Sharing Seeds to Sow
7 Reasons Why You Should Grow Your Own Food
Eating healthy on a budget
By Paul Fassa~Natural News
Not everyone is able or ready to grow their own food yet. With food prices rising and the dollar shrinking, it’s a good idea to know what to buy and where. The first thing to realize is eating solely for taste and eating out often are the wrong approaches.
Allocating serious shopping time for some trial and error to determine where you get your best deals is necessary. If you have more than one health food store available, learn which ones offer better deals on specific items.
Cooperatives or co-ops usually charge an annual membership fee to get the better deals. You’ll have to decide if it’s worth it. You may be surprised that sometimes the pricier stores will have better deals on some items than the less expensive stores.
If you think you cannot spend the money for quality, organic foods, add up all your eating out expenses and the chips and dips and other processed yummy food and snack expenditures. Processed foods have unhealthy additives that make you eat more. That can add up to an expensive addiction.
A few suggestions
Breads: Try to find a local bakery that makes fresh, organic bread without bleached white flour or bromides (bromine). Both of those are unhealthy. Organic sourdough and sprouted grain breads are the healthiest. If possible, invest in a bread making machine and make your own from items ordered online or from local bulk bins.(1)
Grains and legumes: Also known as rice and beans. Organic rice and beans from bulk bins are healthy and cheap. Healthy oils, lemons, and spices can give you a variety of flavors. Avoid canned beans even if they’re in non-BPA cans.(2)
The bulk dried beans should be soaked overnight for boiling the next day. Organic lentils are inexpensive and healthy, but they don’t require any soaking time. Most other beans, like black or turtle beans and garbanzo or chick peas do need soaking.
Some anti-grain health foodies insist that grains should be soaked overnight to remove some of the nutrition-blocking phytic acid or phytates. Soaking steel cut oats overnight makes morning cereal preparation quick and easy as well as healthier. After the overnight soak, bring the oats to a boil, shut off the heat, cover with a lid and wait around 15 to 20 minutes.
Produce: This is the trickiest for budgeting when it comes to fresh organic produce. It requires serious shopping and coupon/flyer special scavenging. It’s best to lightly steam or eat the veggies raw. A salad a day with dark greens and carrot slices is a good way to eat veggies. So is juicing. (3)
If you can’t find organic produce to fit your budget, at least avoid the “dirty dozen” and shop for the “clean fifteen” both listed here: http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary/.
Soups: Do not choose the MSG laden instant soups or convenient canned soups. Slow cook soups the old fashioned way with veggies and potatoes. Make enough to refrigerate for a few days.
Another way to boost nutrients for grains and legumes while granting variety is by sprouting. Sprouting broccoli seeds gives you a super food. Many other seeds and legumes can be sprouted.(4)
The Natural News Store has good deals for a sprouting machines and juicers (http://store.naturalnews.com/). This article is just a primer for eating healthy on healthy foods on a budget. Your dedication will lead to other pragmatic solutions.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.diaperswappers.com/diaper-blog/whole-foods-on-a-budget
(1) http://www.naturalnews.com/031078_superfood_breads.html
(2) http://www.naturalnews.com/028007_food_shortage_costs.html
(3) http://www.naturalnews.com/034511_carrots_juicing_health_benefits.html
(4) http://www.naturalnews.com/033888_broccoli_sprouts.html
About the author:
Paul Fassa is dedicated to warning others about the current corruption of food and medicine and guiding others toward a direction for better health with no restrictions on health freedom. You can visit his blog at http://healthmaven.blogspot.com
10 Essentials for a Successful Detox
BY Michelle Schoffro Cook~CARE2 Read more…
How To Make Maple Syrup
Mainstream science validates healing properties of plants
By S. L. Baker~Natural News
Are plant-based therapies, including potential natural cures for cancer, mostly pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking promoted by “health nuts” and old hippies? Not at all — and the evidence for the validity of the healing power of plants is coming from none other than mainstream science.
In fact, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has finally accepted the reality and importance of the therapeutic properties in plants and funded a $6 million initiative for an international team of scientists to study how plants produce a rich diversity of chemical compounds, many of which are medicinally important. The results of that research so far, which includes the genetic blueprint of medicinal plants and what beneficial properties are encoded by the genes that have been identified, are now being officially released for the first time to the public.
“Most people are familiar with the natural products we derive from plants,” Joe Chappell, professor of plant biochemistry at the University of Kentucky, said in a statement to the media. “These include the delightful fragrances that go into perfumes, soaps, household cleaning products and more. Just as the sensory properties of plants interact with and trigger your sense of smell, the natural compounds of plants can target and cause a reaction within your body.”
