From the Spunky Coconut--faux peanut butter cups. You can even wrap them in cute colored foils.
Even though Spunky and her family aren't Paleo, the food allergy quotient has pretty much pushed them to cook and bake in pretty acceptable Paleo-style. I find a lot of her dessert and bread recipes useful without needing to make changes.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Whole Food, Whole Nutrition
From the Winnipeg Free Press.
"We’ve all heard the expression, "You are what you eat." But how often do we remember to take to heart, "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food?"
Have you ever noticed that when you eat a healthy meal, even if it’s a big one, you generally feel a whole lot better afterward than when you scarf down something greasy?
It makes perfect sense that what we put into our bodies will affect how we feel, yet few doctors ask about our diets when we complain of various ailments. Fortunately, the consideration of what we are eating as part of our overall health has become a little more mainstream, thanks to television shows such as Dr. Oz. Good nutrition matters and the sooner we realize this, the better off we’ll be.
Sherry Rothwell, a registered holistic nutritionist, graduated from the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition and has no doubt of the connection between what we eat and how we feel.
"Certain foods and lifestyle practices can specifically and strategically nourish and bring homeostasis back to the whole body — through the synergy of the nutrition found in natural whole food," she says. "There are blatant nutritional deficiency diseases, and then there is the impact that nutrition has on whether or not our metabolic physiology is functioning adequately to survive, or optimally to thrive. If we want optimal health, it requires optimum nourishment on many levels in our lives and in our being."
Rothwell recommends that we eat real food — that is, food that has not been processed.
"The switch to real food begins with a simple, yet profound shift in perception. The individual becomes conscious that there is a difference between food that is found in nature and food that is processed in combination with man-made chemicals.
"The first step is to begin to read labels (not for calories and fat grams, but for ingredients!) and start to gravitate more and more toward food that is found in its natural form and away from boxed ‘food products,’" she says. "Read labels and avoid foods with additives. Avoid pre-packaged, pre-prepared and junk foods. Eat foods in their ‘whole’ form. Shop at the periphery of the grocery store and purchase primarily fruits, vegetables, meat and milk. Buy grains, seeds, nuts, dried fruit and legumes in bulk.
Purchase or borrow cookbooks from the library and learn to cook! Begin to make the shift to an organic whole foods diet."
I’ve become a real foodie and I know that the dietary changes I’ve made have dramatically improved the way I feel. Vegetables and legumes have become my new best friends and I’ve got more energy than ever since I’ve taken up healthy, wholesome cooking.
"As we age, special care must be taken to optimize digestion since our hydrochloric acid secretion begins to decline, making it more difficult to attain optimal digestion," Rothwell says. "Hydrochloric acid is essential for optimal fat and protein digestion. We can naturally increase our hydrochloric acid production by consuming more lemon, ginger, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar, unpasteurized fermented vegetables, black olives, unrefined sea salt, celery, chard, grasses, kale and spinach. Optimal levels of B-vitamins and zinc are also essential for the optimal production of hydrochloric acid."
There’s so much to learn about food, how it affects us and what we need from it to stay healthy at different stages of our lives. There are real benefits to consuming real food."
As we age, we also have to eat more nutrients to gain the same cellular "trash take out" effects that we had growing up, so we MUST make our food choices with the biggest nutritional bang in mind--otherwise, we'd have to graze like cows all day long just to keep up. The older we get, the more cellular damage occurs, and the more "repair foods" we need to eat. Rather than eating a ton of marginal-quality repair foods, eat a sensible amount of high-quality repair foods--it saves on supplement and prescription drug bills down the road.
If we stop eating, we start dying...this is especially true of eating that high-quality food. If too much cellular trash builds up in our systems, tissues and organs break down, leading to system failure and death. The older we get, the more cellular trash is created, therefore more repair food is needed, and there comes a point when we just can't keep up--this is called aging. The more back-logged the trash in our systems become, the faster we age, until there just isn't any more room for the internal trash, and there isn't any decent repair food coming in to help, we ourselves become "trash" and die off, needing to be removed ourselves.
It also doesn't help that our stomachs seem to shrink as we age. The high-quality foods we need are filled with fiber, making just a little last a long time in smaller stomachs, leading to less overall eating.
Now you see why sometimes it's easier to swallow a pill than it is to eat your way to good health. Trouble with that is, one pill becomes a handful of pills, and the next thing you know, you're swallowing as many pills as a junkie trying to stay alive and fight off the effects of aging.
Gastric bypass? No--we need gastric piggy-backing at this point!
Have you ever noticed that when you eat a healthy meal, even if it’s a big one, you generally feel a whole lot better afterward than when you scarf down something greasy?
Sherry Rothwell, a registered holistic nutritionist, graduated from the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition and has no doubt of the connection between what we eat and how we feel.
"Certain foods and lifestyle practices can specifically and strategically nourish and bring homeostasis back to the whole body — through the synergy of the nutrition found in natural whole food," she says. "There are blatant nutritional deficiency diseases, and then there is the impact that nutrition has on whether or not our metabolic physiology is functioning adequately to survive, or optimally to thrive. If we want optimal health, it requires optimum nourishment on many levels in our lives and in our being."
Rothwell recommends that we eat real food — that is, food that has not been processed.
"The first step is to begin to read labels (not for calories and fat grams, but for ingredients!) and start to gravitate more and more toward food that is found in its natural form and away from boxed ‘food products,’" she says. "Read labels and avoid foods with additives. Avoid pre-packaged, pre-prepared and junk foods. Eat foods in their ‘whole’ form. Shop at the periphery of the grocery store and purchase primarily fruits, vegetables, meat and milk. Buy grains, seeds, nuts, dried fruit and legumes in bulk.
Purchase or borrow cookbooks from the library and learn to cook! Begin to make the shift to an organic whole foods diet."
I’ve become a real foodie and I know that the dietary changes I’ve made have dramatically improved the way I feel. Vegetables and legumes have become my new best friends and I’ve got more energy than ever since I’ve taken up healthy, wholesome cooking.
There’s so much to learn about food, how it affects us and what we need from it to stay healthy at different stages of our lives. There are real benefits to consuming real food."
As we age, we also have to eat more nutrients to gain the same cellular "trash take out" effects that we had growing up, so we MUST make our food choices with the biggest nutritional bang in mind--otherwise, we'd have to graze like cows all day long just to keep up. The older we get, the more cellular damage occurs, and the more "repair foods" we need to eat. Rather than eating a ton of marginal-quality repair foods, eat a sensible amount of high-quality repair foods--it saves on supplement and prescription drug bills down the road.
If we stop eating, we start dying...this is especially true of eating that high-quality food. If too much cellular trash builds up in our systems, tissues and organs break down, leading to system failure and death. The older we get, the more cellular trash is created, therefore more repair food is needed, and there comes a point when we just can't keep up--this is called aging. The more back-logged the trash in our systems become, the faster we age, until there just isn't any more room for the internal trash, and there isn't any decent repair food coming in to help, we ourselves become "trash" and die off, needing to be removed ourselves.
It also doesn't help that our stomachs seem to shrink as we age. The high-quality foods we need are filled with fiber, making just a little last a long time in smaller stomachs, leading to less overall eating.
Now you see why sometimes it's easier to swallow a pill than it is to eat your way to good health. Trouble with that is, one pill becomes a handful of pills, and the next thing you know, you're swallowing as many pills as a junkie trying to stay alive and fight off the effects of aging.
Gastric bypass? No--we need gastric piggy-backing at this point!
Are You Eating Too Much Sugar?
From Shape Magazine. If you follow the unprocessed Paleo diet, chances are you aren't.
"More sugar means more weight gain. That's the conclusion of a new American Heart Association report, which found that as sugar intakes soared so did the weights of both men and women.
The researchers tracked added sugar intakes and patterns of body weight over a 27-year period in adults between the ages of 25 and 74. Over the nearly three decades added sugar consumption increased for both men and women in all age groups. Among women it jumped from about 10 percent of total calories in the early 1980s to over 13 percent by 2009. And those increases in sugar corresponded to an increase in BMI or body mass index.
Ah yes...the bloody BMI index. The same one that said Arnold Schwarzenneger (in his body-building prime) was obese, yet he had so many muscles, he had muscles in his shit! Now you see the problem with the BMI chart--it doesn't distinguish fat from muscle!
The average added sugar intake in the US is now up to a whopping 22 tsp a day — an amount that snowballs into 14 five pound bags a year! Most of it, over a third, comes from sweetened drinks (soda, sweet tea, lemonade, fruit punch, etc.) and just under a third comes from candy and goodies like cookies, cake and pie. But some of it sneaks into foods you might not suspect, such as:
•When you put ketchup on your turkey burger you probably don’t think of it as added sugar, but each tbsp packs about 1 tsp of sugar (2 cubes worth).
•The second ingredient in canned tomato soup is high fructose corn syrup — the whole can packs the equivalent of 7.5 tsp (15 cubes worth) of sugar.
•And I think everyone is aware that baked goods contain sugar, but do you realize just how much? Today’s average sized muffin packs 10 tsp (20 cubes worth).
The American Heart Association recommends that women limit added sugars to about 100 calories a day and men cap it at 150 calories a day — that’s equals 6 level tsp of granulated sugar for women and 9 for men (note: just one 12 oz can of soda is the equivalent of 8 tsp of sugar).
Scoping out how much is in a packaged food can be a little tricky, because when you look at the grams of sugar per serving on nutrition labels that number does not distinguish between naturally occurring sugar and added sugar.
The only sure way to tell is to read the ingredient list. If you see the word sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, glucose, sucrose and other –oses, corn sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup and malt, sugar has been added to the food.
On the other hand if you see grams of sugar but the only ingredients are whole foods, like pineapple chunks in pineapple juice or plain yogurt, you know that all of the sugar is naturally occurring (from Mother Nature) and currently none of the guidelines call for avoiding these foods.
Bottom line: Eating more fresh and fewer processed foods is the easiest way to avoid the sugary stuff — and the corresponding weight gain. So instead of starting your day with a blueberry muffin go for a bowl of quick cooking oats topped with fresh blueberries — they're in season now!"
Trouble is, that oatmeal also breaks down into sugar--lots of it. It won't be on the label, because it happens during digestion, not in the factory.
Prior articles on sugar: Saccharides--The Not-So-Sweet Story, Cancer Cells Slurp Up Fructose, Sugar Consumption Past and Present, Sugar Through the Lens of Past Cookbooks.
"More sugar means more weight gain. That's the conclusion of a new American Heart Association report, which found that as sugar intakes soared so did the weights of both men and women.
The researchers tracked added sugar intakes and patterns of body weight over a 27-year period in adults between the ages of 25 and 74. Over the nearly three decades added sugar consumption increased for both men and women in all age groups. Among women it jumped from about 10 percent of total calories in the early 1980s to over 13 percent by 2009. And those increases in sugar corresponded to an increase in BMI or body mass index.
Ah yes...the bloody BMI index. The same one that said Arnold Schwarzenneger (in his body-building prime) was obese, yet he had so many muscles, he had muscles in his shit! Now you see the problem with the BMI chart--it doesn't distinguish fat from muscle!
The average added sugar intake in the US is now up to a whopping 22 tsp a day — an amount that snowballs into 14 five pound bags a year! Most of it, over a third, comes from sweetened drinks (soda, sweet tea, lemonade, fruit punch, etc.) and just under a third comes from candy and goodies like cookies, cake and pie. But some of it sneaks into foods you might not suspect, such as:
•When you put ketchup on your turkey burger you probably don’t think of it as added sugar, but each tbsp packs about 1 tsp of sugar (2 cubes worth).
•The second ingredient in canned tomato soup is high fructose corn syrup — the whole can packs the equivalent of 7.5 tsp (15 cubes worth) of sugar.
•And I think everyone is aware that baked goods contain sugar, but do you realize just how much? Today’s average sized muffin packs 10 tsp (20 cubes worth).
The American Heart Association recommends that women limit added sugars to about 100 calories a day and men cap it at 150 calories a day — that’s equals 6 level tsp of granulated sugar for women and 9 for men (note: just one 12 oz can of soda is the equivalent of 8 tsp of sugar).
Scoping out how much is in a packaged food can be a little tricky, because when you look at the grams of sugar per serving on nutrition labels that number does not distinguish between naturally occurring sugar and added sugar.
The only sure way to tell is to read the ingredient list. If you see the word sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, glucose, sucrose and other –oses, corn sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup and malt, sugar has been added to the food.
On the other hand if you see grams of sugar but the only ingredients are whole foods, like pineapple chunks in pineapple juice or plain yogurt, you know that all of the sugar is naturally occurring (from Mother Nature) and currently none of the guidelines call for avoiding these foods.
Bottom line: Eating more fresh and fewer processed foods is the easiest way to avoid the sugary stuff — and the corresponding weight gain. So instead of starting your day with a blueberry muffin go for a bowl of quick cooking oats topped with fresh blueberries — they're in season now!"
Trouble is, that oatmeal also breaks down into sugar--lots of it. It won't be on the label, because it happens during digestion, not in the factory.
Prior articles on sugar: Saccharides--The Not-So-Sweet Story, Cancer Cells Slurp Up Fructose, Sugar Consumption Past and Present, Sugar Through the Lens of Past Cookbooks.
Cutting Sodium Doesn't Necessarily Mean Cutting Taste
From the Daily Breeze (CA).
"Do you cook with salt at home, dine out regularly, eat convenience foods, or grocery shop without checking out the Nutrition Facts labels on products?
If yes, you are probably like the majority of Americans who are consuming too much sodium - on average, more than 3,400 mg daily. (Men ages 20 to 49 are the largest group of consumers of high-sodium diets, averaging well over 4,000 mg per day.)
The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends adults consume no more than 2,300 mg of sodium per day. About half of the population is advised to further reduce their sodium intake to 1,500 mg per day.
This additional sodium reduction applies especially to older adults and is often part of a special diet for people with conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and chronic kidney disease.
Studies have shown that reducing sodium intake results in a decrease in blood pressure. Maintaining normal blood pressure is an important part of reducing your risk of heart disease and other health problems.
Sodium is consumed primarily from salt in the form of sodium chloride, which is often added during food processing. Foods that provide a significant source of sodium in the American diet include pizza, cold cuts, processed meats and cheeses, fast food, condiments and soups.
