Food Fresh From the Backyard

My husband and I enjoyed the first few salads from our backyard garden this weekend. I alwyas love this time of year, when things in the garden first bgin to produce. It’s the calm before the storm of July, when there will be (almost) more tomatoes than we know what to do with, and when we could eat something out of our own yard every day.

I really like gardening and I think of producing some of your own food as a key component of healthy living. Whether you make bread from scratch or grow herbs in a window box or have a huge backyard garden, getting your hands a little dirty and then reaping (and eating) the rewards is one of the best things you can do for yourself. It makes you feel a little self-sufficient and in tune with the Earth and the goodness of the food you are eating, even if it’s not actually planted in earth.

It is possible to grow a little something no matter where you live. If you don’t have a yard, you can garden on your balcony. (Here is a great list of vegetable plants you can grow in containers.) At the very least you have a windowsill, or a place inside you could put a lamp with a grow light so you can grow some herbs.

There’s nothing like going into the back yard (or to the ledge or the kitchen window) and picking something to eat that you’ve grown yourself. See if you can find a place to bring a little life into your life. You’ll be glad you did.

Earth Day Eats

I’ve had that Dramarama song stuck in my head all day: “It’s April 21st, and everybody knows today is Earth Day, Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday to whoever’s bein’ born…”

Which has nothing to do with anything, but it is Earth day (though not April 21st) and though it’s a topic I bring up a lot, it’s worth repeating today that we should all spend more time thinking about where our food comes from.

And I don’t just mean its country of origin, though of course that is important. Is it organic? Full of pesticides? Genetically modified?

Labels are getting better and better at showing you when things are organic or free of growth hormones, but sometimes it can still be tricky to find out what kind of food you are eating. There is a trick, however, when it comes to produce, that is buried inside the PLU code.

Almost all produce in your traditional grocery store has a sticker, tag or bag with a code on it, which is used by the checkout person much like a UPC code is on any other product. This number can tell you if the produce was conventionally grown, organically grown or genetically modified.

A number that is four digits long indicates the attached food is conventional produce (meaning chemical pesticides, fertilizers, etc. may have been used). A number beginning wiht 9 is organic, while an 8 indicates genetically modified foods. These two possibilites will both have five digit PLUs.

If the produce doesn’t have a label (if you’re buying at a farmer’s market, for instance) ask the seller how the food was grown. You have every right not to put strange chemicals into your body if you don’t want to (and you shouldn’t want to). So do your homework and enjoy the great produce of spring. Happy Earth Day!

Wild Blueberries for Health

When I lived in Massachusetts for a summer, I knew someone who would go running in the hills, collect wild blueberries and come home and bake a pie. Now, I’m not usually big on baked fruit (you can have your apple pie, I’ll just take the ice cream) but I’ve got to say those were the most delicious blueberries I’d ever eaten. It turns out they were probably the healthiest, too.

According to research from the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, wild blueberries have a lot of potential as a cancer fighter, attacking growths at all stages.

Wild blueberries are also said to have the highest amount of anti-aging antioxidants per serving of any fruit. They’ve been lauded as superfoods by Health magazine and Vegetarian Times and are bound to be the next big thing for health-conscious eaters everywhere.

If you’d like to know where you can find wild blueberries, check out this site (if you live in Ohio, Maine or Canada) and for more information about these sweet blue bundles, click here.

Power foods

I came across this article from Shape magazine that talks about five types of food everyone should be eating to live longer, more helthful lives. The reason is usually antioxidants, those compounds that are said to fight other compounds in the body that cause deterioration and damage to cells.

So what are these power foods?

1. berries
2. low-fat, plain yogurt
3. green leafy vegetables
4. bright orange vegetables
5. whole grains

You can read the article to find all the details about why these are great foods. Did you notice there’s only one animal product on the list and meat is nowhere to be found? There’s a reason for that…

Mediterranean Diet Increases Longevity

A new study shows that eating a standard Mediterranean diet helps older people live longer. A survey of nearly 75,000 people over 60 in nine European countries found that men who ate the diet lived about a year longer than those who did not.

