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Eat-out Nation
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Each year, the US Department of Agriculture compiles and publishes data about America's food habits and purchases. 2005 represented a turning point in the way Americans eat: for the first time since statistics were kept in this area (i.e. 1953), we ate more foods prepared outside our homes than ones we cooked ourselves at home. While the US has been famously dubbed "Fast Food Nation", it seems like "Eat-Out Nation" might be a more accurate term.
For those interested in seeing the raw data, you can find it here
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| 3. |
Easy garden fresh tabouleh recipe
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Tabbouleh is a Lebanese dish, considered by many as the "national salad". Its main ingredients are bulgur, finely chopped parsley, mint, tomato, scallion (spring onion), and other herbs with lemon juice and various seasonings, generally including black pepper and sometimes cinnamon and allspice. In Syria and in Lebanon, where the dish originated, it is often eaten by scooping it up in Romaine lettuce leaves. In the Middle East, it is truly a salad with the green ingredients dominating. The dish's global popularity has led to new interpretations and regional modifications such as the use of couscous (which originates from Northern Africa) in place of bulgur.
Ingredients
2 bunches of fresh parsley (1 1/2 cup chopped, with stems discarded)
2 tablespoons of fresh mint, chopped
I small onion, finely chopped
6 medium tomatoes, finely diced
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup bulgur
juice of three lemons
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Procedure:
Rinse bulgur in water and add to a large mixing bowl. Combine all chopped ingredients, salt, pepper, lemon juice, olive oil, and stir. Cover with a clean dish towel and let sit for 1-2 hours or until bulghur is tender.
Photo credit: Ulterior Epicure
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| 4. |
June 2007 Newsletter
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To read the full newsletter online, please see: http://www.kitchengardeners.org/newsletterjune07.html
Dear Kitchen Gardener,
You are cordially invited to my house on August 26th to celebrate
Kitchen Garden Day. We'll be organizing a walking tour of some
home gardens in my neighborhood, making a stop at the newly-planted
kitchen garden at our local elementary school, and munching on some
delicious food along the way.
Since I'm assuming that some
of you will not be able to make it (for example, those of you from
Argentina, South Africa and Australia!), I thought I'd give you a quick
virtual tour of my June garden through the picture above. I've
left out a few identifying labels (e.g. garden hose, kale, onions,
misplaced toys, etc.) for lack of space , but it gives you a feel for
what's planted. For those of you who are curious, that's not grass
growing in between my beds, but fresh untreated grass clippings that I
put down as a mulch...very soft under summer's bare feet. I've posted a
high resolution picture of my garden
here without the labels if you want to see it in its natural state.
As you can see, it's been a
busy month getting plants and seeds in the ground and quite a few greens
out and into the family salad bowl. It's also been a busy month at
KGI "headquarters". We harvested a bumper crop of public awareness
raising this past month due to an
Associated Press article that featured our efforts to bring about a
kitchen garden revival. The article appeared in over 30 papers
across the US and has attracted a number of energized people to our
effort. Welcome newcomers!
Speaking about reaching out
to new folks, I continue to brainstorm ideas for reaching out to people,
some old, some new. In the new category, I've recently posted a
new short video to youtube,com which hopefully will get people
thinking and, ultimately, eating in a different way. If nothing
else, it's good for a chuckle. Please pass on the link if you find
it worthwhile. We're also adding prizes to our "Grow-Off
Show-Off" competition, too, so be sure to check that out.
Grand prize is $500 and all the international celebrity one gardener can
handle.
For those of you who can't
make it to Scarborough, Maine for our celebration of Kitchen Garden Day,
why not throw a little garden party of your own? That's the best
way I know to grow the number of home-growers: by bringing new people
into kitchen gardens - whether big, small, urban or rural - to
show them the quantity, quality, and diversity of crops a small plot can
produce.
I know this works because I
just recently helped some neighbors who attended our Kitchen Garden Day
party last year plant their first garden. They're delighted
to be eating their first home-grown foods ever. If that's not
cause for celebration, I don't know what is.
Happy summer,
PS: Next month, I'll report
from southern France: ooh la la, good things ahead!
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| 5. |
Global food crisis looms as climate change and population growth strip fertile land
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by Ian Sample, printed in the Guardian, August 31 2007
Climate change and an increasing population could trigger a global food crisis in the next half century as countries struggle for fertile land to grow crops and rear animals, scientists warned yesterday.
To keep up with the growth in human population, more food will have to be produced worldwide over the next 50 years than has been during the past 10,000 years combined, the experts said.
But in many countries a combination of poor farming practices and deforestation will be exacerbated by climate change to steadily degrade soil fertility, leaving vast areas unsuitable for crops or grazing.
Competition over sparse resources may lead to conflicts and environmental destruction, the scientists fear.
The warnings came as researchers from around the world convened at a UN-backed forum in Iceland on sustainable development to address the organisation's millennium development goals to halve hunger and extreme poverty by 2015.
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