most vegetables have to be blanched before you can freeze them.

Blanching helps to make them maintain or retain their color, their taste, their texture, those type of things when they're preserved in any way because it inhibits the enzyme action that naturally occurs that breaks down the food.

It also makes the vegetables softer so that you can pack them tighter.

If you're processing greens or something, they cook down a lot.

So if you blanch them first you can store more at a time.

Same with anything, 2 even carrots, if you cook them down a little bit they're gonna pack tighter.

And then blanching vegetables also helps to just clean them a little more.

So the easiest way to blanch vegetables is to use a blanching basket that's, you know, specifically for that.

We use our, like our pasta insert for our kettle.

And so as a general rule you want to use about a gallon of water per pound of vegetable.

So when you put your vegetables into the boiling water you want it to return to a boil within a minute.

And So when you keep the ratio about a gallon to a pound, then it keeps the water from getting too low where it's not coming back up to a boil.

And so you boil it and you blanch it for the set amount of time.

And then when you take it out, you want to put it in a cool water bath or an ice water bath to stop the cooking process because you don't want to cook the vegetables.

And then you want to drain the vegetables thoroughly.

So this is something that I pulled off the internet.

It would be a good resource for you to find.

It's pretty easy to find something like this, But all it is is a chart that it lists different vegetables.

And then the middle column says whether you need to blanch it.

And then the right column says how long it should be blanched before freezing.

And if it's not recommended for freezing, like the Jerusalem artichoke, it'll just say NA.

So something like that is a really good tool to have in your bucket.

Flash freezing is just a way to freeze produce where it doesn't clump all together, okay?

So if you have berries or you have small pieces of vegetables, those types of things that you're going to want to take out in little batches, then you can flash freeze them.

And basically all that is, is you wash your food and you allow it to drain very well.

And then you put it on a flat surface, like a cookie sheet or something, and you put it in the freezer, let it freeze like that.

And when it's spread out so thinly, it freezes quickly, and then you can take it off in individual pieces and put them in your containers that way.

So there's obviously a lot of different options for freezing containers.

Ziploc bags work really well and they're cheap.

Some people don't like to use plastic though so that poses a problem.

For people who don't like to use the plastic Ziploc bags or vacuum sealed bags, Down at the bottom here you see the FoodSaver brand.

They make a little thing that goes over the top of a mason jar and you can remove the air with 1 of those and they work really good.

And you can get little hand-held vacuum sealers, like the 1 in the top picture.

So you can just use little hand-held vacuum sealers to remove air from containers so that your food store is longer that way, and so you don't have to buy like a big vacuum sealer that can be hundreds of dollars.

Some tips for when you're freezing just to kind of recap you want to make sure the produce is well drained before you freeze it because that excess water can kind of help it clump together help it get freezer burnt.

You want to remove as much air as possible from the containers before you put them in the freezer.

And make sure there's an airtight seal on the container that you're choosing so that the moisture can't be drawn out.

Don't forget to label and date everything.

Michelle Lesher

4- Farm to Table: Simple Recipes

Are you all being blessed here at the conference?

Such a beautiful idea of coming together and learning about true education and agriculture.

I wasn't here at the very beginning yesterday.

I wanted to share why I chose to kind of put this breakout session together.

So last year was my first time at the conference, and there was a lot of teaching on homeschooling and how important it is and how agriculture and the homeschooling go together.

And learning a lot about what Spirit of Prophecy says about schooling and teaching our children, like what our presenter this morning was telling us, how it's better to wait until the brain is ready.

These were concepts I did not know and did not understand.

It really opened my eyes and my understanding to a lot of things.

And so I learned a lot about why we should do it.

And then I wanted to know more about the how do we do it.

So that was where the idea for this session came from.

I wanted to do really practical ways of how to incorporate sort of this agrarian life into raising children.

I myself don't have any children yet, but I know that it's something in my heart.

I would love to be a mother and it's such an important job.

