Hello! About + Affiliate Disclosure + Privacy Policy

About

Hi, I’m Crystal. I love growing, cooking, and preserving, and we hope to inspire you to do the same!

You can get to know me better over on Instagram where I share a lot of our day to day lives, including what we’re cooking and eating, what the chickens are up to, and how the gardens and orchards are producing.

My YouTube channel is where I share more in-depth tutorials on topics like gardening and orchard care and preserving.

My book, Freeze Fresh, teaches you how to preserve over 50 different fruits and vegetables. I share my time-tested preparation techniques that ensure color, texture, and flavor are retained in the freezer. From familiar favorites like apples, corn, potatoes, and peas to surprises like lettuce, avocado, and citrus fruit. There are over 100 recipes that freeze well, such as Blueberry Maple Pancake Sauce, Pickled Sliced Beets, Mango Chutney, and Honey Butter Carrot Mash–as well as delicious ways to cook the frozen food after thawing, including Tart Cherry Oatmeal Bars, Broccoli Cheese Soup, and Blueberry-Matcha Latte Smoothie.

My newest book, Freeze Fresh Meal Prep offers 161 recipes for meal starters and make-ahead dishes for the freezer. In this book you’ll find recipes for prepared baked goods, soups, sauces, vegetable side dishes, cooked fruits, pie fillings, jams, and frozen treats. You’ll also find recipes for “starters,” which is one of my most beloved categories to freeze. A starter is typically the vegetable and herb portion of a recipe cooked together and frozen. There are soup starters, meal starters, and even dip starters! It’s a way to preserve the fresh ingredients you have now but not take up more freezer space than necessary. Making the dish is as simple as thawing the starter and adding pantry staples or refrigerated ingredients to complete it. It’s the ultimate meal prep and the perfect balance of home-cooked and convenient!

AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE

Whole-Fed Homestead is reader-supported. Some of the links on this site are affiliate links, such as Amazon links. We make a small commission from purchases made through those links, at no extra cost to you. This helps to support our work here, and enable us to continue to create and share with you!

PRIVACY POLICY

Effective date: January 1 2026

Whole-Fed Homestead (“us”, “we”, or “our”) operates the https://www.wholefedhomestead.com website (the “Service”).

This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of personal data when you use our Service and the choices you have associated with that data.

We use your data to provide and improve the Service. By using the Service, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. Unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy, terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms and Conditions, accessible from https://www.wholefedhomestead.com

DEFINITIONS

Service: Service is the https://www.wholefedhomestead.com website operated by Whole-Fed Homestead

Personal Data: Personal Data means data about a living individual who can be identified from that data (or from that and other information either in our possession or likely to come into our possession).

Usage Data: Usage Data is data collected automatically either generated by the use of the Service or from the Service infrastructure itself (for example, the duration of a page visit).

Cookies: Cookies are small pieces of data stored on your device (computer or mobile device).

Data Controller: Data Controller means the natural or legal person who (either alone or jointly or in common with other persons) determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal information are, or are to be, processed. For the purpose of this Privacy Policy, we are a Data Controller of your Personal Data.

Data Processors (or Service Providers): Data Processor (or Service Provider) means any natural or legal person who processes the data on behalf of the Data Controller. We may use the services of various Service Providers in order to process your data more effectively.

Data Subject (or User): Data Subject is any living individual who is using our Service and is the subject of Personal Data.

INFORMATION COLLECTION & USE
We may collect several different types of information for various purposes to provide and improve our Service to you.

TYPES OF DATA COLLECTED
Personal Data: While using our Service, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you (“Personal Data”). Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to: Email address, Cookies and Usage Data.

We may use your Personal Data to contact you with newsletters, marketing or promotional materials and other information that may be of interest to you. You may opt out of receiving any, or all, of these communications from us by following the unsubscribe link or instructions provided in any email we send.

Usage Data: We may also collect information on how the Service is accessed and used (“Usage Data”). This Usage Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

Tracking Cookies Data: We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on our Service and hold certain information.

Cookies are files with a small amount of data which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a website and stored on your device. Tracking technologies also used are beacons, tags, and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyze our Service.

You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our Service.

Examples of Cookies we use:
-Session Cookies. We use Session Cookies to operate our Service
-Preference Cookies. We use Preference Cookies to remember your preferences and various settings
-Security Cookies. We use Security Cookies for security purposes

USE OF DATA
Whole-Fed Homestead uses the collected data for various purposes:
-To provide and maintain our Service
-To notify you about changes to our Service
-To allow you to participate in interactive features of our Service when you choose to do so
-To provide customer support
-To gather analysis or valuable information so that we can improve our Service
-To monitor the usage of our Service
-To detect, prevent and address technical issues
-To provide you with news, special offers and general information about other goods, services and events which we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about unless you have opted not to receive such information

LEGAL BASIS FOR PROCESSING PERSONAL DATA UNDER GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION
If you are from the European Economic Area (EEA), Whole-Fed Homestead legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described in this Privacy Policy depends on the Personal Data we collect and the specific context in which we collect it.

