July 20th, 2010 - Scott Shaffer
Honey nettles and wild flowers for dinner? Exotic, but it doesn’t sound very filling.
The BBC has the scoop on a hot British restaurant where the star chef Sat Bains ordered an employee to use her foraging skills to expand the kitchen’s repertoire. Rosy garlic and kitchen honey nettles grow just a few feet away from the restaurant, so picking them seemed natural to Nanna Vestergard, a kitchen worker. Talk about local!
Vestergard learned how to forage in her native country of Denmark. Don’t try this at home! You shouldn’t try your luck at foraging without doing serious research. Vestergard warns that unless you’re 100% sure, “you shouldn’t be picking anything at all.” Another basic rule is “if it tastes really horrible, usually it isn’t good for you.”
If foraging isn’t your thing, you might want to try gardening, instead. Learn how to create a kitchen garden for free. You’ll know what all the plants are (and that’s it’s safe to eat them) and you won’t have to worry about big wig British chefs taking the fruit you had your eye on.
Image Credit: Minds Eye
Read More: Posh British Restaurant Foraging for Ingredients
Tags: british, chef, forage, foraging, garden, gardening, kitchen garden, restaurant
Posted in gardening, Organic Food | Comments Off
May 27th, 2010 - Scott Shaffer
 Having trouble on that crossword? Don’t turn to Google for an answer—spend some time in the garden, instead. BusinessWeek reports that Sage Colleges researchers found that mice who were fed a bacteria naturally occurring in soil made it through a maze twice as fast as the squeaky-clean mice. The cognitive benefits of the bacteria lasted for about three weeks after it was consumed. Researcher Dorothy Matthews said that the bacteria in soil “may play a role in anxiety and learning in mammals.”
Chalk this up as another reminder that we need to rethink our germaphobic concepts of “clean” and “dirty.” I had a geology teacher in high school who wouldn’t let us say the word “dirt” in class—he thought the word had negative connotations that didn’t do justice to the life-giving power of soil. It pains me to say it now, but Mr. Lundgren: you were right. Soil isn’t dirty, it’s good for you.
Think about it for a second. Animals have been eating around dirt for millions of years, but we’ve only been using pesticides for a couple of generations. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a chemical-filled, dirt-free diet is going to have some negative, unintended consequences for us—like causing learning disabilities in children. And that’s not even beginning to mention the effects on the rest of the planet.
Looking for ideas of how to get some of that smart, dirty bacteria into your system? Start an organic garden. Here are 5 tips to get you started. And here are 2 easy compost recipes.
Image Credit: Steven DePolo
Read More: Dirty Food Might Help You Learn Faster
Tags: Business Week, BusinessWeek, carrot, carrots, compost, compost recipe, garden, Health, hygiene, learn, learn faster, organic garden
Posted in gardening, Health, Parenting | Comments Off
April 24th, 2009 - Laura Klein
 Last week, I wrote about Michelle Obama’s edible, organic garden planted on 1100 square feet of White House Lawn earlier this month.
It turns out not everyone was as excited as me.
Take the Mid America CropLife Association (MACA), for instance…this group represents agribusinesses like Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences and DuPont Crop Protection, and they’ve got a bone to pick.
In a letter they wrote to Michelle Obama, brought to the public attention via La Vida Locavore (where you can read the letter in its entirety), MACA expressed concern that the decision to grow an organic garden would give consumers the wrong impression about conventionally grown food – and by that I’m assuming that they mean letting the public at large know that food can actually be grown without using chemicals (imagine that!)….
The letter states…
“We live in a very different world than that of our grandparents. Americans are juggling jobs with the needs of children and aging parents. The time needed to tend a garden is not there for the majority of our citizens, certainly not a garden of sufficient productivity to supply much of a family’s year-round food needs.”
Which begs the question: are we really considering children and aging parents who have underdeveloped or compromised immune systems, when we spray our yards, and gardens with poisonous pesticides? Children and pets roll around and play on the lawn and in the dirt. If we are spraying our lawns, and gardens with pesticides we are exposing them to toxic chemicals that can compromise the human body.
The Danger of Exposure
We absorb chemicals and toxins three ways:
- Swallowing – ingesting them via our food.
- Breathing – via inhalation of air.
- Skin and or eye contact – i.e. absorption of your personal care products.
So when you spray pesticides in and around your yard and home, keep in mind that you, your family and pets can absorb its chemicals via all three of these passage ways.
The New England Journal of Medicine, published a study in July of 2000, that states we are more likely to get cancer from pesticide exposure than from hereditary causes.
Studies have also shown that pesticides and toxic chemicals can be up to 10 times more poisonous to child’s underdeveloped immune system.
Clearly, I don’t think that a ‘busy’ lifestyle if enough of an excuse to use pesticides – ever.
