Archive for Live Foods

Nov
12

Separating the Wheat From the Chaff

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[For those of you who have no idea what this means, it is a term used when you winnow the wheat after it is harvested. The chaff, or the hulls, dry straws and stalks, are separated from the grains of wheat – the wheat is stored or taken to the miller for grinding and the straw is used for animal bedding, mulch, and compost. It’s also used as an expression and applied to many different situations.]

So let’s take a dispassionate look at our food and separate the wheat from the chaff. Never mind all the emotion and slinging of mud – let’s get down to basics. Food is our focus activity three or more times a day. We want it to taste good, look good, and nourish us so that we stay well and feel good. We want the wheat without the chaff.

For pretty much the entire history of humans on the earth, food has been a very direct experience. You grew it, you exchanged it with your neighbors, stores carried the staples, and fixing it was up to a person in the house – for the most part. We started to fall in love with convenience, time-savers, prepared foods of all kinds. Life was good and more and more Mommies were out of the kitchen! Suddenly there was a hamburger joint, and a pizza parlor; sometimes even a Chinese restaurant. In the cafeteria, the Lunch Ladies still cooked everything from scratch. Most of the food was supplied locally and it tasted good.

After the extensive interstate road system went in during the Eisenhower years, food was trucked farther and farther. As the distance from field to table increased, so did the preservatives and chemicals in our foods. Even the fresh veggies had to be sprayed to prevent rot on the way to market. No blemishes allowed in our supermarkets!

Industry had it made! Things we love to eat started to be manufactured with chemicals, and esters, and artificial color to the exclusion of all natural ingredients. It was no longer food. As the chemicals increased in our diet, our bodies found it harder and harder to get rid of these toxins fast enough. Every day another load of chemicals came into our bodies; and every day we struggled to rid our bodies of all the chemicals. We also stopped noticing all the small differences in our bodies and in our health.We stopped noticing we just didn’t feel as good as we used to.

Gradually, all the chemicals in our food, in our water, and in our air became so prevalent and common that a new born baby has 200 chemicals in their little bloodstream at birth before ever having the first drink of  Mother’s milk. This is very serious. This means that when that baby takes in food for the first time – even Mother’s milk – that child is increasing the amount of chemicals in their tiny body because it’s in the Mother’s bloodstream as well. Is it any wonder the number of children with chronic conditions of all kinds has gone up so high? For the first time, the prediction is that the parents of today will outlive their children!

So here’s an experiment you can do on your own. Grab one of your favorite foods that is prepared for you. Read what’s on the label and for every ingredient that has a chemical name, look it up. I did it and was shocked by what I found. Sodium benzoate or benzoate of soda is a very common preservative. It’s been in use since I was a child and before. In Wikipedia the description includes the words “a known carcinogen” and says it becomes more toxic when combined with an acid. Like orange juice? Vinegar? Wine? They’re having a party in my tummy!

So go for it, Friends! Keep track of what you are eating. Make a list for the refrigerator and have everyone old enough to read put the ingredients of the food eaten on the list. Check off each ingredient every time you eat it again. One night sit down and look up each item to see what you are eating – and how much of it. Then talk about ways to reduce the chemical overload on your bodies.

Here are a few good rules of thumb: If it isn’t the color of food, it isn’t food. Red and blue dyes are very upsetting to some kids systems. Even the amount in their toothpaste can ‘set them off’. Until genetically modified foods (GMO’s) are labelled, avoid soy and soy products, corn and corn products, canola or rape seed oil, cottonseed oil, and beet sugar. All of these products have been shown to be very harmful to all living creatures after they are genetically modified. Apparently we don’t do well with a load of pesticides in our food either!

You can choose, you know. You can change the system with your choices. This is being proven again right now in the world. Everyone deserves clean food. For the moment, that is only possible if we eat whole foods, organic foods, foods we grow, and foods that are labelled “No GMO’s”. It’s tough to change; but the alternatives are truly grim! If we keep eating chemicals every day in everything we eat, we will all be very sick.

Aug
19

Get What You Pay For

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One of the loudest arguments against buying organic foods is the cost! Organic is so expensive compared to…what? Ordinary food? And what are we getting with ordinary, cheap food? And why is organic food so much more expensive?