The compilation of information about the natural potentially healing compounds of plants was developed by the Medicinal Plant Consortium (MPC), headed by Dr. Chappell who worked with Dean DellaPenna, professor of biochemistry at Michigan State University, and Sarah O’Connor, professor of chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and now at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, England. The MPC project also included participants from Michigan State, Iowa State University, the University of Mississippi, Purdue University, Texas A&M University, MIT, and the John Innes Centre in the UK.
Finding out exactly what medicinal plants contain
This research team brought to the project a broad spectrum of expertise from plant biology, systematics, analytical chemistry, genetics, molecular biology, and drug development from natural products. During their two-year project, the scientists collected data to help them understand just how plants make chemicals, a process called biosynthesis.
To this end, the researchers investigated the genes and chemical profiles of 14 plants known to contain compounds with biological activity which are associated with medicinal properties. For example, the foxglove plant is used to make the cardiac muscle stimulant digoxin, and the periwinkle plant is a source for the widely used chemotherapy drugs vincristine and vinblastine. In a press statement, the researchers noted that these and many other medicinal plants, including ginseng, are often found in household gardens and flower boxes. They could be vast cornucopias of compounds ripe for discovering and developing into widespread therapeutic applications.
“The current understanding of molecules and genes involved in the formation of beneficial compounds is very incomplete,” said Dr. O’Connor, who is also a lecturer in chemical sciences at University of East Anglia. “However, the ability to conduct genome-wide studies of model plant species has resulted in an explosive increase in our knowledge of and capacity to understand how genes control biological processes and chemical composition.”
So does this mean the scientists are advocating using medicinal plants to treat diseases? Not exactly. They appear to be primarily interested in helping Big Pharma translate the information they’ve come up with into more money-making drugs. “Our major goal in this project has been to capture the genetic blueprints of medicinal plants for the advancement of drug discovery and development,” said Dr. Chappell, project coordinator for the MPC, adding that the research gives medicinal plants “tremendous pharmaceutical potential.”
However, with the information the scientists have discovered now being placed in the public domain, it may well be a rich resource not just for Big Pharma but for physicians and other scientists seeking natural plant-based therapies for diseases.
For more information:
http://medicinalplantgenomics.msu.edu
Fruit and veggie based diets reduce stroke risk
By Raw Michelle ~Natural News
Eating lots of fruits and vegetables helps lower the risk of developing a stroke, a new study shows. The new report comes from a team of scientists at the the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and was published in the “Stroke” journal of the American Heart Association.
Fruits and vegetables help elevate antioxidant levels
Statistically speaking, stroke ranks second among the world leading causes of death, right after heart diseases. The experiments were based on data which shows that diets rich in antioxidant foods reduce the risk factors associated with stroke, by inhibiting the process which causes oxidative stress and inflammation. Oxidative stress is a condition that develops when the human body is unable to counterbalance free radicals or mitigate their damaging effects. It is known to be one of the main causes for various health problems, including diseases of the cardiovascular system.
Fruits and vegetables have a high content of powerful bioactive substances with antioxidant characteristics. Flavonoids, vitamins E and C, as well as carotenoids have free radical scavenging abilities, and will help the body fight elevated levels of oxidants. Moreover, they can also prevent the onset of oxidative stress and related problems.
The research was aimed at investigating the relation between Total Antioxidant Capacity (TAC) and the development of stroke, in both subjects with a history of cardiovascular disease and healthy patients. Total Antioxidant Capacity measures the total free radical reducing abilities of all antioxidant capable substances in the diet. It takes into account not only the levels of antioxidants themselves, but also the effects of the synergistic reactions between them.
The study was conducted on 31035 Swedish women that had no previous cardiovascular issues, and 5680 women who had such complications. The test group was aged 49 to 83 and was based on the Swedish Mammography Cohort, established between 1987 and 1990. The women’s dietary habits were evaluated according to a food frequency questionnaire, which asked the participants to answer how often they consumed certain types of food. Based on TAC levels, the participants were split into 9 groups – 4 groups with a history of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), and 5 groups with no previous heart related issues.
More antioxidants equal lower stroke risk
“Findings suggest that dietary TAC is inversely associated with total stroke among CVD-free women and hemorrhagic stroke among women with CVD history,” the scientists explained. Data showed that in the healthy groups, the risk of stroke was 17% higher for the subjects with low antioxidant levels.