Foods that are naturally low in sodium include fresh unprocessed meat and fish, beans, fruits, vegetables, plain rice, milk and yogurt.
So how can you tell which foods are better choices? The Nutrition Facts label is a useful tool for reducing sodium consumption.
According to the United States Food and Drug Administration, a food product that has at least 25 percent less sodium than comparable products can be labeled "reduced sodium" or "less sodium." Foods with 140 mg or less sodium per serving qualify as "low-sodium" products. Choose entrees or frozen meals with 600 mg or less sodium per serving.
You can also use the ingredient list on packages and in recipes to look for hidden sources of sodium. The presence of ingredients such as baking soda, baking powder, disodium phosphate, monosodium glutamate and sodium nitrate is a sure sign that sodium has been added to the product.
Low-sodium cooking can still be flavorful and delicious. Herbs such as basil, cilantro, thyme and oregano, and spices such as chili powder, pepper, garlic and paprika add tons of taste without the salt.
Healthful ingredients such as citrus juice, balsamic vinegar, onion and dried fruit taste great in many recipes. Be sure to choose low-sodium soy sauce and salad dressings instead of the regular full-salt varieties.
Here are some healthy habits to help cut back on salt in your diet:
Cook meals at home more often. Restaurant and fast-food meals can be loaded with salt. At home, you have the control and flexibility to use low-sodium ingredients in your recipes and to experiment with salt-free seasonings.
When dining out, request that no salt or monosodium glutamate (MSG) be added to your meal. Ask for lemon, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard and other healthy condiments on the side to add a kick to your meal's flavor.
Eat more fresh, whole foods and cut back on processed and packaged items.
Read the Nutrition Facts food label for the sodium content of food items and compare labels to make lower-sodium choices when possible."
Here's what I use instead of salt:
Prior articles: Don't Take This With a Grain of Salt (2009), These 5 Health Care Culprits Cost $1 Trillion.
"Do you cook with salt at home, dine out regularly, eat convenience foods, or grocery shop without checking out the Nutrition Facts labels on products?
If yes, you are probably like the majority of Americans who are consuming too much sodium - on average, more than 3,400 mg daily. (Men ages 20 to 49 are the largest group of consumers of high-sodium diets, averaging well over 4,000 mg per day.)
The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends adults consume no more than 2,300 mg of sodium per day. About half of the population is advised to further reduce their sodium intake to 1,500 mg per day.
Studies have shown that reducing sodium intake results in a decrease in blood pressure. Maintaining normal blood pressure is an important part of reducing your risk of heart disease and other health problems.
Foods that are naturally low in sodium include fresh unprocessed meat and fish, beans, fruits, vegetables, plain rice, milk and yogurt.
So how can you tell which foods are better choices? The Nutrition Facts label is a useful tool for reducing sodium consumption.
You can also use the ingredient list on packages and in recipes to look for hidden sources of sodium. The presence of ingredients such as baking soda, baking powder, disodium phosphate, monosodium glutamate and sodium nitrate is a sure sign that sodium has been added to the product.
Healthful ingredients such as citrus juice, balsamic vinegar, onion and dried fruit taste great in many recipes. Be sure to choose low-sodium soy sauce and salad dressings instead of the regular full-salt varieties.
Cook meals at home more often. Restaurant and fast-food meals can be loaded with salt. At home, you have the control and flexibility to use low-sodium ingredients in your recipes and to experiment with salt-free seasonings.
Eat more fresh, whole foods and cut back on processed and packaged items.
Read the Nutrition Facts food label for the sodium content of food items and compare labels to make lower-sodium choices when possible."
Here's what I use instead of salt:
Prior articles: Don't Take This With a Grain of Salt (2009), These 5 Health Care Culprits Cost $1 Trillion.
Shopping Trips Do Double-Duty as Exercise
From the Huntington Herald-Dispatch (W VA).
"All it takes is 30 minutes of physical activity a day for most people to maintain a healthy activity lifestyle, but we all know that staying active and on a regular workout schedule can be tough. Follow these tips from the exercise experts at Life Fitness to turn your shopping trips into fitness sessions.
Burn calories at the mall. Get there early and cruise the window displays, making sure to opt for the stairs instead of the elevators. Some malls even open early for walkers and offer walking group programs. Easy to find at local drug stores, pedometers will help you track your number of steps -- try to aim for 10,000 throughout one shopping day. Power mall-walking provides dependable conditions, comfortable temperatures and interesting diversions. Plus you'll be the first to know about the latest sales.
Build muscle while toting your bags. Carrying items weighing 25 pounds or more up a flight of stairs is considered "vigorous activity" by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Buy yourself the gift of health. Have you been eyeing a treadmill or the latest elliptical? Set yourself up for success with the right equipment.
Discover unusual exercise opportunities. Whether or not you realize it, there are chances to burn calories everywhere you turn. While searching for that perfect item, remember that every time you squat, bend, stride, reach and lift, you're working your way toward lost pounds and toned muscles. Take it a step further and carry your purchases instead of pushing them in a cart, and park your car a little farther away in the parking lot to increase your number of steps.
Make it a family affair. Instead of struggling through a family shopping trip, make it fun. Gather your posse and make each shopping excursion a contest. See who can walk to the store entrance the quickest, or keep track of how many laps you've each made around the mall.
Listen to music. If you're shopping solo, pop in ear buds while you're on the prowl. An upbeat song will improve your mood and make you walk faster. Set private goals to accomplish certain tasks within song-time limits. This will motivate you to keep the activity intense, but not overwhelming.
Return the favor. If you choose to push your purchases in a cart, walk the cart back into the store after unloading instead of leaving the cart in the outdoor corral. Those extra efforts will make a big impact on your shopping exercise regime."
Here's the Wenchypoo shopping-as-exercise routine:
1. Park as far away from the front doors as you possibly can.
2. When you get inside the store, push the cart up and down every aisle, and around the perimeter, whether you need to go there or not.
3. Get in the slowest-moving checkout lane--more time for standing.
4. Push the cart of final purchases back to your car, then return the cart to the store where it came from--not just outside or in a cart corral.
5. Walk back to your car.
You can do this anywhere: in the local library, the hardware store, the theater, wherever. Park as far away as you can, then go up and down every aisle and around the perimeter, whether you need to or not, then walk all the way back out to your car with your final purchases.
If need be, get the kids involved by making shopping a scavenger hunt--hand them the list items for tracking down and retrieving while you walk your way through the store.
If you have front or back steps, they make an excellent stationary stair-stepper, and they're free. You can also stair-step anywhere there's a curb: gas station islands, off the sidewalk onto the street, parking lot islands, etc.
Housework as exercise: Impromptu jump ropes can be made with something other than rope: any non-operable long-corded appliance, such as a vacuum cleaner, will do (as long as it's unplugged first), or just an ordinary non-operable extension cord--NEVER USE LIVE OPERABLE CORDS, BECAUSE YOUR EXERCISING WITH IT MAY CAUSE ABRASIONS IN THE PLASTIC COATING, EXPOSING YOU OR OTHERS TO LIVE WIRES AND SHOCK. Cut the cord and plug off the old non-working appliance cord or the plug ends off an old extension cord for this, so the cords won't stand a chance of becoming live and hazardous.
"All it takes is 30 minutes of physical activity a day for most people to maintain a healthy activity lifestyle, but we all know that staying active and on a regular workout schedule can be tough. Follow these tips from the exercise experts at Life Fitness to turn your shopping trips into fitness sessions.
Burn calories at the mall. Get there early and cruise the window displays, making sure to opt for the stairs instead of the elevators. Some malls even open early for walkers and offer walking group programs. Easy to find at local drug stores, pedometers will help you track your number of steps -- try to aim for 10,000 throughout one shopping day. Power mall-walking provides dependable conditions, comfortable temperatures and interesting diversions. Plus you'll be the first to know about the latest sales.
Build muscle while toting your bags. Carrying items weighing 25 pounds or more up a flight of stairs is considered "vigorous activity" by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Buy yourself the gift of health. Have you been eyeing a treadmill or the latest elliptical? Set yourself up for success with the right equipment.
Discover unusual exercise opportunities. Whether or not you realize it, there are chances to burn calories everywhere you turn. While searching for that perfect item, remember that every time you squat, bend, stride, reach and lift, you're working your way toward lost pounds and toned muscles. Take it a step further and carry your purchases instead of pushing them in a cart, and park your car a little farther away in the parking lot to increase your number of steps.
Make it a family affair. Instead of struggling through a family shopping trip, make it fun. Gather your posse and make each shopping excursion a contest. See who can walk to the store entrance the quickest, or keep track of how many laps you've each made around the mall.
Listen to music. If you're shopping solo, pop in ear buds while you're on the prowl. An upbeat song will improve your mood and make you walk faster. Set private goals to accomplish certain tasks within song-time limits. This will motivate you to keep the activity intense, but not overwhelming.
Return the favor. If you choose to push your purchases in a cart, walk the cart back into the store after unloading instead of leaving the cart in the outdoor corral. Those extra efforts will make a big impact on your shopping exercise regime."
Here's the Wenchypoo shopping-as-exercise routine:
1. Park as far away from the front doors as you possibly can.
2. When you get inside the store, push the cart up and down every aisle, and around the perimeter, whether you need to go there or not.
3. Get in the slowest-moving checkout lane--more time for standing.
4. Push the cart of final purchases back to your car, then return the cart to the store where it came from--not just outside or in a cart corral.
5. Walk back to your car.
You can do this anywhere: in the local library, the hardware store, the theater, wherever. Park as far away as you can, then go up and down every aisle and around the perimeter, whether you need to or not, then walk all the way back out to your car with your final purchases.
If need be, get the kids involved by making shopping a scavenger hunt--hand them the list items for tracking down and retrieving while you walk your way through the store.
If you have front or back steps, they make an excellent stationary stair-stepper, and they're free. You can also stair-step anywhere there's a curb: gas station islands, off the sidewalk onto the street, parking lot islands, etc.
Housework as exercise: Impromptu jump ropes can be made with something other than rope: any non-operable long-corded appliance, such as a vacuum cleaner, will do (as long as it's unplugged first), or just an ordinary non-operable extension cord--NEVER USE LIVE OPERABLE CORDS, BECAUSE YOUR EXERCISING WITH IT MAY CAUSE ABRASIONS IN THE PLASTIC COATING, EXPOSING YOU OR OTHERS TO LIVE WIRES AND SHOCK. Cut the cord and plug off the old non-working appliance cord or the plug ends off an old extension cord for this, so the cords won't stand a chance of becoming live and hazardous.
A Walk on the Wild Side with A Man on the Prowl For a Free Meal
From the Manchester Evening News (U.K.).
"Nettles and dandelions might be some of gardeners’ worst enemies, but for one man they’re the foundations of a hearty meal.
Stuart Bates has taught himself how to survive on what he can forage from land around Glossop.
The 25-year-old admin officer has already perfected a nettle and potato curry, dandelion root coffee, and dozens of other dishes, drinks and preserves using berries, plants and fungi found growing wild around the town.
Now he’s set up the Glossop Wild Food and Fungi group to share his knowledge with others – and help make people aware of just what’s growing in their garden.
Stuart, of Charles Street, said: "I’ve always been interested in cooking and when I was younger I was in the scouts which taught me a lot more about being outdoors.
"I’ve managed to teach myself what I know from borrowing books and going on the internet and I’ve managed to meet up with other people too.
"There are a lot of people who are interested in cooking and in local food and I want to share what I know."
While it is illegal to take food that is being purposefully grown and there are other restrictions about foraging on private land and in national parks, Stuart says that there are plenty of easy pickings along footpaths and riverbanks, as well as clumps of nettles and other weeds at the bottom of most people’s gardens.
He said: "When I first got interested, I thought ‘I’m living in Glossop, there’s not going to be that much around’. But when I started going out and actually looking I was surprised how much I was finding. And if you have a garden, there’s always something to eat."
Stuart is now looking for like-minded people with any level of experience of wild food to get together for walks and cooking sessions."
All photos courtesy of his Facebook page.
Stuart Bates has taught himself how to survive on what he can forage from land around Glossop.
Now he’s set up the Glossop Wild Food and Fungi group to share his knowledge with others – and help make people aware of just what’s growing in their garden.
"I’ve managed to teach myself what I know from borrowing books and going on the internet and I’ve managed to meet up with other people too.
"There are a lot of people who are interested in cooking and in local food and I want to share what I know."
He said: "When I first got interested, I thought ‘I’m living in Glossop, there’s not going to be that much around’. But when I started going out and actually looking I was surprised how much I was finding. And if you have a garden, there’s always something to eat."
Stuart is now looking for like-minded people with any level of experience of wild food to get together for walks and cooking sessions."
All photos courtesy of his Facebook page.
Human History Rewritten--Texas Artifact Oldest Found
From the Monterey Herald (CA). If you want to know where you're going, it's best to know where you came from--even if the story keeps changing.
"Scientists along Buttermilk Creek north of Austin, Texas, have found flint knife blades, chisels and other human artifacts lying in a soil layer nearly 16,000 years old — a discovery they say will rewrite a major chapter of ancient human history.
For one thing, it is now the oldest and arguably most credible site of human occupation in North or South America; but there's more.
The discovery, by Texas A&M archaeologist Michael Waters and others, pushes back by 2,500 years the time when traditional science thought humans entered the New World from Siberia and founded the native peoples of North and South America.
"This discovery ought to be like a baseball bat to the side of the head" to past theories, Waters said.
Other ancient sites in the Americas usually produce only handfuls of artifacts, in soils with ages that scientists argue about. This site contained tools in layer after layer of soils stacked like layer cake, the youngest from modern times, the oldest layer containing 15,000 artifacts dated to 15,500 years ago.
The discovery strengthens the case for two theories that traditional archaeologists laughed at not long ago — that the first Americans came earlier than 13,000 years ago, and that they didn't walk over a land bridge into North America from Siberia, but came by skin boats at least 16,000 years ago (or long before) skirting along coastlines of the Aleutian Islands and then Alaska, Canada and America.
Waters believes they came by boat, hunting seals beside Ice Age glaciers a few miles at a time, surviving Ice Age weather, bringing families and pet dogs. He thinks the first colonies in America sprouted tens of thousands of years ago along the Columbia River basin between Washington and Oregon, a region he said archaeologists should re-explore with renewed vigor.