What are your thoughts on the MACA letter – and about pesticide exposure overall? I’d love to hear from you!
Read More: A Chemical Reaction to the White House Garden
Tags: food, garden, michelle obama, Organic, Organic Food
Posted in Green Living, Health, Organic, Organic Food, Political Action | 32 Comments »
April 13th, 2009 - Laura Klein
“Local, affordable, nutritious food should be a right for everyone and not just a privilege for a few,” wrote Alice Waters, acclaimed chef, restaurateur, and food activist in a letter to the White House in January, 2009.
A couple of months earlier at a Chicago fundraiser – which featured an Alice Waters-created menu – Michelle opined “You can’t just make a dinner. It’s got to be a nutritious dinner, grown with good, fresh, clean food. That takes time. Trust me.”
I couldn’t agree with these two fabulous women more. The time has come for healthier, more nutrition-rich food – that’s local, seasonal and organic when possible – to take center stage for our country. What better place to start than with an edible garden?
Groundbreaking Gardening!
The first family is off to a running start when it comes to promoting homegrown eats.
Michelle Obama, an excited group of fifth graders and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack got to work planting a brand new vegetable garden on Thursday, 4/9.
The first sprout hasn’t poked its way through the soil yet, but already, the White House garden – championed by Michelle Obama’s enthusiasm for fresh and healthy food – has several fantastic messages for an under-nourished public that I’ve long espoused:
- Home gardening offers a great way to save money on expensive foods at the market – a tasty stimulus package for your kitchen!
- Home gardening inspires kids to eat their veggies: studies have shown that kids who grow their own vegetables eat more vegetables!
- It’s also a wonderful reason to get outdoors, rejuvenate your soul and reconnect with nature, something we can all benefit from both physically and mentally.
There’s a history of White House gardens. But with the publicity power of Michelle Obama, Slow Food enthusiast Alice Waters and countless other organic foodies, this administration is positioned to get the messages to the masses: grow your own, save money, have fun and eat healthily!
My Own Edible Garden and Get-Started Gardening Tips for You!
When my husband and I moved into our home, we were debating how to landscape our front yard. I suggested we plant an edible garden in both our front and our back yard, including my favorite – scrumptious organic artichokes!
Year after year, our edible garden has reaped us huge rewards in delivering organic produce. It has saved us tons of cash at check-out and made us quite popular on our block: families with children regularly stop to admire our front yard edible garden!
Plus, we’re reminding children about the origin of fruits and veggies – and that they come from the earth first – not just from the supermarket. In this way, my husband and I feel like we’re adding something to the community, which is a great feeling!
Here’s some tips for the beginning gardener. Already have an edible garden? What works for you and what doesn’t? Share your story with OrganicAuthority readers – we’d love to hear from you!
Read More: Grow and Glow: Inspiring a Nation to Eat Healthier
Tags: fresh food, garden, local food, michelle obama, Organic, organic garden
Posted in Health, Organic, Organic Food | 10 Comments »
May 4th, 2006 - Barbara Feiner
 If you’re an apartment dweller or have limited yard space, there’s still a way to flex your green thumb: container gardening. Cherry tomatoes draped from hanging baskets, herbs, morning glories and vegetables can thrive in flower pots. And even if you do have space for a vegetable garden, “there’s always the possibility of adding a few more pots,” says Stori Snyder, assistant director of the Hilltop Garden and Nature Center at Indiana University Bloomington. She offers the following tips:
Preparing the Containers
Containers need holes at the bottom for drainage and some rocks for the plant roots to wrap around. The roots “don’t want to have ‘wet feet,’ so to speak,” she says. Containers should be at least one size larger than the purchased pot size.
Feeding the Soil
More plants can be grown in a small space if the soil has been enriched with manure, compost or humus. You can buy a kit to test soil its composition to see if it needs more nitrogen, phosphorus or potassium, which are important nutrients for plants. It’s practically “a given,” Snyder says, that soil will need compost or manure after subsequent plantings because plants always remove nitrogen from dirt. One way to improve the soil is to add a scoop of compost in a hole when burying a plant. Feed the plants again at least once during the summer with a sprinkling of compost or compost tea, where a compost powder is mixed with water.
Buying Local
Consider planting native varieties because they handle a region’s climate better. Local nurseries and county extension services can offer guidance. Some herbs, such as mints, sage and thyme, are hardier than others and grow back in the spring.
Read More: No Room for an Organic Vegetable Garden? Container Garden
Tags: apartment living, compost, composting, Container Garden, container gardening, container gardens, garden, gardening, mint, Organic Food, organic garden, sage, soil, test soil, thyme, vegetable garden
Posted in gardening, Organic Living | 1 Comment »
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