We don’t mean just any fat though.  Don’t go hog wild!  Hold the Oreos!  The truth of the matter is that fat does a body good; in fact, our bodies need fat to survive and thrive.  Unfortunately, for our Oreo-loving friends out there, not any old fat will do. We’ve talked before about the key to health being balance, and fat consumption is no different.  By now, most of you are aware that there are different kinds of fat–some are ‘good’ and some are ‘bad.’  Good fats are monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, and omega-3s.  Eat ‘em up!  But avoid the bad fats, like saturated fats and trans fats.  The ones we’re looking to add to your salads are the good ones, so listen up!

Here are some of the fats you should be topping your salad with:

Avocados:  You only need one quarter of this fab little fruit to get the max absorption of lycopene, beta-carotene, and other antioxidants.  It has 30 grams of unsaturated fat, and about 16 of those are monounsaturated.  Pass the guacamole, top your salad with healthy chunks of green or slice it onto your sandwich!

Olive Oil: Just a dribble (1/3 teaspoon) of olive oil over your salad and give yourself 3.3. grams of monounsaturated fat (plus polyphenols and vitamin E!).

Olives: 10 olives=3.5 grams of monounsaturated fat.  But watch out: Olives pack a sodium punch!

Cashews: Just half an ounce gives you 4 grams of monounsaturated fat, plus magnesium, phosphorus and tryptophan (think turkey!), which can help kick sleep patterns into shape and improve moods.

Cheese:  One third of a cup of whole-milk ricotta can you give up to 3 grams of monounsaturated fat.  What’s your favorite cheese? Add some to your salad (in moderation) and give it a flavor kick!

Tahini:  One tablespoon of tahini can give you 3 grams of monounsaturated fats.  What’s tahini, you ask?  Tahini is a paste made from ground, hulled sesame seeds.  You’ll find it most often in hummus and baba ghanoush.

Chopped Macadamia Nuts:  These little nuts are super-powered!  You need only about 2 nuts (or a fifth of an ounce) to get 3 grams of monounsaturated fat!

Other Cooking Oils:  We really love olive oil, but other oils for topping your salad with unsaturated fats are canola, peanut, and sunflower oil.  A little goes a long way—from a third of a tablespoon to ½ tablespoon to one tablespoon (respectively) gives you 3 grams of monounsaturated fat.

You might be thinking, “Why, why, why, do I need to worry about adding good fat to my diet, Brown Bag?  Why can’t I just try to do the ‘fat-free’ thing?”  So, here’s why we need fat:

We need fat so that our bodies can absorb fat soluble vitamins, like A, S, E, and K.  No fat and you end up with deficiencies of these vitamins that can lead to health problems like hematomas, malformations of developing bones, loss of vision, and nuerological problems.  That doesn’t sound like fun, does it?

We need fat to insulate our bodies against cold and heat.

We need fat to transport nutrients and metabolites across cell membranes.

We need fat for energy, to manage moods and fight fatigue.

And these are just a few of the reasons!

One of the reasons you come to Brown Bag is because you care about your health.  Fat-free isn’t the way to go—fat healthy is!  So, grab your bag, mark it up and create your own salad—and top it off with the best that fat has to offer!

Another stop on the Brown Bag suppliers tour!!  Ever heard of Kreider Farms?  No?  Bet you know all about Lancaster County, Pennsylvania though, right?  Did you know that LancasterCounty has the most productive, non-irrigated land in the United States?  Did you know that it has more small, family farms than any other county in the United States?  Ninety-nine percent of the farms in LancasterCounty are small, family-owned farms!  That includes one of our favorite suppliers, Kreider Farms!

Kreider Farms is a third generation family-owned farm that has grown from 103 acres, 200 hundred chickens, a dozen cows, and assorted crops to over 2,500 acres with 5 million egg-laying chickens, 2,000 cows, a milk-bottling and ice cream plant, 320 employees and a public farm-tour program since 1935.  Kreider Farms began when Noah W. Kreider and the former Mary R. Hershey bought the farm (which had been in Mary’s family since 1739) from her father, John B. Hershey.  They moved onto the farm with their two sons, Richard and Noah Jr.; and as the boys grew and married, they began buying adjoining farms, and Kreider farms began to grow.  In 1972, they expanded their dairy business by building a processing plant and opening a retail store where they sold their milk and ice cream.  Egg producing took off too; and eventually, Kreider Farms became the largest egg producer in the state of Pennsylvania.

In 2008, Kreider was awarded the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association’s “Family Farm Environmental Excellence Award” for its innovative handling of byproducts.  The farm uses its chicken and cow waste products to produce compost which is then used to fertilize the fields in which the farm grows its corn, alfalfa, rye grass and grass hay that eventually feeds the dairy cows.  Kreider Farms also uses the water from their egg washes in the egg-packing house to water the fields.  In addition to these environmentally friendly practices, the farm has also updated its manure and lagoon treatment system to reduce ammonia emissions from the treatment system and reduce the concentration of nutrients in the waste water, which means that less phosphorus and nitrogen are sprayed on the fields during the irrigation process.  This treatment facility is the first of its kind in the state of Pennsylvania.