The major contributors to antioxidant levels were fruits and vegetables (50%), whole grains (18%) and tea (16%). For the groups with a history of heart problems, participants with high antioxidant levels had a 46% to 57% lower risk of stroke, when compared to the participants with low antioxidant levels.
The results show that in all cases, the women with low antioxidant levels are more likely to suffer stroke. Including healthier, natural foods in the daily diet, such as fruits, vegetables, teas or whole grains will help prevent the buildup of risk factors leading to stroke. “Eating antioxidant-rich foods may reduce your risk of stroke by inhibiting oxidative stress and inflammation. This means people should eat more fruits and vegetables that contribute to total antioxidant capacity,” concluded the science team.
Sources for this article include:
http://stroke.ahajournals.org/conte…
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/art…
http://annals.ba0.biz/content/134/1…
About the author:
Raw Michelle is a natural health blogger and researcher, sharing her passions with others, using the Internet as her medium. She discusses topics in a straight forward way in hopes to help people from all walks of life achieve optimal health and well-being. She has authored and published hundreds of articles on topics such as the raw food diet and green living in general. In 2010, Michelle created RawFoodHealthWatch.com, to share with people her approach to the raw food diet and detoxification.
Foods & Herbs with Antibiotic Properties
“Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food.” Hippocrates
In herbology they are called astringent meaning foods and herbs that are natural blood cleansers and antibiotic in nature. The word anti (against) – biotic (life), refers to a list of pharmaceutical antimicrobials designed to kill harmful bacteria in the host body. Problem is these synthetic forms of antibiotics kill off both the good and bad bacteria leaving the body depleted of living microflora that supports immune function.
Including foods and herbs that contain antibiotic properties in your diet can support your immune system and help to defend you from certain infectious bacteria. This can also be said for organisms such as the Lymes spirochete and Candida Albicans, an overgrowth of yeast. There are many foods and herbs known to have natural antibiotic qualities; and with an increased resistance to pharmaceutical antibiotics in people today, it is wise to eat foods that work in your defense on a daily basis.
This is not to imply that you should not take antibiotics when deemed necessary by your medical doctor. However, knowing how to use certain foods as medicine can help you to cut down on over using synthetic antibiotics for minor health conditions. Naturally, consult your physician before proceeding.
Onions and Garlic
Close relatives and both contain antibacterial properties. Onions and garlic have been used to treat everything from minor illness to major disease and inflammation, both internally and externally. The sulfur compounds in onions and garlic are the key elements for use as an antibiotic. In one study, garlic was tested on mice against an antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococci. The results showed the garlic had protected the mice against the pathogen and significantly reduced any inflammation. Both have been used to help fight off the residual effects of colds and flu, while garlic’s antifungal properties help prevent yeast infections and combat viral conditions, onion’s high phytonutrient content are known to “mop up” free radicals that can lead to cancer in the body.
Honey
Honey was used as an antibacterial treatment long before synthetic antibiotics were developed, in cultures all over the world, for wounds and illness. Honey contains an enzyme, antimicrobial in nature, which releases hydrogen peroxide and prohibits the growth of certain bacteria. In Chinese medicine honey is thought to harmonize the liver, neutralize toxins, and relieve pain; and its antibacterial properties are effective in the treatment of the bacterium Heliobacter pylori or stomach ulcer.
Cabbage
A member of the cruciferous vegetable family, along with broccoli, kale, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, cabbage has long been recognized for its healing powers. One reason is the cancer fighting sulfur compounds. Another is that fruits and vegetables high in vitamin C are considered a natural antibiotic and a one-cup serving of cabbage provides about 75% of your daily adult allowance. Cabbage juice is highly recommended in the treatment of stomach ulcers. Drink half a cup of fresh cabbage juice 2-3 times a day, between meals for two weeks. Add half a teaspoon of raw, unfiltered honey and sip slowly, even chewing a bit to get the enzymes going. Topically, raw cabbage leaves applied to tender breasts can relieve inflammation from mastitis, fibro cysts and menstrual breast tenderness.
Cabbage: Versatile and Delicious Cancer-Fighter
9 Recipes with Cabbage
Fermented Foods
Today more and more doctors recommend you take a probiotic in conjunction with antibiotic treatment to replace the good bacteria, microflora, that is also being destroyed in the digestive system. Fermented vegetables loaded with microorganisms may prove to be superior to taking a capsule from the health food store. Raw, unpasturized sauerkraut (there’s that cabbage again), raw pickles, cultured vegetables, and kim chi are all excellent ways to introduce probiotics back into your intestines. Begin with a few teaspoons and increase as desired.
