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Summer Shape-Up: Sane + Organic
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Pass by any magazine rack this month, and the hard-to-miss
cover lines will seem all too familiar: “Lose 10 Pounds in...
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Before you eat up, read up
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By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, December 6, 2007 in The Washington Post
Christmas shopping may require all the dollars, stamina and good humor you can muster, but it's nothing compared to food shopping. For that you need an advanced degree in educated consumerism. Just last week the mail brought me more lessons in food responsibility than I could possibly digest before lunchtime.
First to arrive was the Utne Reader with a report compiled by the Environmental Working Group that ranked fruits and vegetables by the amount of pesticide residue found on them by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.
The "dirty dozen" we'd best avoid are, in order of risk: peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, lettuce, imported grapes, pears, spinach and potatoes. The safest six are onions, avocados, frozen corn, pineapples, mangoes and frozen peas.
The group's FoodNews Web site gives detailed data (96.6 percent of peach samples were tainted; one bell pepper sample had 11 pesticides on it).
The solution is simple: Buy organic. But here's the tougher question: Why do they allow residue at all? That would require a larger study.
Next came a poster from the Chefs Collaborative, urging us to buy from farms that sustain the environment -- those that give livestock free range; gather mushrooms only from stable populations; preserve native riparian (streamside) plants; guard soil, air and water against pollution; and "value and protect large predators like bears and mountain lions." Most of this is unknowable unless the farm is right down the road.
And now here's Ode magazine with the top 20 organic, sustainable products for 2008. Two of them I already have: a Sun Frost low-energy fridge, which I love, and Prince Charles's Duchy Originals Oaten Biscuits. But how do the 20 stack up against the Chefs Collaborative's admirably complex chart?
I happen to think Prince Charles, long a champion of organic farming, is one of the world's most underestimated public figures, and his biscuits are top drawer. But I can only assume he protects his riparian flora. Do the guys who grow Honest Tea value bears? Who knows?
The only lesson I ever seem to learn from all of this information boils down to a few words: Grow your own, cook your own and check out the farmer down the road. There are a few levels of complexity I could add to that, but you already have so much to read.
Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Photo credit: D'Arcy Norman
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Interview with Michael Pollan
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For those of you who are fans of Michael Pollan and his latest book, "In Defense of Food, this online interview is the next best thing to sitting down with him yourself. It comes courtesy of our filmmaking friends at Cooking Up A Story. Enjoy and be thinking about how you can "defend food" in your own family and community.
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Storing vegetables for the winter
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Here are some pointers on storing vegetables. If your conditions aren't just right, don't worry -- your veggies will still store, just not as long. Be sure to monitor your stored crops every 2-3 weeks and sort out ones that are turning.
Root veggies and tubers
Wash and lightly scrub and store in plastic pails or perforated poly bags, best at 31°-33°F / 0°C with high humidity. If you wash them first, they stain less in storage. In a plastic pail, monitor moisture weekly, regulating it with the lid position, more or less ajar. You don't want drying out, nor do you want root surfaces to have visible water droplets. And give the roots some space - don't pack them tightly in the pail - for example, arrange a loose layer of parallel carrots, then run the second row the other direction.
Onions, shallots, garlic
Keep these cold, like roots, but not so humid. Use onion bags or airy boxes.
Cabbage
Cold and humid like roots. You can also pile heads in the cold corner of the porch or detached garage and cover with hay, leaves, etc. If a cabbage head is a bit frozen, allow it to thaw slowly, like over a day or two, and the leaves will be undamaged.
Brussels sprouts
Remove leaves, store like cabbage. They will be good for a month or so. For longer keeping, retain the roots and stand up the plants in 5-gallon pails with some soil in the bottom. Sprinkle the soil to keep it moist.
Leeks
Lift leeks with a fork and trim leaves (optional) to 8" long. Pack them upright in 5 G (19 L) plastic pails with 2 in (5 cm) moist soil at the bottom. Humid and cold like roots. Add water as needed to keep soil moist.
Peppers
Medium-cold (40°-50°F / 5°-10°C) and humid.
Tomatoes
Cool (45°-65°F / 7°-18°C), ideally also humid (80%+).
Squash/pumpkin
Cool (50°-60°F / 10°-16°C), rather dry (50%RH).
Source: Johnny's Selected Seeds monthly e-newsletter
Photo: Newfoundland root cellar courtesy of Raphael Borja
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| 5. |
Building a simple compost sifter
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By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, August 16, 2007 in The Washington Post
If compost is the holy grail of organic gardening, what's holier than thou? Sifted compost.
What you want in a perfect mature compost is, of course, organic matter so fully broken down that the original ingredients -- whether straw, weeds, kitchen scraps or goat droppings -- are no longer recognizable. Finished compost looks like very rich, dark, fine soil. But even the best soil contains stones, twigs and the like. Sifted compost doesn't. It is the 400-thread-count soil amendment.
Grade-A sifted compost has many uses. Let's say you want to renovate the lawn in the fall. Using a shovel, you scatter sifted compost over the worst patches, rake it into the iffy grass growing there (if any) then sow seeds and water it thoroughly. The fine-textured compost provides an excellent seed bed. In fact, it is a good seed bed for anything, especially small, hard-to-germinate seeds such as carrot and onion. One trick is to dig a planting furrow, then fill it with sifted compost. You can even use it to start seeds in flats -- although compost must be completely mature and mellow for this purpose -- too much high-test nitrogen can burn tender seedlings. It is also a wonderful top-dressing for a vegetable garden, a luxury mulch that provides a good nutritional multivitamin while making your garden's soil look as dark and lustrous as a mink coat.
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