All in all, Kreider Farms

• Composts and recycles over 50 tons of manure each day
• Bags their own special blend of dehydrated chicken and cow manure for home use
• Has fenced off the streams on its property to protect the water passing through on its way to the Chesapeake Bay
• Delivers environmentally-friendly, fresh milk, eggs and ice cream from Virginia through Boston

We’re happy to have found a supplier that couples great products with a commitment to the environment. Come in and sample Kreider Farms’ fresh eggs in one of our specialty breakfast items.  Omelet, anyone?

What would breakfast be (or lunch for our coffee die-hards!) without the perfect cup of coffee?!  When Brown Bag thinks coffee, our list is short: M.E. Swing Company (MESCos), otherwise known as Swing’s Coffee!  Swing’s coffee is a DC institution and has been since it was founded in 1916 by M.E. Swing and his son, Edward Swing.  In 1920, the family opened its now historic MESCO Coffee Roasters building at 1013 E Street, and the smell of fresh-roasted coffee filled the air there for 70 years.

The Swing family roasted their coffee using large, German roasters up on the third floor of their E Street building; and today, Swing’s is still fond of German roasters. Now, Swing’s uses huge, Probat roasters to do the job in Alexandria, Virginia, and the tradition continues there.  In their own words, “All [Swing’s] coffees are sample roasted to ideal color and flavor, then craft-roasted just as it was at 1013 E.”

The Swing family saw the company through 90 years of ups and downs, and they never wavered in their commitment to quality and flavor or in their hands-on approach to roasting.  In 2006, after over 60 years of service to the company, Patricia Swing (grand daughter of M.E. Swing), passed the reins to Mark Warmuth, who not only took ownership of the company, he took the Swing’s commitment to roasting the best coffee and he continued moving the company forward.

Now, Swing’s boasts a menu of around 20 different coffees, from decaf to espresso, as well as single-origin coffee and blends, but in their new coffee bar in Del Ray, they sell cups that are exclusively single-origin beans.  The MESCO Blend was given a patent in 1918 and is still one of DC’s most popular coffees, but it’s not the only trick this company has up its sleeve.  Warmuth is determined to keep this tradition-rich company current and vital.  “Right now, I want to showcase some of the good stuff we’re doing with single-origin beans, because it seems to me that the biggest criticism we get as a company is that all we do are blends,” Warmuth told the Washington Post in response to questions about the Del Mar location.

If their reviews are any indication, then Swing’s has succeeded in both coffee cups—blended and single-origin: “Some of the best coffee we’ve ever had. As much as we love the original Swing’s location and their perfectly blended coffees, this Alexandria location’s commitment to /unblended/ [single-origin] coffee is a welcome change of pace.”

Luckily for you, Brown Bag can help you out with your Swing’s addiction!  Come by and enjoy a cup with your favorite Brown Bag breakfast!

Whenever Brown Bag can buy fresh and local, we do.  It’s important to us to support the community that we live in and the planet that we live on.  Our commitment to buy fresh and local has been one of the precepts on which we founded Brown Bag; so, when we discovered Capital Seaboard, we were thrilled!

Capital Seaboard has been supplying amazing seafood and produce to the eastern seaboard for 80 years now.  It’s owned and operated in Jessup, Maryland, and serves Maryland, Washington, DC, Virginia, Delaware and Pennsylvania.  They supply their customers with a broad range of produce (as well as organic produce), but not only is Capital Seaboard a trusted name in the Mid-Atlantic region for delivering fresh, quality produce, they also share Brown Bag’s core values.  In their own words:

We are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to provide you with the freshest and most eco- friendly manner of produce and seafood distribution.

We are researching new and innovative ways to reduce and reuse energy within our factory and trucking fleet. Our goal is to leave this world better than we found it. That is why our recycling program returns 80% of our packing materials to improve the environment and reduce landfills.

But Capital Seaboard isn’t all fruits and veggies.  They also sell amazing seafood.  A couple of the local suppliers they buy from are: Shooting Point Oyster Company on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and JC Walker Clams, whose company headquarters are in Willish Wharf, Virginia.  They’ve also partnered with a very innovative and forward-thinking company called CleanFish.  CleanFish is going even beyond fresh and local, they look at new ways to raise fish sustainably, and they believe in what they call a “new paradigm:” producers linked to chefs and consumers to make a cleaner future.  If you don’t know anything about CleanFish, check them out!

Clearly, Capital Seaboard has a lot of good going on, and Brown Bag is proud to be part of it.  We believe in serving our patrons only the best and freshest food, and supporting our local environment and communities is as important to us as preserving our planet as a whole.  Think globally, act locally.  Our partnership with Capital Seaboard is just one of the great partnerships we have with a supplier.  There are more to come!