Welcome back Foxy Fans. So far, we have discussed the 6:00 am meeting I attended with the Foxy harvesters. My real farm tour began at 7:50 am with Tom Nunes III. He oversees much of the overall harvesting operations for the company. We started off by visiting the Sherwood ranch where workers were harvesting romaine hearts right in the field into 3 pack bags. Tom wanted to make sure the harvest crew leader understood his instructions from the morning meeting regarding how the lettuce ribs should be facing in the bag.
It was wonderful to see how efficient the crew was in the harvesting process. On the harvesting crew, there was a row of energetic individuals on one side of the machine, hand selecting which romaine plants were the proper size and weight to be packed into the bag. They would then cut the plant to the actually heart or center of the romaine. The hearts were loaded into a bag and sealed right there in the field. It doesn’t get any fresher than that!
Next up was the Whalebone ranch… more to come!

Tom Nunes III in a Foxy Romaine Field

Hello Foxy Fans! I am kicking off this tour of a day in the life of a farmer starting at 6 a.m. for the weekly Wednesday Foxy harvester’s meeting. That day, I was following Tom Nunes III, one of the members of the family who work for The Nunes Company, owners of Foxy produce. Over 20 harvesters, food safety supervisors and managers attended the meeting to discuss that week’s planting schedule.
Each and every commodity that is grown in Salinas was discussed at length with every harvester of the vegetables. The first discussed was iceberg lettuce. Iceberg lettuce was being transitioned that week from Salinas, CA to Huron, CA. The reason for this move is that while Salinas, CA still has mild weather, it is too wet to continue growing the lettuce.  Leafy greens need 40-70 degree weather and a drier climate for optimum growing conditions. The more water in the lettuce while it is growing, the faster it breaks down. It was reported that all harvest equipment was being prepared to move to Huron later that day. Foxy iceberg lettuce will continue to be grown and harvested in Huron until December 1st, where it will move to Yuma, AZ to continue seeking a drier climate
Romaine hearts, broccoli, cauliflower, and celery were all discussed as well. Food safety managers often asked questions of the harvesters to make sure all policies were being followed. The Nunes Company cooling facility was also represented at the meeting where safety was also a topic of discussion. I took away from all of this that the Nunes Company is very proactive in their approach to making sure that their vegetables are top quality.
At 7:50 that morning, I found myself at our first stop, where we will pick up next week. See you all then!

6:00 a.m. and I have never been good friends. Usually, I am still in bed pressing the snooze button, hoping I can catch just a few more minutes of sleep. However, I recently found myself up, dressed and sitting in room full of Foxy produce harvesters at the ungodly hour of 6 am.  The life of a farmer doesn’t start when the sun comes up, it is well before that! Welcome to my new blog about a day in the life of a Foxy farmer. Recently, I shadowed Tom Nunes III and Tim Borel (who both handle different aspects of harvesting for Foxy produce) for one day each. Over the next couple of months, I want to share my observations of their jobs and how they spend their days. Hopefully, you all will come away with some knowledge about they help bring vegetables to your table.
What these two men do all day I found to be exhilarating and exhausting. From meetings in an office at 6 am, to touring fields that were slated for harvest the following week, to checking packaging with harvest crews in the fields, to managing water for several different ranches, to phone calls from several different harvesters, and finally (my favorite) a meeting while standing in a lettuce field. A day in their lives was fascinating and an eye opening experience and I hope you all join me on my journey!

Hello Foxy Fans! It has been quite a journey these last 15 weeks. I have enjoyed sharing with all of you my lifestyle change by following the new USDA guidelines to eat a half plate of vegetables at every meal. I turned 30 over the week and celebrated that milestone by weighing in 14 pounds lighter than when I started my blog 15 weeks ago! I plan to keep off the weight by continuing to eat a half plate of fruit and vegetables at every meal.

I Lost Weight!

Over the last 15 weeks, many of my friends and acquaintances at Foxy gave me their favorite recipes to try out for my blog. I decided to save the majority of them for my last week of blogging. Most of them were some type of lettuce wrap. My favorite comes from Tim Borel, who you will be hearing more about when I start my new blog series in two weeks. Tim is the harvest manager for our Salinas ranches and also has lost weight through exercise and eating a healthy diet full of fruits and vegetables.  Tim gave me many wonderful recipes  to try out, and to be honest, some of them sounded a little weird. Naturally, I picked the weirdest ones to explore on my last week of blogging! My favorite was his easy recipe for a meatball lettuce wrap.