I think it's the most important job on the planet.

I work with pregnant and pregnant mothers and children from age birth to 5 with my work.

And so that's why I wanted to develop this breakout session for moms and for children.

Because you know, children are such an important thing.

And I admire mothers very much because it's a total surrender isn't it just a total dedication and fathers too But I know with moms it's a, you know, oftentimes you're the 1 that's home with the child more often or you're the 1 that's really interacting with them all day.

And so how are you to incorporate homeschooling and schooling your children in the agrarian life.

There's a way to do that and it's something that I aspire to do and that's why I wanted Pam to share and tomorrow there's going to be a lot on specifics with how to homeschool.

She's going to, I told Pam, I want you to just go through a day in the life of Pam with her 5 kids because she's homeschooled them all living at Bountiful Blessings Farm.

So she's going to do that for us tomorrow.

We have some other really great speakers also that's going to be really focused in on the agrarian life kind of homeschooling aspects.

And today, with the intro and then the natural remedies and the preserving, and now I'm going to talk about simple recipes, because it all goes together, doesn't it?

It's a lifestyle, and that's what we want to help people to understand how to do it.

And it's a process, just like anything else in life, wherever you're at.

Some of you may be living in a city still some maybe just moved to the country So there's a lot of different places where you're at and we just want to be here to support Every person in every place that they're at to learn how to achieve this agrarian life and living in harmony with nature, the garden, your children and your family and God.

Because we know that's the calling, isn't it?

So it's about time to start now, so I'll just start with the prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you so much and thank you so much for this time that we have here together now.

I pray that whatever I say would be an honor and a glory to you, Lord.

We know anything that's good comes from you, so we just want to thank you for all the good things in this world.

I especially want to thank you right now for every mother and child that is in this room.

Thank you for the blessing of the children and we just pray that what we teach here would be something to grow them up, Lord, so that they would know you better.

So I just want to reiterate, I love children.

And there's lots of them in this room and it's just cool that this happens to be conveniently located next to the playground.

And there's a nice bathroom exit over here.

It's just God planned this perfectly, didn't he?

So we thank every person for coming and for being here and everyone has a handout.

I'm going to try to speak in front of the microphone.

I'm a registered nurse and a registered dietitian, but most of all I'm the wife of Larry and we have Eastward Gardens as our ministry.

So we've been farming for about 9 years now.

Just to give you a little bit of a background.

Larry and I, when we met, neither 1 of us were Christians.

We came to the Lord together through a Sunday keeping church and then the Lord led us to learn the truths, the Adventist truths, which are so amazing, completely changed our lives.

I've been following a total plant-based diet since I was 16 years old and I'm now 38 years old.

So I've been following this diet well before I was ever a Christian, well before I was ever an Adventist, pursued my career in nursing and after I got finished I thought oh dear I don't think I want to do this.

I really want to help people to heal and I really liked the assessment and the caring and the nurturing part of it, but I really didn't like the giving out the medicine part.

It really bothered me, because I was giving some people some pretty heavy medicines that I knew were not good for them.

So the Lord impressed me and Larry to table the nursing career and pursue a master's in nutrition so I could help people to learn to heal through food, to prevent the medicines.

And through the course of all of that, basically I went to a school called Bastyr University to get my master's and that was in Seattle, Washington.

And that was the very first place that Larry started farming.

So, I grew up in a home where my mom would cook dinner.

I remember we ate dinner usually sitting in front of the TV and would eat lots of candy and chips and pop and things like that.

I was not raised eating a really healthy diet.

My passion for health food actually, believe it or not, started with my passion for the environment and animals.

I cared about animals and the environment and that caused me to learn and care more about through the course of a lot of mistakes caring more about what I'm putting in my own body and so I'm happy to share with you as a registered dietitian that you can feed yourself and your families a total plant-based diet and be healthy and have Vitality and feel good about that So I'm going to help you with that because I know it's hard for moms because you want to give your children the best You don't want them to be deficient and I don't either.

