Dehydrating: A Fun and Practical Way To Preserve and Store Food

Dehydrating foods is a fun, economical, and space saving way to store the bounty from your garden. In fact the whole process can be a bit addicting! Once you begin to dehydrate foods and realize the ease of re- hydrating or just plopping them into soups and stews, you will want to try your hand at many different types of food. If you don't have your own garden you can buy organic produce from local farmers.When there are good sales in the grocery store on fresh or frozen produce, many people take advantage of these deals. I bought bags of frozen peas on sale for a dollar a bag. 8 bags of peas turned into 2 jars of peas when dried. I don't have to find room for them in my freezer and if the power goes out, they are safe and sound. It takes a little bit of electricity to dry them but once they are dried you are able to store them for free.

The jar on the left in the photo above holds  orangy yellow heirloom tomatoes that dried a pretty deeper shade of orange. Dried food , if it is going to be stored longer term, should be kept in a dark dry place. However, if you plan on using them within the year, they look beautiful stored on countertops and hutches....but out of direct light. The jar in the middle contains eggplant on the bottom and dried yellow squash near the top. And of course the jar on the right is filled with dried corn that was once fresh corn on the cob bought from a local farmer.The corn rehydrates well and tastes delicious with butter, salt and pepper! The corn, in particular, will last for years...especially if you pull out the air with either a FoodSaver V2244 Advanced Design Vacuum Sealer, Black  or oxygen absorbers Oxy-Sorb Oxygen Absorbers for Food Storage ....or some people use both. There are special attachments for drawing the air out of jars.  Foods are most often dried in an oven or dehydrator but they can also be dried outside or even in the backseat of a car near the back window. Some people have made solar dryers. This is the dehydrator I like and use.

Nesco-American Harvest FD-1010 1000 Watt Gardenmaster Dehydrator

 Some people prefer the Excalibur food dehydrator...something to do with even distribution of the hot air. However, the Excalibur only has a set number of trays. You cannot add more trays to the machine like you can with this Nesco dehydrator. The Nesco machine holds up to 30 trays. It  has a fan that circulates the heat and it also has a temperature setting which the cheaper dehydrators don't have. The fan is moderately noisy but I just put it in another room where it won't bother anyone. The foods in the jars below...from left to right are Shiitaki mushrooms, peas and string beans. The mushrooms...in the photo.... I bought already dried from Mountain Rose Herbs but I have dried my own that are growing outside on logs. When I dried the mushrooms I did it outside because from what I have read about the mushrooms... they gain phenomenal amounts of Vitamin D by drying in the sun with the caps faced towards the sun.

Here are my carrots and peppers. Some veggies, such as string beans are best blanched first before drying while others such as green peppers can be dried raw.

 It's also fun and practical to grow and dry your own herbs. When you grow and dry your own, it is much more economical, fresher, and you know exactly what kind of soil and fertilizer was used. Herbs are fairly easy to grow and have many health benefits. The photo below shows the sage I was drying this year. Aren't the purple flowers gorgeous against the green?

Some of the health benefits of sage are: sage boosts memory, it has antimicrobial properties including anti-fungal properties, sage helps with digestion and the herb is a powerful antioxidant. It tastes great added to food and makes a soothing tea, either by itself or in combination with other herbs.

Nettles are another superior herb/green for the health. I started a nettle patch ...oh...maybe three years ago now from just two little plants that a friend gave me from her patch. I now have enough to dry and last all winter. Nettles spread so if you plant them, put them in a spot where you can mow around them to keep them controlled. Imagine...a health-food weed! Nettles make a wonderful infusion/green drink that is basically free! The dried nettles can also be added to soups and stews...or even crumbled up fine into dishes like chili. They add great flavor and nourishment! Young nettles can be cooked from fresh nettles also...like spinach. But watch out...before they are dried or cooked they will sting! Wearing long sleeves, pants and gloves is a must when gathering nettles.

 The seeds from Nettles (below) are also a very valuable part of the plant. They are collected at the end of the summer and set aside to dry. You don't need a dehydrator to dry them. Nettle seeds are extremely good for the adrenal glands.