This story is important to all of us, he said; most Americans think Columbus should be taught in schools; but the first discovery of America was more heroic than his voyage, and far older. It's a story that Waters and other scientists have spent decades trying to get right, including with dig sites in Kansas.
The first Americans, or Paleo Indians, were the first to explore the Rockies and Andes, the Mississippi, the Amazon. They were first to see giant elephants and bison roaming Ice Age Kansas. They dodged everything from giant Dire wolves, giant short-faced bears, saber-toothed cats and American lions.
They took heroic risks — hunted elephants with spears, at arms' length; taste-tested possibly lethal plants to find which were good as food or medicine; hunted with grannies and children not only coming along but driving herds into hunter ambushes.
"One thought that deeply touches my sense of wonder is that they didn't really have to migrate once they got here," Waters said. "Everywhere they would go, they'd find a land empty of people, with huge amounts of resources. And yet they migrated all the way to the tip of South America, and the only explanation is the relentless human spirit of adventure. And they were bringing not only their wives and elderly but their pregnant wives and their babies."
Discoveries in Kansas
That story will get more exciting, including close to home; Waters said scientists have made potentially huge discoveries in Kansas.
The tools found in Texas are flint blades small and thin, designed by people who carried everything they owned. It is likely that flint tools made up only 5 percent or so of the belongings of these people.
Many of the tools are cutting blades used to whittle and shape bone and wood; there were no distinct spear points.
Waters thinks the Buttermilk people used the stone tools to make spear points from bone. Some tools had notches with convex edges — carving tools; some chisels had edges dulled from scraping hard surfaces.
One artifact gave Waters a thrill when found: a golf-ball-size nodule of hematite, worn flat on several sides the way schoolroom chalk wears flat. Hematite when mixed with animal and plant oils produces red ochre — paint to adorn spear shafts, clothing — or skin.
"These people from 15,500 years ago were decorating themselves."
Rolfe Mandel, a geoarchaeologist with the Kansas Geological Survey who has discovered important sites in Kansas, said the Texas discovery is "a very big deal," in part because it strengthens the possibility that humans entered the New World as early as 24,000 years ago, near the peak rather than at the end of the last Ice Age.
Waters said he would not go that far; ("I can confirm only that they were here at least by 15,500 years ago.")
But Mandel and some geneticists say the evidence is growing.
Overwhelming evidence
Twenty-four thousand years ago would have been scoffed at by scientists only a few years ago. They believed people could not have come until 13,000 years ago.
The Texas discovery upends that, Mandel said. People didn't just enter Alaska and sprint with babies to Texas; (or to Monte Verde, a site in southern Chile dated at 14,500 years). They migrated, perhaps for centuries.
Mandel analyzed Waters' discovery paper for Science magazine, which published it March 24. He said Waters found overwhelming evidence in a field of study where that almost never happens. Ancient Americans were so few, and created so few belongings that survived decay that most camp or hunting sites contain only a few flint flakes. But Waters found thousands of artifacts in excavation blocks only about 50 meters square.
Awesomely wrong
It's a world-class discovery; in recent days Waters has given interviews to science writers from the New York Times, Washington Post and German Public Radio ("The Germans LOVE Paleo Indians," he said).
Mandel said Waters has done much to solve a human origin mystery that other explorers got awesomely wrong for 519 years, starting when Columbus first stepped onto a Bahamas beach, and called the natives "Indians."
Until recently, traditional science held that the first Americans were the "Clovis culture" hunter-gatherers who lived in North Americas 13,000 years ago. Scientists named the culture after Clovis, N.M., where the first such spear points were found in the 1920s. Mandel has identified Clovis campsites in Kansas; Waters found hundreds of Clovis artifacts in younger soil above the older ones.
Clovis people left behind a gorgeous signature of their existence: long, grooved spear points that no other people ever made. They are so artistic that many scientists think their makers created them with a spiritual zeal.
Scientists thought Clovis hunters were the first Americans because geologists knew that mile-high Ice Age glaciers would have prevented anyone from migrating from Siberia through Alaska. It melted to let people through about 13,000 years ago, a time that dovetailed with the age of Clovis tools.
Waters said Clovis-first is a dead idea now, not only because of his discovery but of others. Archaeologists in the 1970s discovered 14,500-year-old wooden housing foundations, tent pegs, and campfire ash in southern Chile at Monte Verde. It was older than Clovis culture by 1,500 years, and located 10,000 miles south of the Siberian-Alaskan passageway, meaning humans not only had to enter Alaska but migrate halfway around the world to get there.
Other discoveries turned up in North America; artifacts appeared older than Clovis. And DNA scientists, who believe they can determine a racial population's genetic age and relationships between ethnic groups with accuracy these days, are saying that Native America's ancestors came from Siberia, probably before 16,000 years ago.
Waters, the director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M, found Clovis artifacts along Buttermilk Creek a decade ago.
In 2006 his team dug beneath the Clovis layer.
"There was this ah-ha moment. We found dozens and dozens of artifacts below the Clovis horizon; and when we dated the soils repeatedly, it kept showing that it was much, much older than Clovis. I thought...wow!"
Using luminescence dating, (measuring the amount of light energy trapped in sediment grains) and repeating the experiment with different sections of soils, he found an age 15,500 years. His team found 56 tools — knife blades, choppers, scrapers and notched whittling tools. They are not beautiful like Clovis; but Buttermilk was a camp, where hunters wanted only to whack a rough flint core to flake off razor-sharp butcher's blades.
Waters' team also found thousands of flakes of flint left over from manufacture.
The reason those chips will rewrite history is that Waters' critics all know that artifacts from one layer of soil can fall to an older layer through cracks in sun-baked soil, or from holes dug by gophers. Finding thousands of chips in one layer is hard to dispute. "When I saw that, I said, "holy smokes," Waters said.
Some scientists will still dispute the site's age and his conclusions.
In the office next door to Waters in the anthropology building at Texas A&M on Monday, a Russian-speaking anthropologist, Kelly Graf, who has dug and explored in both Siberia and Alaska, said Waters' conclusions about a much older colonization from Siberia were not supported by archaeological evidence; there are no sites of human occupation in Alaska older than 14,000; no physical evidence of people using boats near Alaska more than 20,000 years ago. That does not mean it didn't happen; it means the case is circumstantial.
Many strong cases are circumstantial, Waters said.
At 15,500 years ago, agriculture and the revolution it caused in human behavior would not come along in the Middle East for five thousand years. There was no bow and arrow, which eventually made hunting easier and safer; no tamed animals except the dog; no cities, where people extend life and comfort with granaries and cooperation. Nobody settled down for long. People lived to walk.
The Buttermilk Creek people probably ate well, though. Though Ice Age glaciers covered much of Europe, (and North America all the way to what is now Des Moines), their landscape was filled with animals that would feed many, and intrigue us: mammoths and mastodons, peccaries — and camels and horses, which originated in North America but died out before the Spanish came.
There were giant beaver four feet tall, giant armadillos, giant sloths, and bison 20 percent bigger than bison today, wearing long-horns.
The people probably dug mussel shells out of creeks, probably settled often for small meals.
"Hunting big game is dangerous, not as economical as you might think," said University of Kansas paleontologist Larry Martin. "You kill a big animal, you start worrying about big predators coming at it." They were our equals in intelligence; their languages as complex as ours in grammar and syntax.
"They no doubt told campfire stories, about mammoths, creation spirits and stars in the sky," Waters said. They likely had a shaman, someone who tried to help the hunters or the sick by connecting to the spirit world.
Winters were warmer, summers cooler. Texas was green parkland interspersed with conifers. Buttermilk Creek's spring-fed water runs all year; its banks hold huge layers of exceptional Edwards chert. Waters jokingly said the first words spoken when humans reached the creek were: "Look at all this tool-stone! Let's get the whole gang here!" Along the creek, they rested and sharpened their tools.
Waters said they probably lived as rich and as happy as anybody who came after."
For one thing, it is now the oldest and arguably most credible site of human occupation in North or South America; but there's more.
The discovery, by Texas A&M archaeologist Michael Waters and others, pushes back by 2,500 years the time when traditional science thought humans entered the New World from Siberia and founded the native peoples of North and South America.
"This discovery ought to be like a baseball bat to the side of the head" to past theories, Waters said.
The discovery strengthens the case for two theories that traditional archaeologists laughed at not long ago — that the first Americans came earlier than 13,000 years ago, and that they didn't walk over a land bridge into North America from Siberia, but came by skin boats at least 16,000 years ago (or long before) skirting along coastlines of the Aleutian Islands and then Alaska, Canada and America.
This story is important to all of us, he said; most Americans think Columbus should be taught in schools; but the first discovery of America was more heroic than his voyage, and far older. It's a story that Waters and other scientists have spent decades trying to get right, including with dig sites in Kansas.
They took heroic risks — hunted elephants with spears, at arms' length; taste-tested possibly lethal plants to find which were good as food or medicine; hunted with grannies and children not only coming along but driving herds into hunter ambushes.
Discoveries in Kansas
That story will get more exciting, including close to home; Waters said scientists have made potentially huge discoveries in Kansas.
Many of the tools are cutting blades used to whittle and shape bone and wood; there were no distinct spear points.
Waters thinks the Buttermilk people used the stone tools to make spear points from bone. Some tools had notches with convex edges — carving tools; some chisels had edges dulled from scraping hard surfaces.
"These people from 15,500 years ago were decorating themselves."
Rolfe Mandel, a geoarchaeologist with the Kansas Geological Survey who has discovered important sites in Kansas, said the Texas discovery is "a very big deal," in part because it strengthens the possibility that humans entered the New World as early as 24,000 years ago, near the peak rather than at the end of the last Ice Age.
Waters said he would not go that far; ("I can confirm only that they were here at least by 15,500 years ago.")
But Mandel and some geneticists say the evidence is growing.
Overwhelming evidence
Twenty-four thousand years ago would have been scoffed at by scientists only a few years ago. They believed people could not have come until 13,000 years ago.
Mandel analyzed Waters' discovery paper for Science magazine, which published it March 24. He said Waters found overwhelming evidence in a field of study where that almost never happens. Ancient Americans were so few, and created so few belongings that survived decay that most camp or hunting sites contain only a few flint flakes. But Waters found thousands of artifacts in excavation blocks only about 50 meters square.
Awesomely wrong
It's a world-class discovery; in recent days Waters has given interviews to science writers from the New York Times, Washington Post and German Public Radio ("The Germans LOVE Paleo Indians," he said).
Mandel said Waters has done much to solve a human origin mystery that other explorers got awesomely wrong for 519 years, starting when Columbus first stepped onto a Bahamas beach, and called the natives "Indians."
Until recently, traditional science held that the first Americans were the "Clovis culture" hunter-gatherers who lived in North Americas 13,000 years ago. Scientists named the culture after Clovis, N.M., where the first such spear points were found in the 1920s. Mandel has identified Clovis campsites in Kansas; Waters found hundreds of Clovis artifacts in younger soil above the older ones.
Clovis people left behind a gorgeous signature of their existence: long, grooved spear points that no other people ever made. They are so artistic that many scientists think their makers created them with a spiritual zeal.
Scientists thought Clovis hunters were the first Americans because geologists knew that mile-high Ice Age glaciers would have prevented anyone from migrating from Siberia through Alaska. It melted to let people through about 13,000 years ago, a time that dovetailed with the age of Clovis tools.
Waters said Clovis-first is a dead idea now, not only because of his discovery but of others. Archaeologists in the 1970s discovered 14,500-year-old wooden housing foundations, tent pegs, and campfire ash in southern Chile at Monte Verde. It was older than Clovis culture by 1,500 years, and located 10,000 miles south of the Siberian-Alaskan passageway, meaning humans not only had to enter Alaska but migrate halfway around the world to get there.
Waters, the director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M, found Clovis artifacts along Buttermilk Creek a decade ago.
In 2006 his team dug beneath the Clovis layer.
"There was this ah-ha moment. We found dozens and dozens of artifacts below the Clovis horizon; and when we dated the soils repeatedly, it kept showing that it was much, much older than Clovis. I thought...wow!"
Using luminescence dating, (measuring the amount of light energy trapped in sediment grains) and repeating the experiment with different sections of soils, he found an age 15,500 years. His team found 56 tools — knife blades, choppers, scrapers and notched whittling tools. They are not beautiful like Clovis; but Buttermilk was a camp, where hunters wanted only to whack a rough flint core to flake off razor-sharp butcher's blades.
Waters' team also found thousands of flakes of flint left over from manufacture.
The reason those chips will rewrite history is that Waters' critics all know that artifacts from one layer of soil can fall to an older layer through cracks in sun-baked soil, or from holes dug by gophers. Finding thousands of chips in one layer is hard to dispute. "When I saw that, I said, "holy smokes," Waters said.
Some scientists will still dispute the site's age and his conclusions.
In the office next door to Waters in the anthropology building at Texas A&M on Monday, a Russian-speaking anthropologist, Kelly Graf, who has dug and explored in both Siberia and Alaska, said Waters' conclusions about a much older colonization from Siberia were not supported by archaeological evidence; there are no sites of human occupation in Alaska older than 14,000; no physical evidence of people using boats near Alaska more than 20,000 years ago. That does not mean it didn't happen; it means the case is circumstantial.
Many strong cases are circumstantial, Waters said.
At 15,500 years ago, agriculture and the revolution it caused in human behavior would not come along in the Middle East for five thousand years. There was no bow and arrow, which eventually made hunting easier and safer; no tamed animals except the dog; no cities, where people extend life and comfort with granaries and cooperation. Nobody settled down for long. People lived to walk.
The Buttermilk Creek people probably ate well, though. Though Ice Age glaciers covered much of Europe, (and North America all the way to what is now Des Moines), their landscape was filled with animals that would feed many, and intrigue us: mammoths and mastodons, peccaries — and camels and horses, which originated in North America but died out before the Spanish came.
There were giant beaver four feet tall, giant armadillos, giant sloths, and bison 20 percent bigger than bison today, wearing long-horns.
The people probably dug mussel shells out of creeks, probably settled often for small meals.
"Hunting big game is dangerous, not as economical as you might think," said University of Kansas paleontologist Larry Martin. "You kill a big animal, you start worrying about big predators coming at it." They were our equals in intelligence; their languages as complex as ours in grammar and syntax.