We're going to start off with GMOs though.

Tell me here, does anyone not know what a GMO is?

So everyone knows what a genetically modified organism is So what I'm going to do is help you to know how to avoid them does everyone here understand that they are not Good for us to eat right They go against God's great design and so what we want to do from our understanding of these things is avoid them in the food system.

When you're trying to avoid genetically modified organisms, where you get into your most trouble is in the packaged foods.

If you're eating mostly fresh foods, it's not as difficult.

Because we don't want to eat packaged foods anyway, right?

But aren't they using regular foods that are genetically modified?

So there are some fresh foods that are genetically modified, but the bulk of the problem is in packaged foods.

70 to 80 percent of the ingredients in packaged foods are genetically modified.

Byron Smith

Janice Smith

5- Simple Parenting Principles

You know, when we were getting to know 1 another prior to when we got married, it was really funny because we didn't actually talk that much about having children.

We sort of, I don't know, I guess we just both sort of took for granted that we would see eye to eye on that and that wasn't a topic that we talked a lot about.

But in my mind I kind of thought maybe 2 kids and I think that's about where you were too, right?

I expected them but I wasn't thinking about how many.

So let me just introduce you to our family.

That's our oldest daughter Jana with her husband Andy.

Next is my husband's mom and dad, Marilyn and Charles.

Then we have our next daughter Kimberly and her husband Imean and their oldest baby.

And then our youngest daughter Amy and our son Charles.

It's in our sweet potato patch, and it's old.

But now Kimberly and Imean have 3 children, and now Jana and Andy have 3 children, but the picture is old.

And you know, we just, for kids, it's perfect.

You know, the topic of this particular breakout track, if I understand it, is about the simple life.

And when we were invited to share on that, my wife and I both laughed because our life is anything, by anybody's standards, our life is anything but simple.

My wife and I work probably 70 hours a week on our farm.

So it's like why would we want to talk about the simple life when our life doesn't seem simple?

But it only depends how you classify simple.

So I wanted to, as I thought about it, I think that what she just said is really a key point.

And I decided that there are 2 principles about bringing the, I'll do it when I'm ready.

There's 2 principles about simplicity in parenting that I want to, and about life in general that I want to share.

First 1 is, you need to clearly know what simple is.

The biggest problem that we have in so many aspects of our life is that we bring expectations to, like when you look at the disciples.

As soon as they thought, hey, this is the Messiah, then a whole bunch of thoughts started coming in their mind.

If it's the Messiah, that means there's going to be a revolt against the Romans there's going to be prosperity etc and they couldn't accept the fact that the Messiah would end up the way he ended up.

So we have to make sure that we understand what simple is.

And you can interrupt me wherever you want.

The dictionary defines simple as composed of only 1 thing, element, or part.

Okay, so That brings me right away to this passage from Ministry of Healing that has been a huge guide.

The huge guide in my life and it says, those who accept the what?

Okay, now when you read this on paper or on a computer screen, it sounds really straightforward.

Now when you actually put that into your life, have you actually experienced that when you get down on your knees and you say, God, I'm going to accept the 1 principle of making the service of God supreme, do you feel all those perplexities vanish?

Do you see a plain path in front of your feet?

But the interesting thing is, is that as Christians we live by faith.

So there is a plain path in front of our feet.

We know if we've accepted the 1 principle of making the service of God supreme, we know what to do, and that is serve God.

Right now, this foot right in front of me, I know what to do.

And that is to make a commitment to Christ, to follow him and put his service utmost.

And it doesn't always take the picture that you think it will be.

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Series

Principles of Simple Living

3- Preserving the Harvest

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

3- Preserving the Harvest

30m

4- Farm to Table: Simple Recipes

1h

5- Simple Parenting Principles

51m

7- The Agrarian Life and Homeschooling: Help for the Frazzled Mother

57m

Sound Doctrine