Start by purchasing readymade meatballs (I love shortcuts!) Mash them up and heat them through in a nonstick pan. The next part I found a little strange, but mix the mashed up meatballs with cheese, hummus, and kalamata olives. I added sautéed mushrooms and Foxy bell peppers because I always have some on hand. Stuff your mixture into Foxy romaine leaves and you’ve got a delicious lunch!

I has been a pleasure sharing with all of you my successes (and failures) in my new lifestyle. I hope that some of you joined me for the ride and are living a healthier life because of it. My new blog series about a day in the life of a Foxy farmer will start in two weeks. See you all then!  

My "After" Photo

Hello Foxy fans! Several weeks back, I had a brilliant idea to do a week’s worth of dinners surrounding a vegetable that intimidates me, cauliflower. Needless to say, I put the idea off as long as possible! I do enjoy cauliflower when I disguise it as mash potatoes or as a soup base, but that’s about it. My husband absolutely hates cauliflower; at least when he recognizes it! For a long time, he had no idea that he wasn’t eating mash potatoes, and I wasn’t inclined to tell him until I got caught! 
This week, I finally got brave and began my adventure. Normally when I am creating my menu for the week, I think back to restaurant dishes that I enjoyed or consider interesting recipes that I might have seen on TV. Not this week.
Foxy.com was my recipe source for the week and the cauliflower recipes were fabulous! My husband is still speaking to me even after eating a few of the dishes!
My personal favorite is cauliflower with white beans and feta recipe. It was super easy, inexpensive and yummy. I will definitely make this one again.
Here is the recipe:

Dressing:
1 lemon
1/3 cup olive oil
1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 or 2 teaspoons dill

Salad:
1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, drained
1 medium head Foxy cauliflower
2 heads Foxy green leaf lettuce
1 bunch Foxygreen onions, chopped
2 teaspoons parsley, chopped
3–6 ounces crumbled feta cheese
salt and ground black pepper to taste

Dressing:
Zest lemon and set aside zest. Juice lemon and whisk
with olive oil, vinegar and dill.
Salad:
Trim Foxy cauliflower and cut into small florets.
Cut Foxy green leaf lettuce into bite-sized pieces. Combine
beans, cauliflower, lettuce, onions and parsley in
medium bowl; mix in feta.
Whisk dressing, add to salad and toss. Season with salt and pepper.

Greeting Foxy fans! I hope you all have had a wonderful, veggie filled week.
This week, I meant to explore all the different ways to eat cauliflower. But, as I went grocery shopping, a different idea began to take shape in my shopping cart. Instead of a cart full of cauliflower, I purchased many other vegetables that I know don’t require cooking. A spur of the moment, raw vegetable diet was my menu this week. All the exercise I have been doing the past few weeks caught up with me and the last thing I felt like doing was cooking a complicated meal!  Also, as I was looking through my food journal on my smart phone for recipe inspiration, I realized I use entirely way too much butter when I cook my vegetables.  While butter tastes amazing and the vegetables don’t lose their health benefits, it’s not helping me lose weight. Raw vegetable dishes seemed like a fantastic idea.
My venture into the raw veggie diet was met with some successes and of course, failures. I made several wonderful vegetarian sandwiches and wraps throughout the week. My favorite would have to be my avocado, bean sprout, bell pepper, tomato and olive sandwich on brown bread. Obviously, salads again played a huge role in my diet this week. Chopped Foxy romaine hearts, Foxy bell peppers, salsa, cheese, sour cream and tortilla strips were an excellent and easy dinner option.  I also ate a ton of carrots and cucumbers dipped in hummus, and as much fresh fruit as I could buy. Now for a confession, I felt like I was hungry often this week, and I “might” have had ice cream and half a box of chocolate granola bars in one night. Moral of the story… maybe butter isn’t such a bad idea after all? Or maybe I have an atrocious amount of self-control? Either way, I went jogging after work every day, ate healthy meals and then totally blew all my hard work by “rewarding” myself on Friday. If I keep doing that, my “Thin by Thirty” program will have failed.
My self-control will be better next week, see you then!