"They no doubt told campfire stories, about mammoths, creation spirits and stars in the sky," Waters said. They likely had a shaman, someone who tried to help the hunters or the sick by connecting to the spirit world.
Winters were warmer, summers cooler. Texas was green parkland interspersed with conifers. Buttermilk Creek's spring-fed water runs all year; its banks hold huge layers of exceptional Edwards chert. Waters jokingly said the first words spoken when humans reached the creek were: "Look at all this tool-stone! Let's get the whole gang here!" Along the creek, they rested and sharpened their tools.
How to Make Candy-Free Easter Baskets--10 Ideas
From the Canadian Press.
"Susie Peyton, an art teacher in Redwood City, Calif., has always tried to minimize the candy in holiday traditions with her three kids, now ages 11 and 15.
"I'm the awful mom who goes through their Halloween basket and throws out all their hard candy," said Peyton. "They have a big sweet tooth, and they would eat candy for breakfast if they could."
Easter, with its expectation of chocolate eggs and marshmallow peeps, presents unique challenges for mothers like Peyton. Store aisles are bulging with Easter-themed chocolate and confectionery.
But there are plenty of other options, as inventive mothers like Peyton have found out over the years. Here are 10 themes for candy-free Easter baskets kids will love.
—Gardening basket. Gardening is at least as much a symbol of Easter as a foil-wrapped rabbit, and a row of carrot tops pushing through the soil is something kids will remember long after the last jelly bean is gone. Instead of using a basket, try a small rubber gardening tub, a plastic watering can, or a bucket organizer — $25 at Gardeners Supply catalogue, http://www.gardeners.com. Add colourful seed packets, a pair of gardening gloves and a few intriguing gardening tools.
—Sleepover basket. Cradle a pair of slippers, some new pyjamas, and a couple of silly joke books or bottles of nail polish in a small, sturdy overnight bag. Add a plain pillowcase and some fabric markers so the child can decorate it. Then add a nightlight.
—Bird lover's basket. Birds are another sure-fire sign of spring. You can use the birdfeeder as the basket; many of them have lift-off roofs that provide an original nest for a bird-friendly collection including birdseed, some seed-covered suet bells, and a pair of inexpensive binoculars or a stuffed owl. The National Audubon Society has a free brochure called "Bird Feeding Basics," downloadable from its website: http://bit.ly/fpqIih.
—Art basket. Peyton used to start with an inexpensive plastic beach bucket from the dollar store. Add a sketchbook, gel pens, and fancy-edged scissors. Scrapbooking stores carry a fantastic array of rubber stamps or places like Stampadoodle Art & Paper, in Bellingham, Wash., will custom-make any stamp you want. http://www.stampadoodle.com/.
—Sports-themed basket, geared toward the passion of the child in question. For a gymnast, that might mean a new leotard, shorts, or warm-up gear, all nestled in a handy mini-laundry basket. Throw in some new grips, chalk, or wrist guards. Gymnasts also like gymnastics-themed T-shirts, posters for their rooms, hair ties, and the all-important hairspray and curlers. Nail polish is usually prohibited in competition, so add some nail polish remover to the mix. For Little Leaguers, try new batting gloves, baseball hat with the logo of a favourite team, sunglasses and a book about a legendary player. Future hoops stars might like a pump and needles to keep basketballs firm, a team jersey and matching shorts, and a sweatband.
The food basket. Just because candy is off-limits doesn't mean all food has to be. Pancake mix, exotic cookies such as Pocki sticks (a Japanese treat available at most Asian stores), and some fresh fruit. Retired Portland, Ore., dietician Carolyn Knutson, who has spent time comparing sports bars, recommends Kashi chewy granola bars, which are low in fat and sugar compared to their shelf-mates at the grocery store.
—The goldfish bowl. Every year, humane organizations around the country plead with parents to steer clear of gift bunnies and chicks because so many of those impulse purchases turn into unwanted pets. But if it's a live gift you need, try goldfish. The setup is inexpensive, the care is minimal, and the fish themselves, in the right setting, are a strangely soothing addition to any kitchen counter.
—The cooking basket. Use a large mixing bowl as your container. Add a kid-sized apron — Williams-Sonoma has a nice one for $22 with a garden theme, http://www.williams-sonoma.com — and mixing spoons — Anthropologie has beautiful nesting spoons and cup measures, and a darling chicken-themed egg timer — along with a colourful spatula (Oxo's is just $7.99, available at Bed, Bath & Beyond). As for instructions, there's no better guide for the newly hatched chef than Georgeanne Brennan's "Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook." Brennan shows a rare sensitivity in her treatment of delicacies like Shlopp (homemade granola) and Lime Ice.
—The memory basket. Craft stores like Michaels and Jo-Ann Fabrics sell sturdy decorated cardboard file boxes and upholstered sewing baskets that can be made into scrapbooking kits for the very young. Add a photo album, some scrapbooking paper, and some prints, either from your own printer or an inexpensive site like Snapfish, http://www2.snapfish.com. Add a blank book and an invitation to write in the journal every day, even if it's only a line.
—The sweet-smelling basket. One of the biggest hits among the seventh-graders I know this Christmas was a scented candle that smelled like a cupcake. As any pre-teen will tell you, you can find a lip gloss, candle, or lotion in almost any flavour or fragrance under the sun. Recently, Jelly Belly got in on the act with a host of products that smell like jelly beans but don't cause cavities, such as bubble wands, nail polish, candles, and even stationery.
And even if you're anti-candy, consider throwing in a few real jelly beans and chocolate bunnies.
"The bottom line is that all foods have a place in a diet, but it's a matter of frequency and amount," said Knutson, who was a department chairwoman at Clackamas Community College in Oregon and has worked in community and hospital nutrition. "It's OK to have candy on special occasions. It's a part of living."
I'd make a forager's basket (if the kids were old enough): a well-pictured poisonous plants book, a magnifying glass, a small camera, gloves, a hand trowel, a hat, sunscreen, some small pruners, and tuck it all into a flat wicker basket with a handle.
The gardener's basket sounds good too, as does the reader's basket (of Paleo history books/archaeology/anthropology--if knowing our history is beneficial, let's learn REAL history!) and the cooking basket (filled with non-perishable Paleo items, like dried fruit, nuts, coconut, etc.). If we must celebrate the holidays, let's start gifting our kids in USEFUL ways rather than just rotting their teeth, creating a dental bill, and creating heaps of needless trash.
How about a "doctor" basket, with band-aids, a small flashlight for peeking into throats and ears, a plastic stethoscope, and memo pad for writing "prescriptions" of food, recipes, and exercises? Just thinking...we need more nutritionists in the future, so why not start your own at home?
"Susie Peyton, an art teacher in Redwood City, Calif., has always tried to minimize the candy in holiday traditions with her three kids, now ages 11 and 15.
"I'm the awful mom who goes through their Halloween basket and throws out all their hard candy," said Peyton. "They have a big sweet tooth, and they would eat candy for breakfast if they could."
But there are plenty of other options, as inventive mothers like Peyton have found out over the years. Here are 10 themes for candy-free Easter baskets kids will love.
—Sleepover basket. Cradle a pair of slippers, some new pyjamas, and a couple of silly joke books or bottles of nail polish in a small, sturdy overnight bag. Add a plain pillowcase and some fabric markers so the child can decorate it. Then add a nightlight.
—Bird lover's basket. Birds are another sure-fire sign of spring. You can use the birdfeeder as the basket; many of them have lift-off roofs that provide an original nest for a bird-friendly collection including birdseed, some seed-covered suet bells, and a pair of inexpensive binoculars or a stuffed owl. The National Audubon Society has a free brochure called "Bird Feeding Basics," downloadable from its website: http://bit.ly/fpqIih.
—Sports-themed basket, geared toward the passion of the child in question. For a gymnast, that might mean a new leotard, shorts, or warm-up gear, all nestled in a handy mini-laundry basket. Throw in some new grips, chalk, or wrist guards. Gymnasts also like gymnastics-themed T-shirts, posters for their rooms, hair ties, and the all-important hairspray and curlers. Nail polish is usually prohibited in competition, so add some nail polish remover to the mix. For Little Leaguers, try new batting gloves, baseball hat with the logo of a favourite team, sunglasses and a book about a legendary player. Future hoops stars might like a pump and needles to keep basketballs firm, a team jersey and matching shorts, and a sweatband.
—The goldfish bowl. Every year, humane organizations around the country plead with parents to steer clear of gift bunnies and chicks because so many of those impulse purchases turn into unwanted pets. But if it's a live gift you need, try goldfish. The setup is inexpensive, the care is minimal, and the fish themselves, in the right setting, are a strangely soothing addition to any kitchen counter.
—The memory basket. Craft stores like Michaels and Jo-Ann Fabrics sell sturdy decorated cardboard file boxes and upholstered sewing baskets that can be made into scrapbooking kits for the very young. Add a photo album, some scrapbooking paper, and some prints, either from your own printer or an inexpensive site like Snapfish, http://www2.snapfish.com. Add a blank book and an invitation to write in the journal every day, even if it's only a line.
—The sweet-smelling basket. One of the biggest hits among the seventh-graders I know this Christmas was a scented candle that smelled like a cupcake. As any pre-teen will tell you, you can find a lip gloss, candle, or lotion in almost any flavour or fragrance under the sun. Recently, Jelly Belly got in on the act with a host of products that smell like jelly beans but don't cause cavities, such as bubble wands, nail polish, candles, and even stationery.
And even if you're anti-candy, consider throwing in a few real jelly beans and chocolate bunnies.
"The bottom line is that all foods have a place in a diet, but it's a matter of frequency and amount," said Knutson, who was a department chairwoman at Clackamas Community College in Oregon and has worked in community and hospital nutrition. "It's OK to have candy on special occasions. It's a part of living."
I'd make a forager's basket (if the kids were old enough): a well-pictured poisonous plants book, a magnifying glass, a small camera, gloves, a hand trowel, a hat, sunscreen, some small pruners, and tuck it all into a flat wicker basket with a handle.
The gardener's basket sounds good too, as does the reader's basket (of Paleo history books/archaeology/anthropology--if knowing our history is beneficial, let's learn REAL history!) and the cooking basket (filled with non-perishable Paleo items, like dried fruit, nuts, coconut, etc.). If we must celebrate the holidays, let's start gifting our kids in USEFUL ways rather than just rotting their teeth, creating a dental bill, and creating heaps of needless trash.
How about a "doctor" basket, with band-aids, a small flashlight for peeking into throats and ears, a plastic stethoscope, and memo pad for writing "prescriptions" of food, recipes, and exercises? Just thinking...we need more nutritionists in the future, so why not start your own at home?
Gardening Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
From the Shreveport Times (LA).
"Gardening is a forgiving hobby. You can always right any wrongs next growing season.
The best way to prevent problems, though, is with good planning.
"Designing from the top of your head may work, but things most likely will work better if you write it down and do a simple drawing," said Jack McKinnon, a garden coach from San Francisco. "Think before you plant."
Most gardening failures result from simple things, he said, "like people who don't fertilize, or if they do, put on too much. The same goes for people who don't understand watering, or add too much. Many tend to do their pruning with power tools and then overdo it."
Here are 10 common gardening mistakes and ways to avoid them:
1. Neglecting soil preparation.
Test the plant beds before you begin, and again every few years to see if soil conditioners are needed. Add sand or peat moss to compacted, poorly drained ground, to improve its structure and encourage root growth.
2. Overplanting.
Design with the size of mature plants in mind. Try succession planting, in which early, cool-weather crops are harvested before later, less hardy plants reach maturity.
3. Flawed feeding.
"Mulch plants and they'll be so much happier," said Tia Pinney, adult program coordinator at the Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary, in Lincoln, Mass. "Supplement your soil, don't just fertilize it."
4. Improper watering.
Too much water can be just as damaging as too little. Do a finger-in-the-ground test to ensure that the soil around the roots is moist. Vegetables need about an inch and a half of water per week.
5. Wrong location.
Growing conditions change as trees and shrubs mature, creating different shadow patterns. Most plants need six to eight hours of sun per day to develop.
6. Improper pest control.
Don't kill the good bugs, like pollinators, in an effort to eliminate the bad. "One thing we hear a lot is an attitude of: 'All I have to do is spray and that will cure it'," said Mary Ann Ryan, master gardening coordinator with Penn State Cooperative Extension in Adams County, Pa.
7. Faulty maintenance.
Don't set your cultivator (or hoe) too deep, damaging plant roots. Pull some weeds by hand.
8. Over-pruning.
As a rule, don't remove more than 30 percent of the foliage from shrubs in one cutting. And don't "top" trees to control their height. "That reduces their life span rather than improves their health," Ryan said.
9. Botched planting.
Choose the right plant depth. "I know of one property where they put a tree with its root ball on the surface of the ground, and then mulched around it up to the level of the trunk," Ryan said. "People don't know how to plant."
10. Failing to start over.
"Oftentimes, people let diseased things grow that should be pulled out, and it affects the health of the entire crop," McKinnon said.
Start with a small plot so you can correct mistakes more easily, the experts say. And look to your county extension office for support if you run into trouble. Garden coaches also can diagnose problems and suggest remedies, as can master gardeners and landscape designers."
I myself have learned to avoid planting brassicas, because we have a moth here that lays eggs on the leaves, and the larvae crawl down to the soil, become worm-like, and attack the stems and roots of the plants. Rather than treat for the one pest (which is very difficult at best), I just avoid growing their food.
Unfortunately, they like what I like: broccoli, squash, collards, etc., so I just settle for buying them in the store, and plant everything else I like instead.
"Gardening is a forgiving hobby. You can always right any wrongs next growing season.
The best way to prevent problems, though, is with good planning.
Most gardening failures result from simple things, he said, "like people who don't fertilize, or if they do, put on too much. The same goes for people who don't understand watering, or add too much. Many tend to do their pruning with power tools and then overdo it."
Here are 10 common gardening mistakes and ways to avoid them:
Test the plant beds before you begin, and again every few years to see if soil conditioners are needed. Add sand or peat moss to compacted, poorly drained ground, to improve its structure and encourage root growth.
2. Overplanting.
Design with the size of mature plants in mind. Try succession planting, in which early, cool-weather crops are harvested before later, less hardy plants reach maturity.