Herbs
There are many herbs with antibiotic properties, so listed here are the culinary herbs you might use to cook with on a daily or weekly basis. Continue to enjoy them for their taste knowing they are supporting your immune functions as well.
- Allspice
- Thyme
- Mints
- Basil
- Cinnamon sage
- Chervil
- Rosemary
- Lemon balm
- Oregano
- Cumin tarragon
- Cloves
- Bay leaf
- Chili peppers
- Marjoram
- Caraway seed
- Coriander
- Dill
- Nutmeg
- Cardamom
- Pepper
- Ginger
- Anise
- Fennel
- Mustard
- Parsley
Related:
14 Ways Honey Can Heal
How to Reduce Your Exposure to Harmful Antibiotics
The Anti-Cancer Diet
Delia Quigley
Delia Quigley is the Director of StillPoint Schoolhouse, where she teaches a holistic lifestyle based on her 28 years of study, experience and practice. She is the creator of the Body Rejuvenation Cleanse, Cooking the Basics, and Broken Bodies Yoga. Delia’s credentials include author, holistic health counselor, natural foods chef, yoga instructor, energy therapist and public speaker. Follow Delia’s blogs: brcleanse.blogspot.com and brokenbodiesyoga.wordpress.com. To view her website go to www.deliaquigley.com
4 Natural Antibiotics
By Michelle Schoffro Cook~CARE2
When it comes to antibacterial agents, natural medicine really shines. While there are hundreds of natural antibiotics of varying degrees of strength, here are some of my faves:
Oregano Oil—The King of natural antibiotics, study after study proves the effectiveness of oregano oil. Of course, like anything, product strength can vary drastically. Some products are actually marjoram and not oregano at all. So, choose a reputable brand backed by research. I like North American Herb and Spice Company’s blend called P-73, which includes wild, high potency oregano harvested in harsh conditions. That might not sound like a big deal but harsh conditions usually spell stronger active ingredients in the plant, since the health-building phytochemicals frequently comprise the plant’s immune system.
Three volumes of research by Paul Belaiche found that oregano oil killed 96% of all pneumococcus bacteria, 92% of all neisseria, proteus, and staphylococcus bacteria. Some strains of neisseria are responsible for diseases like gonorrhea or meningitis. Proteus is a type of intestinal infection, and staphylococcus is the culprit in some types of food poisoning. Oregano oil eliminated 83% of streptococcus and 78% of enterococcus, which are linked with strep throat, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, toxic shock syndrome, cystitis, wound infections, and anorexia.
Olive Leaf Extract—Olive leaf, like many other natural antibiotics, is also a good antiviral, making it an excellent choice when the nature of the microbe is not completely known. Drs. O. and B. Lee at the Department of Biomedical Science at CHA University in Korea, found that olive leaf extract was potent against various microbes. Additionally, their research showed olive leaf exhibited free radical scavenging abilities. Free radicals are linked with aging and disease.
Garlic—A natural antibiotic, antifungal, and antiviral agent, garlic is a great addition to your diet, particularly at this time of year. While garlic contains potassium and germanium, two minerals that are critical to good health, it is best known for its sulphur compounds, particularly allicin. These are the main phytochemicals that boost immunity and act as natural antibiotics. So, ladies and gentlemen, start chopping—garlic that is. It’s time to throw some fresh garlic into your favorite soup, stew, chilli, stirfry, meat or veggie dish. Forget garlic powder. Most of its health benefits are long gone.
Green tea—One of the active ingredients in green tea, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), has been identified in research as an effective agent against certain strains of oral bacteria. Since green tea has many other health benefits, including an impressive ability to break down excess fat in the body, it’s a great natural antibiotic to add to your daily diet. For best results, be sure to swish it around in your mouth.
Occupy Your Food Supply: Radical Farmer’s March Aims to Bridge Urban-Rural Divide, Focus in on “Food Justice”
“I have a confession to make,” said Jim Gerritson, an organic seed farmer from northern Maine, “This is my first time in New York City. I had no good reason to come until today.”
Jim Gerritson was one of several farmers, farm laborers, and food activists that came from across the country to the country to the Farmer’s March this past Sunday—a rally and march designed to connect the struggles of rural farmers held captive by the corporate control of big agriculture with the Occupy movement in New York City.
The march began with music and a rally of speakers in La Plaza Cultural, one of New York City’s many community gardens, with over 500 rural farmers, urban farmers, food laborers, community activists and former occupiers—some wearing overalls and straw hats, and others wearing “we are the 99%” buttons.
“I am here today to let you know that America is broken,” Gerritson continued, addressing the diverse multitude. “The corporate control of our government and our economy—and the joblessness that it is creating—is directly related to the corporate dominance of big agriculture and the quality of food that you are getting.”
