Archive for the ‘Food-Nutrition-Health’ Category

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Michael Pollan: Big Food vs Big Insurance

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

by Catherine Haug

Steve E. sent me this NY Times Op Ed article which I thought I’d share with our ESP community: Big Food vs. Big Insurance, NY Times Op-Ed, Sept 9, 2009.

Pollan explores the link between the Great American Fast Food Diet and soaring health care costs.  As our elected officials debate how to reform our health care system, perhaps now is the time to deal with this elephant in the living room: The REAL reason for the high cost of health care, and what to do about it.

Our ESP Community IS doing something about it; we:

  • Grow our own food or buy it from local producers;
  • Put the fresh harvest by for winter;
  • Prepare more meals at home, from scratch;
  • Encourage local restaurants to eschew pre-prepared ingredients in favor of using raw ingredients from local sources;
  • Get more exercise by walking or biking instead of driving, and by working in our gardens; and
  • Share joys and sorrows with our neighbors.

Check out this article: Big Food vs. Big Insurance, NY Times Op-Ed, Sept 9, 2009 (Note, this is a 2-page article).

Posted in Community, Food-Nutrition-Health, Health | Comments Closed

Fall Planting of Veggies

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

by Catherine Haug

I recently posted an article on planting garlic in the fall, for harvest the following summer (see Harvesting and Growing Garlic). But there are several other crops that you can plant in the early fall, either for harvest later in the fall, or in the following spring. And the use of a hoop-house can extend your fall growing season a month or more!

For more information, check out this article from Johnny’s Selected Seeds:  Fall Planting.  Here’s a teaser:

“Many vegetables can be sown now to mature during the next two months, when the cooler weather of autumn will improve their flavor and quality. These include beets, carrots, escarole, endive, greens, kale and collards, kohlrabi, lettuce, bunching onions, peas, radishes, spinach, Swiss chard, and turnips.”

Last fall I planted lettuce and spinach in addition to garlic, and all came up in the spring.  Plus, this lettuce and spinach was hardier and more tasty than that planted in the spring, and I allowed some to go to seed so I’ll have more seeds to plant this fall.

Posted in Food-Nutrition-Health, Gardening | Comments Closed

Food Preparation & Preservation Blog

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

by Catherine Haug

As many of us reap the harvest bounty from Farmers’ Markets, CSAs, or our own gardens, we are interested in ways to preserve these foods through the winter.  And if you’re like me, you’d rather preserve it as a living food, than can it. One way is to store foods in a root cellar (check out Gathering Summary: Root Cellars, Gardens & Greenhouses and Cold Storage Info); but there are other ways as well.

With this in mind, check out Rebuild: The Blog, by Amanda Rose and her mother, who is a renowned cook. Many of the posts on this blog are about food preparation and preservation, and include “Mom’s” instructional videos.

[NOTE:  I will remove this post from ESP’s website after a few weeks, so if Amanda’s website interests you, bookmark it (make it a favorite), for future reference.]

I first became acquainted with Amanda as the author of a health website called Rebuild from Depression, concerning dietary ways to fight depression, with a focus on living foods.

Here’s a few sample food preservation posts from Rebuild: The Blog:

And, in the spirit of FUN: check out this related blog post, that rather brings home the petroleum vs. real food issue: Pollan painting #4: The golden arches. This concerns a painting by Amanda’s 5-year old son, inspired by his mother’s reading Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and summarizing it for him.

Posted in Food-Nutrition-Health, Health | Comments Closed

What about Supplements, when Looming Fuel Shortages Become Reality?

Monday, August 24th, 2009

by Catherine Haug

Do you take dietary supplements?  I’m not talking about herbal tinctures, teas, salves or powders that you can make yourself. I’m talking about pills, capsules or gel-caps containing vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other supplement substances that are made in industrial facilities. If your answer is yes, listen up.

When the day arrives that the shelves are empty in grocery, drug, and health food stores, what will you do? If you rely on these supplements to optimize your nutrition, you’ll be out of luck at the store.

Oh, yeah, you can order off the internet.  Whew!

Nope. If grocery warehouses cannot afford to truck foods and other products to your local store, what makes you think an internet provider will be able to do this?  Well, they could raise their shipping charge from order-of-magnitude $5 to, say $500. But could you afford that? Heck, the supplement manufacturers won’t be able to afford the cost of fuel to produce their product, even if they could afford to ship it to you.

You’re just out of luck. Time to rethink the supplement game. (more…)

Posted in Energy, Food-Nutrition-Health, Health | 2 Comments »

Food Safety & Pasteurization

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

by Catherine Haug

I recently wrote an 1500-word essay on the topic of food safety and pasteurization. It is fairly technical and addresses the following topics:

  • Why is food safety an issue instead of a given?
  • Methods of pasteurization for milk and other foods
  • Discussion of living foods (raw and cultured)
  • Denaturation of proteins by heat (cooking and pasteurization)
  • Destruction of probiotics, enzymes, cofactors and vitamins by pasteurization

To learn more, refer to my essay: Food Safety & Pasteurization (pdf file).

Posted in Food-Nutrition-Health, Shop Local | Comments Closed

Using Diatomaceous Earth

Friday, August 14th, 2009

by Catherine Haug

I have a problem with slugs in my garden.  I tried the cans of beer, but they attracted bees (including a mason bee) and flying ants, but no slugs. So I decided to try diatomaceous earth (DE).  This all-natural flour-textured substance has many uses around the home including:

  • causing slug, maggot, and insect death in the garden and landscape
  • solving an ant or bedbug problem in your home
  • getting rid of fleas on pets and livestock
  • worming of pets and livestock (and humans)

Diatomaceous earth is made from the silica-rich shells of diatoms. Most diatoms are found in the ocean, but food grade DE is made from freshwater diatoms, mistakenly called ‘algae.’  This is the same brown or golden algae that grows in fish tanks.

I learned from a piece on the local news recently that diatom algae grows on rocks at the bottom of the Clark Fork River in Missoula.  And I suspect it also grows on rocks at the bottom of the Swan and/or Flathead River, which means we would have a local source when we can no longer import it from a distant source.  All we’d have to do is figure out how to harvest and clean it. Does anyone have any ideas on this? (more…)

Posted in Gardening, Health, Uncategorized | Comments Closed

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