My most exciting project for this year was finally having enough elderberries from our own 3 year old bush to dry enough for making a medicinal tincture and with two jars left over of dried elderberries to add to herbal teas. The first photo shows our three year old bush, the next photo shows the berries and the third photo shows the elderberries soaking in alcohol which becomes our winter flu prevention.

The herb I was drying in the photo below is lemon verbena. I cook it with rice and add it to my herbal teas. It is very easy to grow!

I just thought I would add a photo of dried calendula from my friends herb shop. The natural color is just so pretty and soothing.

I suppose late fall is not really the time of year to talk about drying food....but I started this article at the end of August and got sidetracked . You can still find various foods to dry at the grocery store and now you can start planning for what you might like to do next year! If your freezer is too full, try drying some of your frozen veggies and stick them on a shelf somewhere. I used my dried carrots the other day in a soup and I wouldn't have known the carrots had been dried first!
There are many you tube videos on the subject of dehydrating. Check them out and join the fun!

If you can't wait to begin growing your own food to dehydrate.... Mountain Rose Herbs has all the herbs I have spoken of here and much much more.

LOW FAT HIGH CARB DIETS ARE DANGEROUS

The first question we need to ask is....what drives the nutrition advice taught to doctors and the public through the Department of Agriculture and other governmant agencies? Are nutritional guidelines determined out of our corporate government's concern and love for the masses or do these guidelines further the profit margin and other political goals? Are the movies, such as Forks Over Knives, unbiased and accurate or are they misrepresenting "studies" and conditioning the public to a diet that in the LONG RUN weakens the body?

For example.....the main idea pushed in the movie "Forks Over Knives" was the implementation of complete veganism...which included no fat, no animal protein or animal products. This means no butter, no eggs, cheese, meat, fish and some people even cross honey off the list because it was made by an insect. The glaring flaw in this movie was the unscientific testimonies represented as an informal study. These testimonies formed the basis of the film's take on what a healthy diet should be. People were asked to give up all junk foods and all animal products. Many people reported amazing benefits on this diet.

First of all, most people will improve after giving up junk food. That step is a no brainer. Additionally, a diet composed of only vegetable food can be very cleanisng for the short term, can help you lose weight and possibly heal certain problems. My contention with the film's advice  is...that the strong impression was given that this type of diet is also good for the long term. How do we know whether the improvements people experienced were tied to the elimination of junk food or to the elimination of animal products? Many ex vegans are reporting ill health and weakened bones when on a long term vegan diet and have switched back to more ancestral diets which include fat and animal products. There was no mention in this movie about the healthy quality of animal fats when the animals were grass fed or wild caught. This was also a glaring omission.

The diet which is being increasingly recommended  or promoted is a low or NO fat diet along with high carbohydrate intake. This advice is extremely contrary to what the human body really needs to function optimally. We have been conditoned to think that eating fat...especially saturated fat ...causes the body to be fat and that it clogs arteries and causes heart attacks, cancer and more. Nothing could be further from the truth. For years now grains and other carbs have comprised the foundation of the Food Pyramid. What has been the result........ a runaway diabetes epidemic, Alzheimers (now considered to be a Type 3 Diabetes) and many other neurodegenerative diseases. The fact that many of our grains have been genetically engineered  adds more danger to a diet so heavily concentrated on grains. To better understand the politics and health issues surrounding this subject, I highly recommend the books... The Vegetarian Myth and Beyond Broccoli. Vegetables are also highly recommended in these books but not to the exclusion of natural animal products. We need a well rounded diet and veganism is a very restrictive unbalanced diet. ...an extreme fad diet.

I love watching my free range chickens graze around the yard. They eat a variety of different foods. They will nibble some herbs from the garden, then some kale and grass...but then of course their protein comes from worms and bugs. Even when I put a treat out for them, they only eat so much of it before moving on to various other plants. In other words they don't gorge on one thing. That has been kind of a lesson to me.