"Mulch plants and they'll be so much happier," said Tia Pinney, adult program coordinator at the Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary, in Lincoln, Mass. "Supplement your soil, don't just fertilize it."
4. Improper watering.
Too much water can be just as damaging as too little. Do a finger-in-the-ground test to ensure that the soil around the roots is moist. Vegetables need about an inch and a half of water per week.
5. Wrong location.
Growing conditions change as trees and shrubs mature, creating different shadow patterns. Most plants need six to eight hours of sun per day to develop.
Don't kill the good bugs, like pollinators, in an effort to eliminate the bad. "One thing we hear a lot is an attitude of: 'All I have to do is spray and that will cure it'," said Mary Ann Ryan, master gardening coordinator with Penn State Cooperative Extension in Adams County, Pa.
7. Faulty maintenance.
Don't set your cultivator (or hoe) too deep, damaging plant roots. Pull some weeds by hand.
As a rule, don't remove more than 30 percent of the foliage from shrubs in one cutting. And don't "top" trees to control their height. "That reduces their life span rather than improves their health," Ryan said.
9. Botched planting.
Choose the right plant depth. "I know of one property where they put a tree with its root ball on the surface of the ground, and then mulched around it up to the level of the trunk," Ryan said. "People don't know how to plant."
"Oftentimes, people let diseased things grow that should be pulled out, and it affects the health of the entire crop," McKinnon said.
Start with a small plot so you can correct mistakes more easily, the experts say. And look to your county extension office for support if you run into trouble. Garden coaches also can diagnose problems and suggest remedies, as can master gardeners and landscape designers."
I myself have learned to avoid planting brassicas, because we have a moth here that lays eggs on the leaves, and the larvae crawl down to the soil, become worm-like, and attack the stems and roots of the plants. Rather than treat for the one pest (which is very difficult at best), I just avoid growing their food.
Unfortunately, they like what I like: broccoli, squash, collards, etc., so I just settle for buying them in the store, and plant everything else I like instead.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
"Look Ma--No Grains!" Pizza Crust
From Newly Planted blog.
Grainless Pizza Crust:
1 cup cooked, riced cauliflower (simply shred in a cheese grater :))
1 egg
1 cup mozzarella cheese
Pizza herbs: 1/2 tsp fennel, 1 tsp oregano, 2 tsp parsley
(The last three ingredients can be changed for your favorite pizza-type herbs)
Preheat oven to 450ºF/232ºC/Gas Mark 8. Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray (or grease with some coconut/olive/whatever oil). In a medium bowl, combine cauliflower, egg and mozzarella. Press evenly on the pan. Sprinkle evenly with pizza herbs. Bake for 12-15 minutes (15-20 minutes if you double the recipe). Remove the pan from the oven. To the crust, add sauce, then toppings and cheese. Place under a grill/broiler at high heat just until cheese is melted.
1 cup cooked, riced cauliflower (simply shred in a cheese grater :))
1 egg
1 cup mozzarella cheese
Pizza herbs: 1/2 tsp fennel, 1 tsp oregano, 2 tsp parsley
(The last three ingredients can be changed for your favorite pizza-type herbs)
Preheat oven to 450ºF/232ºC/Gas Mark 8. Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray (or grease with some coconut/olive/whatever oil). In a medium bowl, combine cauliflower, egg and mozzarella. Press evenly on the pan. Sprinkle evenly with pizza herbs. Bake for 12-15 minutes (15-20 minutes if you double the recipe). Remove the pan from the oven. To the crust, add sauce, then toppings and cheese. Place under a grill/broiler at high heat just until cheese is melted.
Gene-Based Cuisine
From Energy Times.
"Height, eye color, wavy or straight hair: Such attributes are determined in large part by your genes. Genes are responsible for more than your appearance, however. Your body cannot carry out the biological processes that keep you alive without instructions from all your genes—your genome—acting in concert. Genomics, the study of the genome, has spawned a number of related fields. One is nutrigenomics—the study of how nutrients and genes interact.
Experts say that the capacity for relatively low-cost genomic testing is right around the corner. Some in the field say the age of personalized nutrition has dawned—that each person can be given a diet and lifestyle plan for optimal health based on his or her genomic information. Other authorities believe it’s too early to make that claim, that the technology has not yet been fully developed. All agree that nutrition and genetics interact in ways that we are only beginning to understand.
Genes and Nutrients
The nutrients you include—or neglect—in your diet can affect how your genes are expressed. Eating a low-antioxidant diet has been found to cause genetic changes linked to asthma development (OMICS 10/09). In one study, men who ate a diet rich in refined grains and saturated fat were at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, but only if they were genetically susceptible to the disease (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 5/09).
Scientists have learned that some gene variants, or alleles, increase the risk of developing certain diseases. Apolipoprotein E (APOE) is a key factor in cholesterol metabolism. The gene that carries the APOE code occurs in three main forms, two of which have been linked to high cholesterol, atherosclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease. Testing can reveal the presence of problematic forms of APOE; a combination of high-risk APOE and a high-fat diet results in a greater chance of developing metabolic syndrome, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (Atherosclerosis 1/3/10 online).
Obesity is an example of how environmental influences can play havoc with one’s genetic heritage. “Some of us were born with ‘thrifty’ genetics, genes whose function is to hold onto every extra calorie and store it as fat,” says Peter D’Adamo, ND, director of the New England Center for Personalized Medicine in Wilton, Connecticut and author of Change Your Genetic Destiny (Broadway Books). When food is scarce, such genes are helpful. But when faced with an overload of refined carbs, these genes “hog their places at the microphone,” as D’Adamo puts it, drowning out other genes and causing weight to rise. More than 250 genes have been implicated in obesity—a number researchers expect to keep growing (Obesity 12/08).
Part of the link between genetics and nutrition may lie in how different people’s bodies are able to adapt, or not, to a lack of specific nutrients. “Vitamin D is a perfect example. In some people there’s a gene that only acts abnormally if there are low vitamin D levels, increasing the person’s risk of multiple sclerosis. If there are normal vitamin D levels, the person’s gene acts fine,” says Brandon Colby, MD, author of Outsmart Your Genes (Perigee/Penguin).
D’Adamo adds, “Turns out your mom was right—a daily multiple might help in ways that we’re only just now coming to appreciate fully.”
From Lab to Clinic
As studies continue, some practitioners are bringing genomic information from the lab into the clinic. “While we may have the code, the translation from DNA to everything that encompasses the genome into practical health realities is still in the early stages of being elaborated,” says D’Adamo. “But what we do know is feeding into medical research that is already bearing fruit.”
One factor driving the clinical use of genomics is its rapidly falling cost. Last year scientists at Stanford University were able to completely sequence one person’s genome for $50,000. But it is estimated that the cost of such sequencing may fall to $1,000, or less, within the next several years.
Even $1,000 might be more than many people would be willing to pay out of pocket for a full genome scan. “To get to the point where we have genetic-based dietary guidelines, third-party payers would have to cover that,” says Catherine McCarty, PhD, MPH, senior research scientist at the Center for Human Genetics, Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation in Marshfield, Wisconsin.
More readily available is genetic testing via panels, or tests grouped together by function—panels that test for women’s disorders or for cardiovascular disease, for example. “Panels are extremely powerful tools because they enable simultaneous genetic screening for all the diseases and traits that are targeted to a specific need,” says Colby.
D’Adamo takes a different approach. He believes that people fall into one of six “GenoTypes,” basic responses to environmental and genetic factors. For instance, the hunter adapted to the harsh circumstances of early human existence through an immune system that reacted strongly to outside threats. This gives hunters a distinct advantage in fighting harmful micro-organisms. However, “their hair-trigger immune response can sometimes lead to over-reaction in the form of allergies, asthma and other inflammatory conditions,” says D’Adamo. His approach is to help each patient adapt to the shortcomings of whatever GenoType he or she falls into. In the case of hunters, who have trouble digesting grains, that means a diet which emphasizes beef and lamb while avoiding wheat and a lifestyle that includes plenty of regular, vigorous exercise.
In a sense, genetic testing is a sophisticated extension of the medical history questionnaires issued routinely to new patients. “Your family tree shows the people in your family who are at risk for certain illnesses. And it sounds the warnings years in advance,” says Chris Reading, MD, author of Trace Your Genes to Health (Vital Health). If the practitioner is rushed for time and doesn’t read the document carefully, however, the advantage of taking a medical history is lost.
In the same way, the results of genetic testing require interpretation. That, experts say, is where the real challenge begins.
Practitioners of what Colby calls “predictive medicine” generally take a dim view of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing, in which patients deal with testing laboratories themselves. Colby says a report produced by a DTC lab “is nothing more than a high-tech paperweight” unless a professional interprets the data.
For example, genetic testing on one of the patients in Colby’s Los Angeles practice revealed vulnerabilities to prostate cancer and to high levels of homocysteine, an amino acid linked to heart disease. As a result, Colby put the patient on a diet high in lycopene for prostate protection and in B vitamins to help control homocysteine.
Geneticists are concerned about the effects of DTC testing. A Federal Drug Administration advisory panel is studying what it calls “the risks and benefits” of making genetic tests directly available to the public.
Where many lab scientists part ways with predictive medicine practitioners is on whether personalized nutrition, in which diets can be tailored to each person’s genetic needs, is a workable idea today. “We’re not there yet,” says McCarty. “The tools needed to evaluate this data are developing.”
Another problem is that people may not properly evaluate risk. “We should not confuse increased and decreased risk with absolute certainties. The classic example is smoking and lung cancer; we all know of nonsmokers who get lung cancer. Nothing is an absolute,” says Nicholas Katsanis, PhD, director of the Center for Human Disease Modeling at the Institute of Genetic Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine.
Katsanis is also concerned that the rush to practice may affect the nature of genetic research. He says, “We don’t know what questions we haven’t asked yet. We should not ignore anything that will allow us to make a paradigm shift.”
Both Katsanis and McCarty point out that knowledge of your genome isn’t necessary to practice basic, sensible self-care. Katsanis notes that a number of mutations have been linked to diabetes risk. But so is having a large waist, he says. “That’s best addressed through diet and exercise,” he adds, “no matter what your genetic mutations are.”
Let me save you some heartache, then some money--health insurance carriers are not going to cover this testing unless it's requested by a doctor to look for a specific disease, then you may be dropped form coverage if you turn out to be positive for it. If you really REALLY want this test, prepare to pay cash for it.
Now for the money-saving: you don't really need this test to tell you something your own relatives can tell you for free. Talk to them, and have long conversations about who has or had what, when, and if it was ever resolved. Write everything down, and then search your own life and the lives of your children for similar symptoms and problems, then search the web to find out what to do about it besides throw drugs at the problem.
Sometimes, simply eating correctly, or NOT eating something will do the trick.
As far as the Eat Right books go, they helped me whittle down exactly what beans and grains I should be eating, but even whittling them down to the few, and soaking them overnight in an acid medium as suggested in WAPF, I was still having trouble with these foods, so I just gave them up entirely.
This is what leads me to my question about native diets and the U.S.--since most of us are from somewhere else, do we follow our individual ancestry to determine our own "native" diets, or do we just fall back to the generic caveman diet? The Eat Right books suggest we follow our genomic ancestry and eat like they did (according to blood type), regardless of where we live now.
I have caveman blood (Type 0-), so just how far back should I go? I chose the furthest--back to the cave. It's a whole lot cheaper, and easier on the allergies.
"Height, eye color, wavy or straight hair: Such attributes are determined in large part by your genes. Genes are responsible for more than your appearance, however. Your body cannot carry out the biological processes that keep you alive without instructions from all your genes—your genome—acting in concert. Genomics, the study of the genome, has spawned a number of related fields. One is nutrigenomics—the study of how nutrients and genes interact.
Experts say that the capacity for relatively low-cost genomic testing is right around the corner. Some in the field say the age of personalized nutrition has dawned—that each person can be given a diet and lifestyle plan for optimal health based on his or her genomic information. Other authorities believe it’s too early to make that claim, that the technology has not yet been fully developed. All agree that nutrition and genetics interact in ways that we are only beginning to understand.
Genes and Nutrients
The nutrients you include—or neglect—in your diet can affect how your genes are expressed. Eating a low-antioxidant diet has been found to cause genetic changes linked to asthma development (OMICS 10/09). In one study, men who ate a diet rich in refined grains and saturated fat were at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, but only if they were genetically susceptible to the disease (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 5/09).
Scientists have learned that some gene variants, or alleles, increase the risk of developing certain diseases. Apolipoprotein E (APOE) is a key factor in cholesterol metabolism. The gene that carries the APOE code occurs in three main forms, two of which have been linked to high cholesterol, atherosclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease. Testing can reveal the presence of problematic forms of APOE; a combination of high-risk APOE and a high-fat diet results in a greater chance of developing metabolic syndrome, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (Atherosclerosis 1/3/10 online).
Obesity is an example of how environmental influences can play havoc with one’s genetic heritage. “Some of us were born with ‘thrifty’ genetics, genes whose function is to hold onto every extra calorie and store it as fat,” says Peter D’Adamo, ND, director of the New England Center for Personalized Medicine in Wilton, Connecticut and author of Change Your Genetic Destiny (Broadway Books). When food is scarce, such genes are helpful. But when faced with an overload of refined carbs, these genes “hog their places at the microphone,” as D’Adamo puts it, drowning out other genes and causing weight to rise. More than 250 genes have been implicated in obesity—a number researchers expect to keep growing (Obesity 12/08).
Part of the link between genetics and nutrition may lie in how different people’s bodies are able to adapt, or not, to a lack of specific nutrients. “Vitamin D is a perfect example. In some people there’s a gene that only acts abnormally if there are low vitamin D levels, increasing the person’s risk of multiple sclerosis. If there are normal vitamin D levels, the person’s gene acts fine,” says Brandon Colby, MD, author of Outsmart Your Genes (Perigee/Penguin).
D’Adamo adds, “Turns out your mom was right—a daily multiple might help in ways that we’re only just now coming to appreciate fully.”
From Lab to Clinic
As studies continue, some practitioners are bringing genomic information from the lab into the clinic. “While we may have the code, the translation from DNA to everything that encompasses the genome into practical health realities is still in the early stages of being elaborated,” says D’Adamo. “But what we do know is feeding into medical research that is already bearing fruit.”