First, a tiny bit of history. Back in the 40’s and early 50’s your budget was very simple: 25% for housing, 25% for food, and 50% for everything else. Today we are complaining that food costs too much, and yet it is only 7.5% of the household budget. Hum-m-m-m-m…

The big food producers, the agribusinesses, have almost taken over. They have access to the government subsidies and use all that our technology can provide. In the mean time, the very chemicals designed to “improve” the soil and increase production have, instead, diminished the health of the soil to the point where it is almost dead. Production is down, nutrients in our food is down (it now takes 30 bowls of spinach to add up to the vitamins and minerals found in one bowl of spinach in the 50’s), and we are basically ingesting a huge load of chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, and ‘manufactured’ nutrition.

Cheap food is almost completely without nutritional value, and we go away from the table hungry. Our bodies are not satisfied, and we want more food. The more of the manufactured food we eat, the more weight we are carrying and the more we want because we are still hungry!!

You remember the old saying: “You get what you pay for”? Organic food costs more because ounce for ounce it has more in it. [There are other reasons, of course, but I’m just pointing out one piece to this enormous puzzle.] So ask yourself: do you go out and buy the cheapest clothes, the cheapest car, the cheapest tools? Why not? Because they are really not as good? Because they won’t last and aren’t really a savings in the long run?

Since food, good healthy food, means the difference between being healthy and being sick, maybe it’s time to rethink where you really want to spend your money. You need and eat much less food if you have local whole foods. You feel better and have a better attitude with really good, nourishing foods. I have read that up to 80% of the people who are depressed in today’s society simply need to take all the trace minerals that are missing from factory foods to feel better again.

Give it a try, a two week try. Right now is the season of bounty. Farmers markets are bountiful with wonderful fresh foods. Put the money you would spend on factory foods into what is on sale and organic. Experience the marvelous feeling of being full and well nourished! Fill up your mouth with things your taste buds will notice and enjoy!

Bonne Appetite!

Jul
16

Wild Foods & Forgotten Fruits

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In my last blog I talked about finding wild food in the city, and touched on a few choice ‘weeds’. Of course there are many more, and I’ll be going into more detail on my new website – UrbanForager.co – when it is up and running in a week or so. There will tips, uses, pictures and recipes!

Actually, this is the second part to the last blog, and the focus is Forgotten Fruits. Most of the weeds I talk about are just about everywhere. The desert is an exception (sort of) because the weeds I’m highlighting are brief visitors only after a good rain. The fruits are also very different. On the urban desert scene you’ll find oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit, figs, and pomegranates. All wonderful, however at the moment, I’m in a more temperate zone, so I’m going to discuss these urban neighborhoods – specifically older neighborhoods.

I live in an area that was settled just before 1900. We have the benefit of all the fruits that were planted as a normal part of backyards and essential to the life of that time. Now we have a generation that has no idea what these fruits are, if they are safe to eat, or what to do with them. This is not a blanket statement by the way, just an observation on the times and the people around me.

In a six block area around my home there are apple, apricot, plum, cherry, crab apple, and peach trees, all producing regularly, and all delicious. There are also June Berries (Service berries, Sasketoons, Shad bush), grapes, raspberries, mulberries, huckleberries, and gooseberries. Most important (to me) I even know where elderberries are!

When there is a bumper crop, these wonderful, organic fruits fall into the street and rot. I am constantly amazed at the ability to step over these delicious ripe fruits while on the way to the grocery store to buy the same thing shipped 1500 miles unripened, arriving expensive and tasteless.

So as much as I can, I go collect this fruit. When I spot a good tree loaded with fruit, I knock on the door and ask. If no one is home, I leave a sticky note with my request, a business card, and my phone number. No one has refused, and I always offer to share the bounty with the home owner – whether it’s jam, jelly, canned, fresh, or dried fruit.

On these long summer evenings, finding food in the city is a pleasant past time and a way to get to know your neighborhood. It can bring food to your table both now and in the winter, and it lets the people around you see another way of providing for themselves. A heartening prospect in uncertain times with questionable food.

So on your walks around your neighborhood, explore the food opportunities and let me know what you find!