The Mediterranean diet focuses on olive oil, fish, fruit, vegetables and grains (as well as red wine). The “typical” Europen diet is high in animal fats and beer (sound familiar?).

The study did not look at the benefits of this sort of diet for younger people, but I imagine eating less meat and beer can only be healthful, whatever your age.

Greek food, by the way, is excellent and there’s a lot more to it than meat gyros. One of my favorite meals is a whole-wheat pita filled with roasted red peppers and onions, cucumber-yogurt sauce and feta cheese, with a side of hummus or tabboleh. Delicious!

Take me out to the ballgame…

If you’re a baseball fan and a vegetarian, you might have noticed the dearth of options for you at most ballparks. There are pretzels, nachos and popcorn, but nothing of real substance.

But if you live in Toronto, you know that baseball fare can embrace all food styles, including vegetarianism. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has released its annual list of the top 10 veggie-friendly ballparks, and Toronto’s Rogers Centre tops it. Fans of the Blue Jays can feast on veggie burgers and hot dogs, wraps and fruit cups.

Other fields on the list include those in San Francisco, Oakland, Philadelphia and Houston. So now the food is no excuse not to go out and cheer for your favorite team.

Go Organic for Earth Day

Eighteen grocery store chains and more than 50 organic manufacturers are joing forces this month to encourage consumers to go organic for Earth Day (April 22). To celebrate the 35th anniversary of Earth Day, the Earth Day Network and the Organic Food Association will be distributing booklets (including coupons and recipes) on organic eating and offering samples at participating stores on Earth Day.

The chains that are participating are: Kroger, Publix, Wild Oats, H-E-B Grocery Company, Rainbow Foods, Copps, Pick ‘N Save, Giant Eagle, King Soopers, City Market, Ingles Market, Food Lion, Smith’s, Henry’s Marketplace, Sun Harvest Markets, Marsh Supermarkets, Cub Foods and Fry’s.

If you don’t have one of these stores in your area, you can get the booklet and some free recipes by calling 1-866-446-6742. (There’s also supposedly a website but I couldn’t get it to load.

The skinny on veganism

We talked about this a little a couple of days ago in reference to raw food vegans and how they have been found to have thin but otherwise seemingly healthy bones. (If you missed it, you can find it here. But in response to Bethany’s question, let’s look a little deeper.

I also talked briefly in that entry about the book The China Study, which explores the health aspects of a well-planned vegan diet in a scientific but totally accessable way. Dr. T. Colin Campbell, the author of the book, grew up on a dairy farm and now he’s vegan because of the research he and many others have done that shows that basically every major disease that Americans and Westerners in general are dying from or being stricken with (everything from cancer, strokes, diabetes and high blood pressure to kidney disease and MS) could be prevented if people stopped eating meat.

In countries where people eat less meat and animal products, there are fewer people with these diseases. Changing to a vegan diet can even reverse health problems that otherwise would be thought to be chronic (for evidence of this, watch the end of Supersize Me, where our hero is brought back to normal weight a cholesterol levels with the help of a vegan diet).

This is not to say that being a vegan is for everyone or that there are no vegans who are unhealthy. Like any diet, you need variety in a vegan diet, whole grains, lots of fruit and vegetables, protien from beans, grains and tofu. You still need to exercise and not overindulge on the sweet stuff, alcohol or, really, anything.

I’ve heard a lot of people who became vegetarians or vegans say that it is a way to balance your body. People who are overweight tend to lose weight when they become vegans (if they do it right and don’t turn into junk-food vegans or vegetarians) but people who are underweight have been knonw to gain weight as well (probably from eating healthier meals in general).

