super crop

         You can eat it in seed, flour or oil form, you can make clothes and rope out of it as well as biodiesel fuel, paper and building materials.   Meet hemp, the old/new super crop.   Pretty much the only thing you can't do with hemp is get high on it because it's not the same as marijuana, although they both belong to the cannabis family.   It's a super plant and super food that withstands drought, thrives in poor soil, and grows fast.

            Hemp oil is extremely rich in essential fatty acids, and according to David Wolfe of Superfood fame "the only known food with ideal ratios of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids."  The oil is also used in body care products.  Hempseed is a complete protein, the leaves are edible and you can make tea out of them.  The seeds can be made into butter, bread, beer and milk, similar to a nut milk.  Hemp's fiber is one of the strongest fibers on earth, hence its use for rope.  But it can also be made into clothing.  Hemp clothing is better than cotton in every way - warmer, more absorbent, stronger and more resilient, accepts dye better, extremely durable and it becomes softer and more comfortable the longer you wear it.   Hemp can grow pretty much anywhere in the world and yields 2.5 times the fiber the same area planted with cotton would yield. A biodegradable plastic can be made from the stalk as well as building materials like insulation, fiberboard, and hempcrete, all non-toxic and non-off-gasing.

             Hopefully, the silly hemp ban in the US that dates back to the 1930s and was engineered around political and monetary interests will be lifted soon as people become more aware of this super crop.  

super superfoods

                      A lot has been written in the past two decades on the need to return to real food, which consists of one-ingredient foods from nature put together in a meal (i.e. fresh spinach sautéed with garlic and olive oil), as opposed to manufactured foods that come in boxes and packages (i.e. breakfast cereal or Western omelet mix).  But evolution is always about shifts and new developments in order to evolve to higher levels.  Going "back" to grandmother's foods is a good thing but not necessarily sufficient and the end-all.  Our soils, even organic soils, have been depleted of minerals and trace elements resulting in less nourishing produce, and our bodies are subject to more pollution than ever.

       superfood dried goji berries

              Superfoods to the rescue.  These are foods that are only now available to us outside their geographic growing area, both because enlightened interest and scientific research have brought them to our awareness, and because modern transportation logistics make them accessible.  Superfoods are foods with an incredible amount and array of nutritional components.  David Wolfe, Renaissance man and superfood guru, has been researching superfoods for over twenty year and has written many books on greater nutrional subjects.  I hadn't even heard of some of his superfoods such as maca, AFA blue-green algae, or marine phytoplankton.  The others on his list of 10 were more familiar to me: goji berries, cacao, all bee products, spirulina, aloe vera, hempseed and coconut.  From radiation protection to cleansing the body from toxins and metals, to immune system rebuilding and activating the body's own healing powers, these new and not-so-new foods are exciting to learn about and incorporate into your meals. 

superfood AFA algae

gluten or grain free?

                       "Being" gluten free is all the craze these days.  It seems almost chic, like belonging to an exclusive club.  "I'm gluten free, are you?"  On the one hand there is this aura around exploring different dietary constraints, on the other hand are some genuine health issues aggravated by grain and sugar.  Both have a high glycemic index and turn quickly into glucose.  Recreating all that wheaty stuff, especially baked goods, with other flours, like oat, brown rice, or tapioca may work for some.  But it is not sufficient for those with inflammatory conditions and conditions that become aggravated or are caused by an overacidification of the system, such as rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, lupus, or diabetes.   In broad strokes grains, dairy and sugar have an acidifying effect on the body, which worsens inflammation and promotes tumors, while fruits and vegetables alkalize it.  For people with such conditions grain free is the way to go (and sugar and dairy free).  Grainfree literally means no bread, no pasta, no pizza, no pastries, not even in a paleo diet version. 

diet, exercise and wellbeing

For a while there it seems that Coca Cola had us duped into believing that exercise, more so than diet, is the most important factor for weight loss and wellbeing. The Coca Cola Company gave almost $3 million to the American Academy of Pediatrics over the past three years, as the NY Times reported yesterday in a spill-it-all article, in addition to infiltrating many small community organizations with their web of donations and sponsorships, and having "bought" dieticians and scientists. Talk about covert and not-so covert manipulation and unscientific science.             The bottom line is this: diet is tantamount to a healthy body, more so than exercise. You cannot make up for poor food and drink choices by exercising more, believing in exercise alone as a ticket to a healthy body. It is much more important to clean up your diet, learn to shop and cook, and to make healthy food and drink choices. Once you've got that down pat exercise is a complementary component for sure, keeping in mind that every body - or everybody - thrives on a different type of exercise and on different weekly amounts. A gentle and automatic weight adjustment and an increase in energy and wellbeing naturally follow a switch to a wholesome diet.