One factor driving the clinical use of genomics is its rapidly falling cost. Last year scientists at Stanford University were able to completely sequence one person’s genome for $50,000. But it is estimated that the cost of such sequencing may fall to $1,000, or less, within the next several years.
Even $1,000 might be more than many people would be willing to pay out of pocket for a full genome scan. “To get to the point where we have genetic-based dietary guidelines, third-party payers would have to cover that,” says Catherine McCarty, PhD, MPH, senior research scientist at the Center for Human Genetics, Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation in Marshfield, Wisconsin.
More readily available is genetic testing via panels, or tests grouped together by function—panels that test for women’s disorders or for cardiovascular disease, for example. “Panels are extremely powerful tools because they enable simultaneous genetic screening for all the diseases and traits that are targeted to a specific need,” says Colby.
In the same way, the results of genetic testing require interpretation. That, experts say, is where the real challenge begins.
Practitioners of what Colby calls “predictive medicine” generally take a dim view of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing, in which patients deal with testing laboratories themselves. Colby says a report produced by a DTC lab “is nothing more than a high-tech paperweight” unless a professional interprets the data.
For example, genetic testing on one of the patients in Colby’s Los Angeles practice revealed vulnerabilities to prostate cancer and to high levels of homocysteine, an amino acid linked to heart disease. As a result, Colby put the patient on a diet high in lycopene for prostate protection and in B vitamins to help control homocysteine.
Geneticists are concerned about the effects of DTC testing. A Federal Drug Administration advisory panel is studying what it calls “the risks and benefits” of making genetic tests directly available to the public.
Where many lab scientists part ways with predictive medicine practitioners is on whether personalized nutrition, in which diets can be tailored to each person’s genetic needs, is a workable idea today. “We’re not there yet,” says McCarty. “The tools needed to evaluate this data are developing.”
Another problem is that people may not properly evaluate risk. “We should not confuse increased and decreased risk with absolute certainties. The classic example is smoking and lung cancer; we all know of nonsmokers who get lung cancer. Nothing is an absolute,” says Nicholas Katsanis, PhD, director of the Center for Human Disease Modeling at the Institute of Genetic Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine.
Katsanis is also concerned that the rush to practice may affect the nature of genetic research. He says, “We don’t know what questions we haven’t asked yet. We should not ignore anything that will allow us to make a paradigm shift.”
Both Katsanis and McCarty point out that knowledge of your genome isn’t necessary to practice basic, sensible self-care. Katsanis notes that a number of mutations have been linked to diabetes risk. But so is having a large waist, he says. “That’s best addressed through diet and exercise,” he adds, “no matter what your genetic mutations are.”
Let me save you some heartache, then some money--health insurance carriers are not going to cover this testing unless it's requested by a doctor to look for a specific disease, then you may be dropped form coverage if you turn out to be positive for it. If you really REALLY want this test, prepare to pay cash for it.
Now for the money-saving: you don't really need this test to tell you something your own relatives can tell you for free. Talk to them, and have long conversations about who has or had what, when, and if it was ever resolved. Write everything down, and then search your own life and the lives of your children for similar symptoms and problems, then search the web to find out what to do about it besides throw drugs at the problem.
Sometimes, simply eating correctly, or NOT eating something will do the trick.
As far as the Eat Right books go, they helped me whittle down exactly what beans and grains I should be eating, but even whittling them down to the few, and soaking them overnight in an acid medium as suggested in WAPF, I was still having trouble with these foods, so I just gave them up entirely.
This is what leads me to my question about native diets and the U.S.--since most of us are from somewhere else, do we follow our individual ancestry to determine our own "native" diets, or do we just fall back to the generic caveman diet? The Eat Right books suggest we follow our genomic ancestry and eat like they did (according to blood type), regardless of where we live now.
I have caveman blood (Type 0-), so just how far back should I go? I chose the furthest--back to the cave. It's a whole lot cheaper, and easier on the allergies.
Getting Rid of Your Excuses Not to Exercise
From the Rancho Bernardo (CA) Patch.
"It seems that the hardest part of incorporating physical activity into your day is removing all the barriers that keep you sedentary. The typical reasons people say they are not physically active are:
Lack of time
Lack of energy
Social influence
Fear of injury
Lack of skill
Lack of resources
Lack of willpower/motivation
Weather conditions
Retirement years
Inconsistent work schedule
As you can see, there is no shortage of barriers to physical activity, but that doesn’t mean these barriers need to stop you from getting your daily allotment of exercise. The first step in overcoming physical activity barriers is to identify the top reason you don’t exercise and develop a specific plan to overcome that barrier.
I think one of the most common reasons people don’t exercise is a lack of time, so here are some suggestions and examples of how you can strategize to overcome this barrier.
Write down your schedule on paper so you can see exactly what your day looks like. Look for times during your day when you could stop and exercise. For example:
Walk your kids to school instead of drive.
Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
Take a shorter lunch and go for a walk.
Get to work earlier so you can go to the gym on your way home.
Another reason people report not being physically active is that they feel self-conscious while they exercise. Gyms can be very intimidating and walking around your neighborhood may not be something you are comfortable with. If this is a concern for you, then assess what resources you have. There are many personal trainers that will come to your home or work out in small groups. There are classes and gyms specifically designed for different ages and genders that might work for you. Another way to overcome the social barrier is to work out with a friend or someone you feel comfortable with.
No matter what your barrier to physical activity is, there are lots of ways you can strategize and plan to improve your level of fitness. It all starts with you making a plan and setting goals to improve your activity level."
What if you don't have the use of all your limbs, or are beset with incurable chronic pain? I'm not--I'm just lazy, but others aren't.
I'm trying to work out a way to dump the satellite and TV, rearrange the living room, and fit in some sort of walking device: treadmill, stair stepper, or elliptical machine. Trouble is, though, I'd be throwing out the only visual distraction I'd have for myself.
Maybe if I could figure out how to get the internet on my TV, I could rig up Hulu and just watch my shows AND stride away for an hour or so a day...it'll come to me eventually. In the meantime, there's always the push-pull-drag lawn mower, and my own yard plus the neighbor's yard.
"It seems that the hardest part of incorporating physical activity into your day is removing all the barriers that keep you sedentary. The typical reasons people say they are not physically active are:
Lack of time
Lack of energy
Social influence
Fear of injury
Lack of skill
Lack of resources
Lack of willpower/motivation
Weather conditions
Retirement years
Inconsistent work schedule
As you can see, there is no shortage of barriers to physical activity, but that doesn’t mean these barriers need to stop you from getting your daily allotment of exercise. The first step in overcoming physical activity barriers is to identify the top reason you don’t exercise and develop a specific plan to overcome that barrier.
I think one of the most common reasons people don’t exercise is a lack of time, so here are some suggestions and examples of how you can strategize to overcome this barrier.
Write down your schedule on paper so you can see exactly what your day looks like. Look for times during your day when you could stop and exercise. For example:
Walk your kids to school instead of drive.
Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
Take a shorter lunch and go for a walk.
Get to work earlier so you can go to the gym on your way home.
Another reason people report not being physically active is that they feel self-conscious while they exercise. Gyms can be very intimidating and walking around your neighborhood may not be something you are comfortable with. If this is a concern for you, then assess what resources you have. There are many personal trainers that will come to your home or work out in small groups. There are classes and gyms specifically designed for different ages and genders that might work for you. Another way to overcome the social barrier is to work out with a friend or someone you feel comfortable with.
No matter what your barrier to physical activity is, there are lots of ways you can strategize and plan to improve your level of fitness. It all starts with you making a plan and setting goals to improve your activity level."
What if you don't have the use of all your limbs, or are beset with incurable chronic pain? I'm not--I'm just lazy, but others aren't.
I'm trying to work out a way to dump the satellite and TV, rearrange the living room, and fit in some sort of walking device: treadmill, stair stepper, or elliptical machine. Trouble is, though, I'd be throwing out the only visual distraction I'd have for myself.
Maybe if I could figure out how to get the internet on my TV, I could rig up Hulu and just watch my shows AND stride away for an hour or so a day...it'll come to me eventually. In the meantime, there's always the push-pull-drag lawn mower, and my own yard plus the neighbor's yard.
Exercise, Healthy Diet Vital to Fighting Obesity
From St. Louis Today (KS, MO--pick one).
"A couple of years ago, I was fortunate to attend a symposium that discussed the problem of poor nutrition and physical inactivity in today's society.
One of the many things I learned at the symposium is that over the past 20 years, unhealthy behaviors, including physical inactivity and unhealthy eating habits, have led to an epidemic of obesity and related chronic disease in the United States. That fact remains constant today.
Obesity is associated with a series of chronic health conditions, including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, breast cancer, colon cancer, gall bladder disease, arthritis, sleep disturbances and breathing problems. Our nation is in the middle of a serious health crisis that reduces the quality of life for millions of Americans. If we fail to curb the obesity epidemic, the youth of today will likely have a lower life expectancy than their parents, which will reverse a trend that has been increasing for nearly two centuries.
Here are a few startling statistics worth highlighting:
• For children born in the United States, one in three will develop diabetes in their lifetime.
• Sixty-five percent of all people age 20 and older are overweight or obese. Since 1991, the prevalence of obesity among adults has increased by more than 75 percent.
• More than 50 percent of American adults do not get enough physical activity to make a difference in their health.
• During 2005, only 36 percent of high school students met currently recommended levels of physical activity five days a week.
• During 2005, 80 percent of high school students had not eaten five or more fruits and vegetables daily and 67 percent did not attend physical education classes daily.
• Based on figures from 2000, health problems related to obesity cost American society an estimated $117 billion a year due to direct health care costs, as well as the indirect economic costs of lost productivity. While this figure is alarming, what is even more disturbing is that hospital costs related to childhood obesity alone have tripled in the last 20 years.
Although chronic diseases are prevalent in our society, much of the chronic disease burden is preventable. Health care must begin at home with proper nutrition and exercise. As community leaders, we must all do our part to educate the public that they are responsible for their own health. Unhealthy behaviors, including physical inactivity and unhealthy eating, have led to an epidemic of obesity and related chronic health conditions in O'Fallon. In order to curb this epidemic and to reduce health care costs for our families and our businesses, it is critical to promote regular physical activity and healthy eating habits, and to build environments that support these behaviors.
For example, we have incorporated sidewalks, bike trails, traffic calming and mixed-use development in our community's physical design so more people can safely be active. Employers should allocate time for employees to exercise during their lunch break or throughout the day. As a society, we need to ensure that these types of strategies are adopted so that it is easier for all Americans, young and old, to have an active lifestyle, eat healthier and do their part to reduce health care costs.
I encourage you to get outside and ride your bike or take a walk around your neighborhood and enjoy the wonderful spring weather.
The health and safety of our residents and their loved ones is very important to me, and by working together, we can overcome the obesity crisis and keep our loved ones by our sides for years to come."
Not in my neighborhood--sometimes there is no sidewalk, or maybe the sidewalk only goes around the corner and stops three houses down, or there are questionable characters doing questionable things on the sidewalk (like drug deals). That's why our lovely city built gyms and pool facilities...but didn't anticipate the demand for these things going through the roof 20 or 30 years later, and as a consequence, there isn't enough parking outside them.
Then we wonder why we spend hundreds on exercise equipment (whose actions mimic a hamster in a wheel--non-productive movement) that quickly turns into exotic coat racks!
Occasionally you hear talk about building more facilities, but you never hear talk of simply building more sidewalks, which would probably be cheaper and easier.
This is one of the perils of living in an older town on the East Coast. The West Coast has such sophistication as bike lanes, special bike trails, public bike racks, and the like. If we had that stuff here, there probably would be a whole lot fewer questionable characters on the sidewalks, because riding a bike around here would become safer (and faster) than riding the bus.
Prior articles: Obesity Battle Begins With the Shopping Cart, The Two Sides of Malnourishment, Obesity Epidemic Extends to Inanimate Objects, Cost Savings Add to Value of Preventing Chronic Disease, The More Mom Works, the Heavier Kids Get.
"A couple of years ago, I was fortunate to attend a symposium that discussed the problem of poor nutrition and physical inactivity in today's society.
One of the many things I learned at the symposium is that over the past 20 years, unhealthy behaviors, including physical inactivity and unhealthy eating habits, have led to an epidemic of obesity and related chronic disease in the United States. That fact remains constant today.
Obesity is associated with a series of chronic health conditions, including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, breast cancer, colon cancer, gall bladder disease, arthritis, sleep disturbances and breathing problems. Our nation is in the middle of a serious health crisis that reduces the quality of life for millions of Americans. If we fail to curb the obesity epidemic, the youth of today will likely have a lower life expectancy than their parents, which will reverse a trend that has been increasing for nearly two centuries.
Here are a few startling statistics worth highlighting:
• For children born in the United States, one in three will develop diabetes in their lifetime.
• Sixty-five percent of all people age 20 and older are overweight or obese. Since 1991, the prevalence of obesity among adults has increased by more than 75 percent.
• More than 50 percent of American adults do not get enough physical activity to make a difference in their health.
• During 2005, only 36 percent of high school students met currently recommended levels of physical activity five days a week.
• During 2005, 80 percent of high school students had not eaten five or more fruits and vegetables daily and 67 percent did not attend physical education classes daily.
• Based on figures from 2000, health problems related to obesity cost American society an estimated $117 billion a year due to direct health care costs, as well as the indirect economic costs of lost productivity. While this figure is alarming, what is even more disturbing is that hospital costs related to childhood obesity alone have tripled in the last 20 years.
Although chronic diseases are prevalent in our society, much of the chronic disease burden is preventable. Health care must begin at home with proper nutrition and exercise. As community leaders, we must all do our part to educate the public that they are responsible for their own health. Unhealthy behaviors, including physical inactivity and unhealthy eating, have led to an epidemic of obesity and related chronic health conditions in O'Fallon. In order to curb this epidemic and to reduce health care costs for our families and our businesses, it is critical to promote regular physical activity and healthy eating habits, and to build environments that support these behaviors.
For example, we have incorporated sidewalks, bike trails, traffic calming and mixed-use development in our community's physical design so more people can safely be active. Employers should allocate time for employees to exercise during their lunch break or throughout the day. As a society, we need to ensure that these types of strategies are adopted so that it is easier for all Americans, young and old, to have an active lifestyle, eat healthier and do their part to reduce health care costs.