So it’s definately a diet worth looking into for long-term health. It’s not as hard to be a vegan as it used to be, but it’s still a major commitment. No leather shoes, honey, down comforters or Jello, not to mention all the obvious things you’d be giving up. There are tons of products with hidden animal products, such as yogurt, which often contains gelatin (so do Altoids) and refined sugar, which can be refined through a process that uses animal parts. Becoming a vegan automatically makes you have to be a smart consumer, and you’ll probably find yourself quickly changing to the kind of diet we should all have, revolving around fresh, whole foods cooked at home.

If you want to become a vegan, education is key. Check out this article, which provides a good overview of the health benefits of veganism as well as answering nutritional questions.

Organic Overseas

There’s a really interesting article in today’s Christian Science Monitor about the organic food movement in India. In the late 1960s the country embraced genetically modified plants that more doubled the amount of food the land could produce, but now many farmers are seeking to go back to the organic way of farming.

The big reason for this push is the lucrative overseas market, particularly in the United States. About half of all organically grown produce from India is exported, and only about one percent of India’s population eats organic food, according to the article. The main reason people in India don’t eat organic is the price: organics are 20 to 25 percent more expensive, and in the case of rice buying organic costs about five times more than buying conventionally produced rice. In a poor, overpopulated nation, economics make a huge difference in access to food.

Organic farmers say organic costs more because it is more labor intensive: plants actually have to be cared for instead of just sprayed with pesticide and left to grow. Conventional farmers say organic farming should be cheaper because those farmers don’t have to buy equipment and chemicals used in mainstream farming. Ultimately, though, some see a need for more balance in the Indian farming system, such as not growing rice in areas that are drought-prone and instead growing plants adaptable to each region of the nation.

When it comes to food production, we could all use a little balance. No one knows what genetically modified foods do long-term to a person, especially the new ones that Monsanto is designing to be resistant to Roundup and other herbicides. If we continue to allow genetic modification to be the norm, we may end up with a food supply with very little natural left. While that means great profits for those in farm technology, it could speak disaster for consumers, particularly if these modified plants were weaker in some other way that caused them to die out.

Organic food is expensive, and not everyone can afford to buy organic all the time. But it really is worth it in terms of taste, nutrition, environmental sustainability and health. Buy organic when you can and know that you’re supporting biodiversity as well as getting good eats.

Raw is beatuiful

A new study released yesterday by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found that raw food vegetarians have thin but very healthy bones. (A story about it can be found here registration may be required.)

The scientists compared 18 raw food vegans (no animal products and very little cooked food; grains are sprouted to make them soft instead of cooking them) to 18 people eating an “average” diet (whatever that means) and were surprised to find the vegans had high levels of vitamin D (which comes from animals products, sunlight and many fortified foods) and low levels of C-reactive protein, which is linked to heart disease.

Clinically, many of the people in the study should have osteoporosis based on their low bone density, but other factors such as bone turnover, high levels of vitamin D and lack of fractures indicate they do not have the disease. A doctor who worked on the study said vegans may not suffer as many fractures because they are lighter than the average person. He says he does not advocate a raw foods diet but that everyone should eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

I sense a bias in this report. I don’t know if it’s just me or if it’s really there. The researchers won’t say they think low bone mass could still be healthy bone mass, even though the people in the study obviously weren’t all walking around with broken hips. And the study is clear to not condone raw foods diets, which is fine, but they don’t even take the moderate approach and suggest people could try vegetarianism. The only dietary recommendation is to eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Which is fine, but I think it makes sense to note that being a vegetarian who consumes dairy might just be the perfect combination of the health benefits seen in these vegans and a reduction in diseases like heart disease, stroke and cancer that are linked to consumption of meat without limiting yourself to a raw food diet.

For more information on the raw food movement, check out Living Foods a huge community of raw foodies. This site will tell you how to become a raw food eater and offer a community of support, information on raw food travel, products and more. It’s certainly interesting, but I don’t think I could ever have that kind of commitment. Heck, I know I couldn’t, I can’t even give up cheese.

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