In addition to being a farmer, Jim Gerritson is the President of the Organic Seed Grower and Trade Association (OSGTA)—which this past spring filed a lawsuit with Monsanto, the corporate giant that controls 93% of the soybeans and 80% of the corn growth in the United States. Since March, over eighty-two other seed businesses, trade organizations, and family farmers—representing more than 300,000 people—have joined in the lawsuit, fighting the corporate monopoly of genetically modified seeds that are crushing organic farmers out of business and giving consumers little choice over whether or not their food is genetically modified.
Monsanto is not the only monopolistic offender—though it is one of the most influential through the extreme prevalence of corn and soybean chemical ingredients in processed foods. Four firms now control 84% of beef packing and 66% of beef production—over the past thirty years, the farming sector has lost over 90% of their pork producers, over 80% of their dairymen, and over 40% of their ranchers. Farmers are being forced into bankruptcy by corporate conglomerates.
Destroying jobs and economically devastating small farmers is only one element of the food industry’s particular strain of corporate greed. Eradicating farmers in favor of corporate mass production pushes their unregulated, heavily processed food on consumers. In addition to having little choice to begin with, this food is far more affordable by merit of its mass production.
As a result, more and more people—especially in lower income communities—are experiencing the health affects of genetically modified fats and sugars. It is no coincidence that obesity is directly correlated to income level, and that cases of diabetes, hypertension, and other obesity-related illnesses are concentrated in low-income communities, and often communities of color.
The reality is, most ordinary consumers in the ninety-nine percent are more concerned with trying to live within their means than making consciously healthy decisions. Economically, it makes more sense to purchase a filling fast food hamburger, especially when it is the same price as fresh fruits and vegetables. In trying to live from day-to-day, consumers lose track of long-term health consequences of their decisions, fueling the corporate supply with their continual demand.
As corporations become conglomerates and crush and replace small farmers, healthy food quickly becomes a privilege, rather than a right. And when storms caused or worsened by climate change like Irene come along, small farmers pay the biggest prices. Many of upstate New York and tri-state area farms lost a huge percentage of their harvest this year–and, one speaker at the rally said, while the media declared the storm over because the city was spared, they found themselves vulnerable to fracking companies who wanted to move in onto the land.
In the past, the food movement—like many movements—has been seen as a fringe movement, especially among urban audiences. What happened on the farm stayed on the farm, and products like organic heirloom tomatoes were more of a symbol of green elitism, rather than a means of resisting the toxic corporate machine.
Then along came Occupy Wall Street—a movement that combines its roaring collective fury at Wall Street and its radical, idealistic design to merge previously marginalized progressive movements into a vision for a new society to build over our broken, unsustainable system. One of these demands is food. Not just any food—food that is produced outside of the corporate machine, simultaneously protecting the livelihood of small farmers and ensuring the health of its eventual consumers.
In the days of the occupation at Liberty Plaza, the cooks in the kitchen formed alliances with many local, sustainable farmers, making sure that all of the food that they prepared was free of genetically modified organisms. A group called Feed the Movement formed, collecting donations to pay small, local farms for their contributions and thereby supporting both the occupy movement and small farmers. Several additional groups, such as Occupy Big Food and the Occupy Wall Street Sustainability Food Justice committee, also emerged, using the language of greed, inequality, and resistance mobilized by the occupy movement to bring awareness to the corporate stranglehold on the food industry.
However, until Sunday—aside from the occasional deliveries and donations—there was no organized urban-rural solidarity between farmers and occupiers. Though many farmers, such as Jim Gerritsen, were politically mobilizing against the corporate machine, these issues remained largely absent from the initial discourse on corporate greed, financial fraud, and joblessness. In rural communities—often conservative land where the most pervasive discourse on the occupy movement was negative—it was difficult for rural farmers to see themselves in the media’s images of the urban ninety-nine percent.
The Farmer’s March—organized by urban farmers and food activists within Occupy Wall Street–began to bridge this divide. While local CSAs and greenmarkets have been forming connections between urban consumers and rural farmers for several years (and pushing to get food stamps accepted and improve access to these bounties for low-income members), this took those small connections and made them large-scale.
For the first time, rural farmers and this new crop of daring urban activists met one another in a massive way, exchanging stories of corporate greed and marching together to demand basic economic justice. The march culminated in a seed exchange in Liberty Plaza, symbolizing the ultimate peoples’ resistance to the food industry’s corporate machine.
All photos by Anna Lekas Miller.