Whole-Fed Homestead may process your Personal Data because:
-We need to perform a contract with you
-You have given us permission to do so
-The processing is in our legitimate interests and it’s not overridden by your rights
-To comply with the law

RETENSION OF DATA
Whole-Fed Homestead will retain your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies.

Whole-Fed Homestead will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of our Service, or we are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.

TRANSFER OF DATA
Your information, including Personal Data, may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ from those from your jurisdiction.

If you are located outside the United States and choose to provide information to us, please note that we transfer the data, including Personal Data, to the United States and process it there.

Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer.

Whole-Fed Homestead will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of your data and other personal information.

LEGAL REQUIREMENTS
Whole-Fed Homestead may disclose your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:
-To comply with a legal obligation
-To protect and defend the rights or property of Whole-Fed Homestead
-To prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service
-To protect the personal safety of users of the Service or the public
-To protect against legal liability

SECURITY OF DATA
The security of your data is important, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

DO NOT TRACK SIGNALS
We do not support Do Not Track (“DNT”). Do Not Track is a preference you can set in your web browser to inform websites that you do not want to be tracked. You can enable or disable Do Not Track by visiting the Preferences or Settings page of your web browser.

YOUR DATA PROTECTION RIGHTS UNDER GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION
If you are a resident of the European Economic Area (EEA), you have certain data protection rights. Whole-Fed Homestead aims to take reasonable steps to allow you to correct, amend, delete, or limit the use of your Personal Data.

If you wish to be informed what Personal Data we hold about you and if you want it to be removed from our systems, please contact us.

In certain circumstances, you have the following data protection rights:
-The right to access, update or to delete the information we have on you. Whenever made possible, you can access, update or request deletion of your Personal Data directly within your account settings section.

-The right of rectification. You have the right to have your information rectified if that information is inaccurate or incomplete.

-The right to object. You have the right to object to our processing of your Personal Data.

-The right of restriction. You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information.

-The right to data portability. You have the right to be provided with a copy of the information we have on you in a structured, machine-readable and commonly used format.

-The right to withdraw consent. You also have the right to withdraw your consent at any time where Whole-Fed Homestead relied on your consent to process your personal information. Please note that we may ask you to verify your identity before responding to such requests.

-You have the right to complain to a Data Protection Authority about our collection and use of your Personal Data. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority in the European Economic Area (EEA).

ANALYTICS
We may use third-party Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. Google uses the data collected to track and monitor the use of our Service. This data is shared with other Google services. Google may use the collected data to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network.

You can opt-out of having made your activity on the Service available to Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. The add-on prevents the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, and dc.js) from sharing information with Google Analytics about visits activity.

For more information on the privacy practices of Google, please visit the Google Privacy Terms web page: http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/

SERVICE PROVIDERS
We may employ third party companies and individuals to facilitate our Service (“Service Providers”), to provide the Service on our behalf, to perform Service-related services or to assist us in analyzing how our Service is used.

These third parties have access to your Personal Data only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.

LINKS TO OTHER SITES
Our Service may contain links to other sites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third party link, you will be directed to that third party’s site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit.

We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third party sites or services.

CHILDREN’S PRIVACY
Our Service does not address anyone under the age of 18 (“Children”). We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 18. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your Child has provided us with Personal Data, please contact us. If we become aware that we have collected Personal Data from children without verification of parental consent, we take steps to remove that information from our servers.

ADVERTISING
This Site is affiliated with Google Adsense for the purposes of placing advertising on the Site, and Google will collect and use certain data for advertising purposes. To learn more about Google’s data usage, click here: https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads?hl=en-US

NO AI
The owner of this website does not consent to the content on this website being used or downloaded by any third parties for the purposes of developing, training or operating artificial intelligence or other machine learning systems (“Artificial Intelligence Purposes”), except as authorized by the owner in writing (including written electronic communication). Absent such consent, users of this website, including any third parties accessing the website through automated systems, are prohibited from using any of the content on the website for Artificial Intelligence Purposes. Users or automated systems that fail to respect these choices will be considered to have breached these Terms of Service.

NUTRITION DISCLAIMER
Whole-Fed Homestead is not a nutritionist or dietitian, and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist, dietician, or the Food and Drug Administration.

Whole-Fed Homestead or Crystal Schmidt shall not be liable for adverse reactions or any other outcome resulting from the use of recipes or recommendations on the Website or actions you take as a result.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page. We will let you know via a prominent notice on our Service, prior to the change becoming effective and update the “effective date” at the top of this Privacy Policy. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.