valuable vegetable scraps

We eat lots of vegetables, and especially lots of greens, which goes hand in hand with tons of vegetables scraps. But stop - no need to throw them away and waste them. In fact, calling them scraps indicates that we think of them as lowly. Here are some ideas of what to do with your valuable raw vegetable leftovers, nose-to-tail in vegetable speak:

• Wash them and put them all in a big pot, cover with water, cook for a few hours - voilà, a beautiful vegetable stock you can use for making soup or adding cold to your green smoothie instead of plain water. More minerals to you. The stock freezes well in big glass jars or freezer bags for more soup on a cold day.
• Juice your stalks, stems, roots, outer leaves, cabbage cores, apple cores too, and benefit from all those beautiful minerals and trace elements (your veggies will have more if they are organic or homegrown).
• Use all your "other" greens - beet greens, carrot tops, celery leaves, radish greens, kohlrabi greens - like you would spinach, chard, collards or kale: sautéed, raw in salad, added to a smoothie, making pesto from them (i.e. carrot top pesto), added to soup, or juiced.

  

• Broccoli crowns are delicious, but my family loves the broccoli slaw I make from the stems: mix the shredded broccoli stems with a vinaigrette of olive oil, a generous amount of lemon juice, crushed garlic, salt, pepper and lots of finely chopped parsley (I am partial to curly). Better the next day, but you might need to reseason - more salt and pepper, more lemon juice so it's got some kick.

nose to tail

Growing up I loved eating split pea soup with smoked pig's tail. I remember seeing pigs' ears on display in our butcher shop, and we regularly ate liver and kidney. I also liked sliced beef tongue on a sandwich. Later on when we lived in France I had sweetbreads and brain (both very delicate and creamy tasting), in China duck tongues (a bit tough) and chicken feet (didn't like those at all), and I still love eating head cheese on buttered German black bread with a slice of pickle on top.When we eat lobster I collect everyone's discarded lobster heads and enjoy the innards (and that creamy green stuff) with a big glob of homemade mayonnaise at least as much as the tail and claws. Indigenous people consume every part of an animal, nothing goes to waste. In foodie countries like France and China every part of an animal is turned into a signature dish (ris de veau aux morilles - doesn't that sound delicious?). But more recently in this country, and with increasing affluence, we have turned our noses up at organ meats and somehow have come to think of them as eeeewwwww and yuck.

In reaction to that the nose-to-tail movement has sprung up and with it the art of butchering is being resurrected. In contrast to supermarket butchers, who are not trained to take a whole animal carcass apart and seldom see its innards, many young butchers are interested again in learning this craft with attention to all parts of the animal, and what to make with them (not only sausage). Organ meat (only from grassfed animals!) is densely packed with nutrients. As a matter of fact, predators first go for the organs of a fresh kill. My acupuncturist, who is versed in Chinese nutritional principles, always reminds me to make bone broth (please reread an earlier post on bone broth) in the wintertime and eat organ meats.

this or that?

processed cheese slice with yellow dye #5

or

raw-milk artisanal cheese from a small farm?

canteloupe melons tasting like cardboard

or

freshly plucked cherry tomatoes bursting with sun-ripened flavor?

cornfed-antibiotic-supplemented-growth-hormone-infested beef from a feedlot cow with red dye #3 to make it look fresh

or perhaps

no meat at all?

artisanal cheese

this or that?

our unsung heroes

            In the end how much does an investment banker's work really contribute to my quality of life? Nada, nothing. Same goes for a real estate developer's work, a sports champion's work (some people may disagree, but I believe certain professional athletes are vastly overpaid for what they do), and many other overpaid and overvalued jobs that we have come to admire simply because they earn lots of money. Instead I'd like to sing a song to our unsung heroes, the farmers. They are generally underpaid and overworked for the long hours they work and the incredible risks they have to take year after year. Yet without them we are nothing, not even alive. No farms, no food, as the bumper sticker goes. Weather conditions are a real gamble and a constant source of worry for farmers. Wet or dry summers mean less money. And what about several-year droughts?  What about the difficult decisions between new technologies and true sustainability?  The question whether bigger is better?  Farmers simply don't get credited or appreciated for the importance of their work.