I encourage you to get outside and ride your bike or take a walk around your neighborhood and enjoy the wonderful spring weather.
The health and safety of our residents and their loved ones is very important to me, and by working together, we can overcome the obesity crisis and keep our loved ones by our sides for years to come."
Not in my neighborhood--sometimes there is no sidewalk, or maybe the sidewalk only goes around the corner and stops three houses down, or there are questionable characters doing questionable things on the sidewalk (like drug deals). That's why our lovely city built gyms and pool facilities...but didn't anticipate the demand for these things going through the roof 20 or 30 years later, and as a consequence, there isn't enough parking outside them.
Then we wonder why we spend hundreds on exercise equipment (whose actions mimic a hamster in a wheel--non-productive movement) that quickly turns into exotic coat racks!
Occasionally you hear talk about building more facilities, but you never hear talk of simply building more sidewalks, which would probably be cheaper and easier.
This is one of the perils of living in an older town on the East Coast. The West Coast has such sophistication as bike lanes, special bike trails, public bike racks, and the like. If we had that stuff here, there probably would be a whole lot fewer questionable characters on the sidewalks, because riding a bike around here would become safer (and faster) than riding the bus.
Prior articles: Obesity Battle Begins With the Shopping Cart, The Two Sides of Malnourishment, Obesity Epidemic Extends to Inanimate Objects, Cost Savings Add to Value of Preventing Chronic Disease, The More Mom Works, the Heavier Kids Get.
Be a Weedeater, Straight From Your Back Yard (L-O-N-G)
From Austin 360.
"If you're a food gardener (and even if you aren't), I'm sure you've noticed that the plants you didn't plant are almost always the first to leap to life and start multiplying at the first hint of spring. You know the ones I'm talking about: chickweed, henbit, dandelions. Also cleavers (aka sticky weed) and wood sorrel (the cloverlike plants with the heart-shaped leaves).
During especially wet springs (remember when we used to have those?), a few sunny days is all that's needed for these annual and almost always assertive springtime guests to weave themselves into a stubborn green mat that can't be dislodged without a lot of serious yanking and whacking. However, with this spring's drought, the weeds in my yard have been mild-mannered, slow to grow and, consequently, easy to gather and eat in a mixed-greens salad or a fruit smoothie or a savory flan. Yes, I'm eating weeds. Or rather, I should say, I'm giving weeds in my yard a chance at the table. I don't want to eat just any old green thing that pops up out of the dirt. I'm in search of wild plants that are palatable, as well as edible.
The fact that my spring vegetable garden is still a not-quite-ready-to-harvest work in progress (following one of the Austin area's coldest winters ever) has made this month's foray into weed-eating all the more timely and interesting. Back in the days before H-E-Bs and Randalls, subsistence farmers made do with what they had and what they could forage during periods of uncooperative weather. But I bet they didn't eat henbit. Or if they did, I bet they ate all the chickweed, dandelions and wild sorrel first.
Hunting and gathering wild foods is nothing new, of course. In some corners of the world, it has remained a necessity. In our corner, though, the urge to live simply off the wild fruits of the land seems to ebb and flow depending on the priorities of each generation. At the moment, with interest in food safety, food quality, food democracy and food prices at a seemingly all-time high, it is perhaps no great surprise that passions (ancestral perhaps?) for wild foods and foraging are re-emerging. After all, wild foods are the freshest, most seasonal, least processed, most local, most natural foods imaginable. They're packed with vitamins and minerals, and you don't have to worry about how to recycle the package they came in. And they're free - unless of course you're having dinner at a fine-dining establishment where a passionate and creative chef is taking chickweed to places it's never been before. And if you should decide to fly to Copenhagen, Denmark, to dine at Noma, a small restaurant that recently won the world's best restaurant award from The Restaurant magazine, you can expect to drop more than a few extra dollars for an exotic meal of wild Nordic things. The menu there includes only foods native to the region; and the chef, René Redzepi, 32, often forages for the wild foods himself.
And finally, one last little tidbit that makes me smile: Foodies and food bloggers are rediscovering the 1960s and '70s work of wild food icon Euell Gibbons ("Stalking the Wild Asparagus"). They're quoting him in their wild food blogs and YouTube videos, and they're snapping up copies of his books. I like to imagine the spirit of the late Texan sitting on a stump in the Piney Woods, saying "See? I told you many parts of the pine tree are edible."
OK, enough about trends and such. This month of eating weeds has been enlightening and a lot of fun. When wild plant experts and master chroniclers Scooter Cheatham and Lynn Marshall introduced me to parietaria, a tiny-leafed, low-growing ground cover that tastes just like cucumber, I was thrilled. What an adorable little plant, and it's growing all by itself in a totally neglected, and unwatered, part of my yard. I also learned (again thanks to Cheatham and Marshall) that my yard contains two other edible leafy greens - wild lettuce and sow thistle - in addition to the tried-and-true dandelions. And thanks to herbalist Ellen Zimmerman, I actually drank a whole glass of icy green liquid made in part with sticky weed. Sticky weed is not likely to become my favorite wild edible, but I'm glad to know it's good for something besides sticking to my garden boots. And finally (thanks to master gardener and forager Amy Crowell), I learned that one of my favorite spring blooming native plants - spiderwort, or tradescantia - sports a flower that's just as tasty as it is beautiful.
So although at first I wondered if my month of eating weeds might turn out to be a one-time deal for the sake of column fodder, I'm now pretty sure I'll be revisiting the topic. Maybe when I start scouting around for something wild and edible in the fall and winter garden. But not henbit. Anything but henbit.
If you're new to foraging, play it safe
Poisonous look-alike plants can fool you - and kill you - if you're a beginner. Before trying your hand at foraging for wild foods, consider taking a class. Or at the very least, show your plant finds to an experienced forager before you taste them. Two varieties of hemlock are common on roadsides and in wild areas of Central Texas. Both of the plants resemble wild carrots (aka Queen Anne's lace) and wild parsnips. And yes, by hemlock, I mean the notoriously deadly plant that killed Socrates. So unless you're foraging with a wild plant expert, stay away from wild plants that look like carrots, parsnips or parsley until you have absolutely no doubt about which is which. Crow poison is another look-alike plant that can fool inexperienced foragers. Crow poison resembles wild onion, but a few bites can make you very sick. Wild onions almost always smell oniony if you break a stem or scratch a bulb. Crow poison doesn't smell oniony; it smells green and musky. If in doubt, leave the plant alone.
Also worth mentioning: If you're sampling wild edibles for the first time, start with small amounts to make sure you're not allergic. In addition, a number of wild spring greens, including sorrel, contain oxalic acid. Oxalic acid is also present in cultivated spinach and Swiss chard. Oxalic acid, if consumed often in large portions, can interfere with the body's calcium absorption and cause kidney stones in some people.
One man's invasive bastard cabbage is another man's dinner (Or, if you can't beat it, eat it)
• One of Central Texas' most despised weeds - bastard cabbage - might not be the most palatable member of the cabbage family, but in a pinch, it can be harvested and eaten. The plant seems to prefer popping up in roadsides rather than urban yards or gardens, but should the dreaded scourge reach your yard, try this: Pick a big handful of the youngest, most tender leaves. Wash them well and drain. To a hot skillet, add 1 Tbsp. olive oil. Then add wild cabbage leaves, along with a generous pinch of salt, freshly grated black pepper, a small sprinkle of cayenne pepper and a clove of garlic, crushed and chopped. Stir and cook greens for just a few seconds, then turn off heat and cover pan. When greens are wilted (only takes a minute or less), serve immediately topped with crisp bacon crumbles and a splash of white wine vinegar. Note: Don't harvest the wild cabbage that grows along roadsides unless you know for sure that it hasn't been treated with herbicides or pesticides.
• Wild cabbage, or Rapistrum rugosum, is one of many wild plants used in traditional Mediterranean cuisine. In fact, it is still a popular wild food in a number of Italian communities, according to a 2007 study by a team of ethnobiologists at the University of Palermo.
• Earlier this year, New York Times writer James Gorman featured a number of environmentally conscious foodies who are turning their attention and their appetites to wild plants and animals that are considered invasive. Gorman calls these eco-minded eaters invasivores. Bothered by feral hogs? Eat them. Starlings chasing away your purple martins? Eat them, too. Not all invasives are edible, of course. So be sure you know what you're harvesting before you plan a wild eco-feast."
...
"Local chef stalking wild food and foragers
Chef Paul Hargrove is looking to expand his menu at Trace Restaurant in W Austin with wild edibles from around Austin. In a brief email exchange, he told me he's hoping to connect with experienced local foragers as well as local farmers. "On my first visit to Springdale Farm, I noted that I would be interested in picking up some of their `byproducts,' like okra flowers or the basil blossoms, and they were really surprised that I would be interested in that, but those are some of the things I like to work with."
Master gardener and forager Amy Crowell has brought Hargrove a few wild plants, but her foraging time is limited right now by other commitments. Hargrove, who cooked in Louisiana, Florida and New York before landing at Trace last year, says he'd like to hear from more local foragers. "I know Texas has thousands of amazing wild edibles out there just waiting to be rediscovered and brought into a dining atmosphere. I look forward to working with Amy and others like her in the future. If there are any out there doing the same thing, I would encourage them to come by with product so we could see what is around. This process will take time to really get a rhythm going, but it is one that I passionately stand behind.
"Finding those region specific plants and animals is what makes eating locally so exciting for me," he said.
So far, the only local wild edible Hargrove has experimented with is henbit. I told him I was having a hard time liking henbit and asked if he has found a way to make it palatable. Crowell "only brought me a very small amount," he said, "but I made a quick oil with it and lightly fried some of the leaves, and they weren't bad." To make the oil, he pulverized the henbit with a mortar and pestle and then mixed it with a little Texas olive oil. "It brings a light peppery quality to the oil," he said. "It's subtle; not much to really sell it on. I think it would be good with fish, though."
OK, chef. I'm going to give that a try. Maybe I can acquire a taste for this little weed after all.
- Renee Studebaker
The following are a few simple preparations I used to get a taste of some of the wild foods growing in my backyard this month. These plants might or might not be growing in your backyard, depending on what part of town you're in and how much your native soil has been altered. I hesitate to call these dishes recipes. In most cases, they were whipped up in the moment - with whatever complementary ingredients I happened to have on hand - taking into account advice from the wild food advisers I consulted. My goal was to prepare simple dishes that tasted good and that would spotlight the best flavors and textures of the wild ingredients. Now that I know I have a wealth of wild edibles just outside my back door, I know I'll be able to step outside most times of the year and find something worth experimenting with anytime I'm in the mood to get wild in the kitchen. So, who knows how these dishes will evolve?
Served all together, the following dishes would make a fun and tasty spring brunch. Just add a plate of seasonal fruit.
Wild Backyard Greens Salad
Gardener and wild food forager Amy Crowell arrived at my house on a recent Saturday morning with a bag full of just-picked greens and leaves from her backyard. Her mix included chickweed, wood sorrel and wild mallow leaves. She also had a small bucket full of long strappy spiderwort leaves (which I didn't know were edible) and a pile of redbud blossoms. After foraging for a bit in my yard, we were able to add wild onions, violet leaves and a different variety of wood sorrel to the mix. The strongest flavors came from dandelions (slightly bitter), wood sorrel (lemony, crisp) and wild onions (very oniony). Chickweed added a neutral-flavored crunch, and the violets contributed a deep green color and a very mild, understated flavor. The mallow leaves surprised me. Their texture and flavor reminded me of raw okra, without all the goo. The spiderwort leaves weren't my favorites - a little too juicy and grassy. (I have since learned, however, that I do like the spiderwort's flowers. Next time I make some version of this salad, I'll use flowers instead of the leaves.) To dress the salad, I made vinaigrette from a purée of raw wood sorrel and wild onion leaves, apple cider vinegar, a splash of tawny port, a teaspoon of honey, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, a dash of salt and several tablespoons of olive oil.
- Renee Studebaker and Amy Crowell
Eggs with Chickweed, Wild Onions and Sorrel
I tried to get all fancy and make a savory wild onion flan (pictured above) topped with sautéed mushrooms and sorrel sauce and garnished with spiderwort flowers. I got very close to coming up with something that was really, really good. But before I share that recipe, I need to do a little more finessing. Meanwhile, you can sample the different flavors and texture combinations of these ingredients by playing around with any classic scrambled-egg recipe. Try pouring your favorite egg mixture into a warm pan of chopped wild onion that has been sautéed lightly in butter or oil. Cook and stir over medium heat until the eggs are almost set but still soft. Stir in a handful of coarsely chopped raw wood sorrel leaves, cook for a few seconds more and then serve immediately topped with a garnish of raw whole chickweed leaves and sorrel leaves. For extra flavor, sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.
- Renee Studebaker
Spring Tonic of Cleavers and Chickweed
The day Ellen Zimmerman visited my kitchen, she arrived with a bag of dock leaves (a wild edible similar to sorrel that I don't have in my yard) to make a rejuvenating cleavers-and-chickweed smoothie. (I supplied the cleavers and the chickweed - no shortage of these in my yard.) She usually makes her tonic with frozen Hill Country peaches. But to keep it more seasonal, we tried making it with fresh strawberries instead. The result was pretty good, but not quite sweet enough, and a little too grassy. So we added honey and it got better. More and sweeter fruit would have made it even tastier. Now I understand why Zimmerman likes it best with peaches. If you're ready to drink some of your backyard weeds, give this drink a try. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. And the bonus? You get a big vitamin and mineral boost from these greens - plus up to 8 grams of vegetable protein.
1 cup tender young chickweed leaves, washed and drained
1 cup cleavers, torn or sliced into pieces, stems and all; younger plants that haven't bloomed yet are best
A handful of dock leaves, washed and drained
1 to 11/2 cups of your favorite frozen smoothie fruits
Honey to taste, if needed for additional sweetening
1/4 cup of filtered water, to help with processing of greens
In a blender, process yard greens and water until smooth. Press through a strainer into a separate bowl. Rinse green bits from blender, add strained green juice, frozen fruit and honey, if using. Process until smooth and serve immediately.
