This week’s column was inspired by my son Jody and daughter-in-law Cindy (Prather) who have been spending their weekends canning tomatoes, which includes salsa and spaghetti sauce. Not only that, they also can carrots, peppers and other produce from their Vernal garden, all of which they put to good use during the year.         

In previous columns, I’ve written about the hundreds of jars of fruits, vegetables, meats, jams, jellies and pickles that my mom put up for winter. It was a lot of work to tend to the garden, and the kitchen was always a mess during canning season, but it all paid off in the long run.

Of course, during the summer and fall months we enjoyed fresh vegetables and fruits from the garden and orchard. We ate lettuce salads and young onions and radishes and put a little vinegar on cooked spinach. Although Mom canned vegetables such as green beans, peas and corn, we had them fresh from the garden, too. We ate apples, cherries and plums from the orchard and lots of  strawberries from a little plot near the house where they were protected from the birds.

As I have grown up, I’m amazed at the menus Mom planned. I don’t know how she learned it but Mom knew how to “balance” the meals so that we got all the nutrients we needed. For example, on a typical day, as Mom cooked the noon meal, she’d send us to the basement for jars of produce. She’d say, “Let’s see, yesterday we had green beans so today bring up a jar of yellow vegetables, like carrots. Bring up a jar of peaches, too. We’ll have them for dessert.”

Our noon meals always included a meat, some kind of potato (probably mashed with gravy), hot rolls or bread, and a vegetable and fruit. Sometimes we served ourselves the fruit from a big bowl. Other times it was made into a gelatin salad or baked into a pie or cobbler. Mom also made her own cottage cheese, and we churned our own butter.

We got it all in our diet — proteins, carbohydrates and a little fat (yes, we do need a little fat) — to keep our bodies going, plus additional vitamins and minerals provided by a variety of vegetables and fruits. Today some experts refer to a “balanced diet” as a “rainbow diet.” When you think about it, that’s an appropriate title because a weekly diet of many food colors is apt to provide us with all the nutrients we need for growth, repair and energy — all we need to keep going.

So hats off to Mom — who knew what she was doing when she planned meals in her ranch kitchen!