Many pioneering young farmers do this job out of conviction and passion for a better world, and unfortunately have to work for a pittance. The government should be giving away farmland to willing and qualified farmers to encourage farming in areas with a sustainable climate (certainly not out west). Why not subsidize small farms, sustainable farms, organic farms, new farmers? That would acknowledge the value of the farmers' life sustaining function.   We ought to thank our farmers, we ought to celebrate them, we need to support them.  

Guess where I went today?

Green Goddess Dressing

Oh, how I love that name.   It's the name that first sparked my interest in this dressing, the green thing came second. I'm very much into green foods these days, chlorophyll being the most direct translation of sunlight into living energy we can feed our body. And the goddess thing in a dressing name is just very timely in a day and age where we are perhaps (I so hope) beginning to realize again our interdependence with Gaia, and the importance of balance between male and female, when the male energy has been dominant for the past 2500 years or so. The interesting thing is that this dressing was actually invented over 100 years ago, as a blog post in Simply Recipes explains. The original recipe calls for a combination of mayo, sour cream, a few anchovy filets for saltiness, lemon juice, parsley and chives. It comes out pretty thick, rich and gloppy. But there are many variations out there, some more runny for a real salad dressing, some more firm to be used as a dip for anything (veggie sticks, for breakfast on toast, with fish, with tortilla chips, you name it), some substituting yogurt altogether for the mayo and sour cream, some adding garlic (I like that one), another one adding avocado for creaminess (super healthy, great idea, cut back on the mayo when you do this), and then of course adding tons of whatever herbs you have around - from the usual parsley and chives, to dill, chervil and tarragon, also mint or cilantro.   I like substituting the sour cream with whole milk yogurt (Greek and otherwise, depending on how thick I want the dressing/dip), I also like the garlic, but be careful with the anchovies - too many and it starts to taste fishy. A favorite breakfast thing in my native country is a dummed down version of the whole Goddess thing by simply mixing farmer's cheese (same consistency as Greek yogurt, which is a perfect substitute) with lots of chives and a pinch of salt, and eat it as a spread on black bread or toast.

Go green and try them all!

let food be thy medicine

A lot of food bashing has been going on in recent years about the Western Diet, and rightfully so. While many cultures have been using foods to heal the body through their various properties (as in Chinese or Ayurvedic medicine for example), over here we have been eating food that actually makes us sick, as in cancer, diabetes, arthritis, food allergies, heart disease and what not.   Those sick foods have been euphemistically labeled the Western Diet. But what if foods could actually heal, as Dr. Hippocrates of Ancient Greece already said - "Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food." Eating properly actually keeps us healthy and full of energy, or supports the healing process by boosting our immune system if we have healing to do.

            Seems that many of us have to relearn what healthy foods are (also see my earlier post on live and dead foods). Healthy foods are not processed (if it has more than one ingredient and comes in a package or a can it's processed) but are as fresh and local as you can get them (more life energy), have not been sprayed with toxins (yuck, who wants those accumulating in their body?), have been grown in healthy and rich soil that has been fertilized as naturally as possible (otherwise, where are the minerals and trace elements supposed to come from?), meat comes from grassfed animals (corn makes cows and their meat sick!), as does dairy, which should also be unpasteurized, unhomogenized and raw. And make green and red your favorite colors. Leafy green vegetables have been labeled a superfood because they have such a concentration of vitamins, minerals and trace elements (more so than fruit!), and are high in fiber, low in calories and carbs, while the reds are loaded with antioxidants and phytochemicals.

            And lots of raw (no, I'm not an advocate of a raw food diet) is especially good for you (do green smoothies if you don't like to eat your greenies raw - blend an avocado, leafy greens (stems and all), lemon juice, an apple or a carrot for slight sweetness - voilà, the healthiest breakfast prepared in minutes (and believe me, it makes you feel full and satisfied).