- Adapted from a recipe by Ellen Zimmerman, certified herbalist"
"If you're a food gardener (and even if you aren't), I'm sure you've noticed that the plants you didn't plant are almost always the first to leap to life and start multiplying at the first hint of spring. You know the ones I'm talking about: chickweed, henbit, dandelions. Also cleavers (aka sticky weed) and wood sorrel (the cloverlike plants with the heart-shaped leaves).
During especially wet springs (remember when we used to have those?), a few sunny days is all that's needed for these annual and almost always assertive springtime guests to weave themselves into a stubborn green mat that can't be dislodged without a lot of serious yanking and whacking. However, with this spring's drought, the weeds in my yard have been mild-mannered, slow to grow and, consequently, easy to gather and eat in a mixed-greens salad or a fruit smoothie or a savory flan. Yes, I'm eating weeds. Or rather, I should say, I'm giving weeds in my yard a chance at the table. I don't want to eat just any old green thing that pops up out of the dirt. I'm in search of wild plants that are palatable, as well as edible.
The fact that my spring vegetable garden is still a not-quite-ready-to-harvest work in progress (following one of the Austin area's coldest winters ever) has made this month's foray into weed-eating all the more timely and interesting. Back in the days before H-E-Bs and Randalls, subsistence farmers made do with what they had and what they could forage during periods of uncooperative weather. But I bet they didn't eat henbit. Or if they did, I bet they ate all the chickweed, dandelions and wild sorrel first.
Hunting and gathering wild foods is nothing new, of course. In some corners of the world, it has remained a necessity. In our corner, though, the urge to live simply off the wild fruits of the land seems to ebb and flow depending on the priorities of each generation. At the moment, with interest in food safety, food quality, food democracy and food prices at a seemingly all-time high, it is perhaps no great surprise that passions (ancestral perhaps?) for wild foods and foraging are re-emerging. After all, wild foods are the freshest, most seasonal, least processed, most local, most natural foods imaginable. They're packed with vitamins and minerals, and you don't have to worry about how to recycle the package they came in. And they're free - unless of course you're having dinner at a fine-dining establishment where a passionate and creative chef is taking chickweed to places it's never been before. And if you should decide to fly to Copenhagen, Denmark, to dine at Noma, a small restaurant that recently won the world's best restaurant award from The Restaurant magazine, you can expect to drop more than a few extra dollars for an exotic meal of wild Nordic things. The menu there includes only foods native to the region; and the chef, René Redzepi, 32, often forages for the wild foods himself.
And finally, one last little tidbit that makes me smile: Foodies and food bloggers are rediscovering the 1960s and '70s work of wild food icon Euell Gibbons ("Stalking the Wild Asparagus"). They're quoting him in their wild food blogs and YouTube videos, and they're snapping up copies of his books. I like to imagine the spirit of the late Texan sitting on a stump in the Piney Woods, saying "See? I told you many parts of the pine tree are edible."
So although at first I wondered if my month of eating weeds might turn out to be a one-time deal for the sake of column fodder, I'm now pretty sure I'll be revisiting the topic. Maybe when I start scouting around for something wild and edible in the fall and winter garden. But not henbit. Anything but henbit.
If you're new to foraging, play it safe
Poisonous look-alike plants can fool you - and kill you - if you're a beginner. Before trying your hand at foraging for wild foods, consider taking a class. Or at the very least, show your plant finds to an experienced forager before you taste them. Two varieties of hemlock are common on roadsides and in wild areas of Central Texas. Both of the plants resemble wild carrots (aka Queen Anne's lace) and wild parsnips. And yes, by hemlock, I mean the notoriously deadly plant that killed Socrates. So unless you're foraging with a wild plant expert, stay away from wild plants that look like carrots, parsnips or parsley until you have absolutely no doubt about which is which. Crow poison is another look-alike plant that can fool inexperienced foragers. Crow poison resembles wild onion, but a few bites can make you very sick. Wild onions almost always smell oniony if you break a stem or scratch a bulb. Crow poison doesn't smell oniony; it smells green and musky. If in doubt, leave the plant alone.
Also worth mentioning: If you're sampling wild edibles for the first time, start with small amounts to make sure you're not allergic. In addition, a number of wild spring greens, including sorrel, contain oxalic acid. Oxalic acid is also present in cultivated spinach and Swiss chard. Oxalic acid, if consumed often in large portions, can interfere with the body's calcium absorption and cause kidney stones in some people.
One man's invasive bastard cabbage is another man's dinner (Or, if you can't beat it, eat it)
• One of Central Texas' most despised weeds - bastard cabbage - might not be the most palatable member of the cabbage family, but in a pinch, it can be harvested and eaten. The plant seems to prefer popping up in roadsides rather than urban yards or gardens, but should the dreaded scourge reach your yard, try this: Pick a big handful of the youngest, most tender leaves. Wash them well and drain. To a hot skillet, add 1 Tbsp. olive oil. Then add wild cabbage leaves, along with a generous pinch of salt, freshly grated black pepper, a small sprinkle of cayenne pepper and a clove of garlic, crushed and chopped. Stir and cook greens for just a few seconds, then turn off heat and cover pan. When greens are wilted (only takes a minute or less), serve immediately topped with crisp bacon crumbles and a splash of white wine vinegar. Note: Don't harvest the wild cabbage that grows along roadsides unless you know for sure that it hasn't been treated with herbicides or pesticides.
• Wild cabbage, or Rapistrum rugosum, is one of many wild plants used in traditional Mediterranean cuisine. In fact, it is still a popular wild food in a number of Italian communities, according to a 2007 study by a team of ethnobiologists at the University of Palermo.
• Earlier this year, New York Times writer James Gorman featured a number of environmentally conscious foodies who are turning their attention and their appetites to wild plants and animals that are considered invasive. Gorman calls these eco-minded eaters invasivores. Bothered by feral hogs? Eat them. Starlings chasing away your purple martins? Eat them, too. Not all invasives are edible, of course. So be sure you know what you're harvesting before you plan a wild eco-feast."
...
"Local chef stalking wild food and foragers
Chef Paul Hargrove is looking to expand his menu at Trace Restaurant in W Austin with wild edibles from around Austin. In a brief email exchange, he told me he's hoping to connect with experienced local foragers as well as local farmers. "On my first visit to Springdale Farm, I noted that I would be interested in picking up some of their `byproducts,' like okra flowers or the basil blossoms, and they were really surprised that I would be interested in that, but those are some of the things I like to work with."
Master gardener and forager Amy Crowell has brought Hargrove a few wild plants, but her foraging time is limited right now by other commitments. Hargrove, who cooked in Louisiana, Florida and New York before landing at Trace last year, says he'd like to hear from more local foragers. "I know Texas has thousands of amazing wild edibles out there just waiting to be rediscovered and brought into a dining atmosphere. I look forward to working with Amy and others like her in the future. If there are any out there doing the same thing, I would encourage them to come by with product so we could see what is around. This process will take time to really get a rhythm going, but it is one that I passionately stand behind.
"Finding those region specific plants and animals is what makes eating locally so exciting for me," he said.
So far, the only local wild edible Hargrove has experimented with is henbit. I told him I was having a hard time liking henbit and asked if he has found a way to make it palatable. Crowell "only brought me a very small amount," he said, "but I made a quick oil with it and lightly fried some of the leaves, and they weren't bad." To make the oil, he pulverized the henbit with a mortar and pestle and then mixed it with a little Texas olive oil. "It brings a light peppery quality to the oil," he said. "It's subtle; not much to really sell it on. I think it would be good with fish, though."
OK, chef. I'm going to give that a try. Maybe I can acquire a taste for this little weed after all.
- Renee Studebaker
The following are a few simple preparations I used to get a taste of some of the wild foods growing in my backyard this month. These plants might or might not be growing in your backyard, depending on what part of town you're in and how much your native soil has been altered. I hesitate to call these dishes recipes. In most cases, they were whipped up in the moment - with whatever complementary ingredients I happened to have on hand - taking into account advice from the wild food advisers I consulted. My goal was to prepare simple dishes that tasted good and that would spotlight the best flavors and textures of the wild ingredients. Now that I know I have a wealth of wild edibles just outside my back door, I know I'll be able to step outside most times of the year and find something worth experimenting with anytime I'm in the mood to get wild in the kitchen. So, who knows how these dishes will evolve?
Served all together, the following dishes would make a fun and tasty spring brunch. Just add a plate of seasonal fruit.
Wild Backyard Greens Salad
Gardener and wild food forager Amy Crowell arrived at my house on a recent Saturday morning with a bag full of just-picked greens and leaves from her backyard. Her mix included chickweed, wood sorrel and wild mallow leaves. She also had a small bucket full of long strappy spiderwort leaves (which I didn't know were edible) and a pile of redbud blossoms. After foraging for a bit in my yard, we were able to add wild onions, violet leaves and a different variety of wood sorrel to the mix. The strongest flavors came from dandelions (slightly bitter), wood sorrel (lemony, crisp) and wild onions (very oniony). Chickweed added a neutral-flavored crunch, and the violets contributed a deep green color and a very mild, understated flavor. The mallow leaves surprised me. Their texture and flavor reminded me of raw okra, without all the goo. The spiderwort leaves weren't my favorites - a little too juicy and grassy. (I have since learned, however, that I do like the spiderwort's flowers. Next time I make some version of this salad, I'll use flowers instead of the leaves.) To dress the salad, I made vinaigrette from a purée of raw wood sorrel and wild onion leaves, apple cider vinegar, a splash of tawny port, a teaspoon of honey, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, a dash of salt and several tablespoons of olive oil.
- Renee Studebaker and Amy Crowell
Eggs with Chickweed, Wild Onions and Sorrel
I tried to get all fancy and make a savory wild onion flan (pictured above) topped with sautéed mushrooms and sorrel sauce and garnished with spiderwort flowers. I got very close to coming up with something that was really, really good. But before I share that recipe, I need to do a little more finessing. Meanwhile, you can sample the different flavors and texture combinations of these ingredients by playing around with any classic scrambled-egg recipe. Try pouring your favorite egg mixture into a warm pan of chopped wild onion that has been sautéed lightly in butter or oil. Cook and stir over medium heat until the eggs are almost set but still soft. Stir in a handful of coarsely chopped raw wood sorrel leaves, cook for a few seconds more and then serve immediately topped with a garnish of raw whole chickweed leaves and sorrel leaves. For extra flavor, sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.
- Renee Studebaker
Spring Tonic of Cleavers and Chickweed
The day Ellen Zimmerman visited my kitchen, she arrived with a bag of dock leaves (a wild edible similar to sorrel that I don't have in my yard) to make a rejuvenating cleavers-and-chickweed smoothie. (I supplied the cleavers and the chickweed - no shortage of these in my yard.) She usually makes her tonic with frozen Hill Country peaches. But to keep it more seasonal, we tried making it with fresh strawberries instead. The result was pretty good, but not quite sweet enough, and a little too grassy. So we added honey and it got better. More and sweeter fruit would have made it even tastier. Now I understand why Zimmerman likes it best with peaches. If you're ready to drink some of your backyard weeds, give this drink a try. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. And the bonus? You get a big vitamin and mineral boost from these greens - plus up to 8 grams of vegetable protein.
1 cup tender young chickweed leaves, washed and drained
1 cup cleavers, torn or sliced into pieces, stems and all; younger plants that haven't bloomed yet are best
A handful of dock leaves, washed and drained
1 to 11/2 cups of your favorite frozen smoothie fruits
Honey to taste, if needed for additional sweetening
1/4 cup of filtered water, to help with processing of greens
In a blender, process yard greens and water until smooth. Press through a strainer into a separate bowl. Rinse green bits from blender, add strained green juice, frozen fruit and honey, if using. Process until smooth and serve immediately.
- Adapted from a recipe by Ellen Zimmerman, certified herbalist"
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
"All I'll Ever Know I Learned Way Back in Medical School"
This is one thing your doctor isn’t telling you, and won’t ever tell you. As medical students progress through their training, they are taught the latest techniques and to use the latest medicines…for the time. The only ones really up to date on their knowledge are the young researchers, but they realize it’s only a new piece to the overall health progression picture, and they, too, are going to lose ground to even younger researchers.
Sure, doctors may read articles, and attend conferences, but the time between articles and actual practice/implementation could be years. That's time you don't have to wait.
Doctors today have specialized and sub-specialized themselves so far away from the goal of overall health that it is no longer funny. The drive for money has caused them to do this—people will pay more for specific organ/disease/malfunction maintenance and repair than for general overseeing. Because of this over-specialization, more classes are required for the particular field of specialization, leaving less time, interest, and focus on nutrition—even as a healing source. On average, doctors today only get one class in nutrition, and it’s usually way back in the early years of medical school training. Most, if all, are never encouraged to incorporate nutrition in their patient practice, and seldom, if ever, refer their patients to a nutritionist or dietician.
Why not a dietician or nutritionist, you ask? Simple. It would interfere with the cut and sew/pill sales/HMO feeding mentality of the modern medical profession. The hospitals, clinics, and private practices need money to survive, and it falls to each and every doctor in it to produce their share of billable procedures and prescriptions. Marketing has taken over for common sense and preventative maintenance. Dieticians and nutritionists don’t sell anything for the drug companies, hospitals, clinics, and practices.
Since the medical machine thrives on money, it doesn’t behoove anyone to promote early prevention in the form of proper eating. They want your dollars to go to the pill manufacturers through doctor’s offices instead. They want to be able to cut you open, take things out, put things in, and then bill you for it. Eat right? Naw…it would only derail the machine.
This machine is one that needs derailing. It needs to be turned off. It’s your health…take back control of it from the medical establishment, big industry, and politicians.
Sure, doctors may read articles, and attend conferences, but the time between articles and actual practice/implementation could be years. That's time you don't have to wait.
Why not a dietician or nutritionist, you ask? Simple. It would interfere with the cut and sew/pill sales/HMO feeding mentality of the modern medical profession. The hospitals, clinics, and private practices need money to survive, and it falls to each and every doctor in it to produce their share of billable procedures and prescriptions. Marketing has taken over for common sense and preventative maintenance. Dieticians and nutritionists don’t sell anything for the drug companies, hospitals, clinics, and practices.
This machine is one that needs derailing. It needs to be turned off. It’s your health…take back control of it from the medical establishment, big industry, and politicians.
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