Our brains and cells need saturated fats to function properly. Our brains are largely composed of cholesterol. Our nerves and cells are protected by cholesterol. Our body even makes some cholesterol. Remember the old sayings......"Living off the fat of the land" and "bringing home the bacon"? Our ancestors were much sturdier and healthier than we are and many lived into old age without degenerative disease.Many would eat plain butter on wholesome bread and thrive on it. Perhaps more people died from acute infections but their overall quality of life was much better than ours if and when they ate unprocessed foods. So...I believe ...and history validates... that we need high fat diets with moderate protein from naturally fed animals, few if any grains, NO JUNK PROCESSED foods, and raw milk products (if tolerated) from grass fed animals. We should also include many raw and cooked organically grown vegetables. Contrary to more recent advice to eat everything raw....some vegetables need to be cooked or fermented to inactivate certain plant toxins naturally present in the food. Here is a great article by the legendary Beatrice Trum Hunter which speaks unbiasedly about what foods we should and shouldn't eat raw. http://foodfreedomrevolution.blogspot.com/2011/11/is-totally-raw-diet-safe.html

Below is a recent article which reports that Sweden has officially rejected low fat high carb diets.
http://coconutoil.com/sweden-becomes-first-western-nation-to-reject-low-fat-diet-dogma-in-favor-of-low-carb-high-fat-nutrition/
Another major point in favor of higher fat diets (not manmade or overheated fats) is that in order for certain vitamins and minerals to be absorbed from the vegetables we eat.....fat needs to be added. The idea of putting butter on vegetables is not just for improving taste but it is essential in order for our bodies to absorb certain nutrients. Our ancestors were amazingly more aware of what our bodies really need...and all without chemistry labs, official studies and drug companies.

Please take time to watch the videos below which explain why low fat high carb diets are dangerous.

Plastic Packaging Contaminating Our Foods

Some Unanticipated Interactions
By Beatrice Trum Hunter
Republished with permission from Author
Taken from the Dec. 1993 issue of Consumers' Research Magazine

More than a decade ago, it was discovered that an ordinary Styrofoam cup could disintegrate when it held hot tea and lemon. Discoveries of such unanticipated interactions still occur from time to time.

For many years polystyrene egg containers have largely replaced paper mache. However, their safety has only recently been investigated, in 1991. The Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station reported that volatile styrene monomers were detected in shell eggs stored in polystyrene containers for two weeks in the supermarket.  Egg dishes cooked with these contaminated eggs contained seven times more ethylbenzene and styrene than those prepared from fresh farm eggs that had not been packaged in polystyrene. It is suspected that the volatile compounds can migrate through the porous shells into the edible portions of the eggs.

Benzene from multilayer, oxygen-barrier, laminated bags has been found to migrate into meat, poultry, cheeses, and other packaged foods. This problem surfaced in September 1990 when an off odor was noticed in a roast beef shipment. Investigation showed the meat contained benzene from the packaging, ranging from less than 5 parts per billion(ppb) to 17.8 ppb in raw meat. The benzene volatilized when the meat was heated.

Increasingly, plastic food wraps and containers have gained in popularity for microwaving foods. This practice can release components from the plastics, including base monomers, plasticizers, colorants, and stabilizers,especially when high heat is used. Many plastics contain plasticizers, used to increase the wrap's flexibility. Some plasticizers have been found to migrate from the plastic into the food. One is DEHA [di(ethylhexyl) adepate], commonly used as a plasticizer in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) film wrap, which is popular for covering stored and microwaved food. DEHA is a suspected carcinogen.

In a 1987 study of home use of PVC film wrap, the DEHA migration level was found to increase in proportion to the time that the food was in contact with the PVC wrap and with the rise in cooking temperature. The highest migration levels were found when the plastic film was in direct contact with food with a high fat content on it's surface. The highest migration levels were found with microwaved meats (such as pork, spareribs, and roast chicken) and bakery products(such as cake, scones, and biscuits made with peanuts). Somewhat lower levels were found in fruits and vegetables, except avocado with its high fat content. Migration levels were low when there was little or no direct contact between the food and the wrap.

In the same study, use of PVC film with foods in retail stores was examined. Results were similar. The amount of DEHA migration into foods depended on how long the film was in contact with fatty surfaces of the food. The highest amount were found in cheeses, baked goods, and sandwiches; lower amounts in cooked meat and poultry; and the lowest in fruits and vegetables.