My “Thin By Thirty” mantra was in full swing this past week, and I have been a jogging and veggie eating machine! This week was really tough because I was craving carbs more than usual. This is not surprising considering how often I exercised throughout the week. My husband (who was definitely NOT exercising with me) was conveniently craving carbs as well. What was his excuse? I made several carb heavy meals for him this week, but replaced the bread/rice/pasta with Foxy romaine lettuce for my meals. It was an easy change so that everyone ate what they wanted, and I only cooked one meal.
Most people know the burger trick about replacing the buns with lettuce or eating lettuce wraps. If you’re having chicken, rice and a vegetable, skip the rice and toss all other ingredients with chopped Foxy Romaine Hearts and a homemade vinaigrette. I often make easy tacos when I don’t feel like cooking. I buy roasted chicken from the grocery store and use it in meals throughout the week to save time and money. To make easy lettuce wrap tacos, start with minced roasted chicken and sprinkle with fajita seasoning. Next, sauté onions, mushrooms and bell peppers. Instead of a tortilla, use a romaine lettuce leaf and stuff it with the chicken, sautéed vegetables, cheese, avocado and fresh chunky salsa. They are delicious AND I cut out 200 calories by skipping the tortillas. My husband had the same tacos with tortillas, but I did not cook anything extra. He’s happy and I am getting thinner!  See you next week.

Hello Foxy fans! This was a really tough but encouraging week for me. To be honest, I hate exercising, but I know that I am not going to lose weight without it. Changing my diet to follow the “My Plate” rule has helped, but just eating fruits and vegetables is not going to get me to my ideal weight in a timely manner (before I turn thirty.)  I refuse to attend exercise classes and I will not waste any more money on a gym membership that I will never use. Therefore, jogging is the answer! I upped my jogging schedule from one and a half miles three times a week three miles five times a week. I am tired, but I am feeling great!
A major problem that I have when I exercise at a higher level is that I am always hungry. Seriously, I daydream about bread and cookies with a growling stomach throughout the day. Before I changed my exercise regimen, I was eating three half plate vegetable meals a day with one snack. To compensate for my hunger, I started eating 6 small meals throughout the day packed with vegetables and fruit. If I was still feeling hungry, I simply ate more cucumbers, carrots and Foxy broccoli in between meals. I am not someone who inherently loves vegetables, so I dipped everything in garlic hummus. Basically, I ate all day long, but it was healthy food and gave me the energy to run longer.
Week one of my new mantra, “Thin by Thirty” was a success! My loose pants are telling me I have lost weight. I am not getting on the scale until my birthday because I want to give myself the gift of weight loss therefore, you will all have to wait until then to see the results.  Next week, I am planning on using Foxy romaine lettuce throughout the week to replace what would normally be carbs in my meals. Tune in next week to see if I can come up with any creative recipes.

Week ten is at an end and I ate all of my Foxy veggies and walked every other day. My breakfasts were varieties of fruit, cottage cheese and granola combos. My dinners were delicious variations of salad with organic Foxy romaine hearts and strawberries. For lunch, I bought several frozen vegan meals, which were absolutely disgusting, and (I discovered afterwards) loaded with salt. Obviously, I need to read labels more often. Luckily, if you eat fresh vegetables, you don’t need labels to tell you whether or not what you have is healthy. Next week, I am going back to fresh fruit and vegetables for lunch. Frozen meals are super convenient, but they don’t taste right and they are not helping at all in my weight loss goals. I do feel healthier, but the scale still doesn’t agree with that assessment. If you have followed me from the beginning, you know that I intended to end this blog experiment at week ten. I was going to be 15 pounds lighter with a before and after photo, and you were all going to be super impressed! Umm… well… that’s not going to happen because I have only lost six pounds. I hope you all hang in there with me because I am going to keep the blog going for five more weeks to give myself another chance at success. I am exactly one month away from my 30 birthday. I think I am going to start a new mantra, “THIN BY THIRTY!” Anybody want to join me? I see vegetables and a lot of running in my future… See you next week.