Polyethylene, a popular plastic film used for food freezer bags and wraps, does not contain plasticizers, and is considered to be generally safe for microwaving foods. However, if printing has been applied to the surface, the primer applied to the plastic prior to printing, as well as the applied inks, may subject the heated plastic to conditions distinctly different from those for which they had been tested and approved. Only clear polyethylene is suitable for microwaving food.

Formed plastic containers, used for carry-out foods, should not be reused for microwaving. Such containers, if heated, may be subjected to conditions other than those for which they had been safety tested.

Some plastic packaging material now in use for microwaving have not been approved for use at high heat. The most severe conditions for such packaging recognized by protocols of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were under conditions that previously had prevailed: from 212 F to 275 F. Recognizing the changes that have occurred, FDA scientists are working with members of the packaging industry to study new testing procedures, and to learn whether packaging materials can be modified to assure food safety when used for cooking at high heat.

Of concern, too, is "active packaging." Thin layers or strips of metallic heat susceptors are placed in plastic food packaging intended for microwaving. The susceptors focus microwave radiation to produce extremely hot surfaces (400F to 500F) within the package. This high heat permits food to be browned, crisped, or popped - features usually lacking in microwave cooking. At such high heat, substances such as polymers and their breakdown products, as well as adhesives and their components and other substances present in the plastic, can migrate into the food.. Originally, susceptor strips were approved by the FDA for a different purpose and were tested at far lower temperatures.

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a popular plastic film wrap. It has long been assumed that PET film provides a functional barrier to adhesive components. It was demonstrated recently that the film allowed the migration of adhesive components into foods when oil or foods were cooked in contact with it. A study by the FDA's Division of Food Chemistry and Technology showed that the susceptor board components that migrated in the largest quantities were the plasticizers rather than the polymer components, even though the polymer components were in direct contact with the oil or food, whereas the plasticizers were in the adhesive layer of the susceptor boards. Approximately 50% more plasticizers migrated than did the polymer components.

For many years, a purple dye (FD&C Violet No.1) had been used to stamp inspected meat. The dye was suspected as a carcinogen. There was no assurance that the portion of the meat with the dye would be cut away before being consumed. In 1973, the FDA banned the dye as a meat marker.

Nitrosamines (carcinogenic compounds) were discovered in rubber nipples used to cap baby bottles. The rubber was reformulated to eliminate nitrosame formation. More recently, nitrosamines were discovered in hams that had rubber netting to encase them after boning and curing. The rubber was reformulated to eliminate this problem.

With rapidly changing packaging practices and many innovative techniques, manufacturers and regulators need to be vigilant in order to prevent unanticipated and undesirable interactions with foods.

The author, Beatrice Trum Hunter, MA, has written more than 30 books on food and environmental issues, frequently before widespread public awareness. She was food editor of Consumer's Research Magazine for more than two decades. She is an honorary member of The Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, as well as an honorary fellow of The International Academy of Preventative Medicine and an honorary member of The American Academy of Environmental Medicine. She has been the recipient of many awards, including The Jonathan Forman Award of The Society for Clinical Ecology, The New Hampshire Society for Preventative Dentistry, and The Donnon Pepper Humanitarian Award. She can be reached at 243 Falls Road, Deering, N.H. 03244

OPTIMAL NUTRITION

 Paleodietideas.com

By Beatrice Trum Hunter
Published in Consumers' Research Magazine, July 1985
Reprinted With Permission By Author

What is an optimal diet for humans? This intriguing question is raised repeatedly, and a definitive answer remains elusive. Two recent reports from medical journals are of general interest and also deal with the question. Both describe pre-industrial diets. While we cannot return to the lifestyle of our ancestors, study of their dietary habits might contribute some insights into our own best bets where diet is concerned.

In one recent experiment, 10 Australian aborigines with diabetes agreed to return to their hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Previously, while in an urban setting on the outskirts of Melbourne, the aborigines had maintained Western lifestyles, partaking of meals that consisted, in part, of fatty meats, carbonated soft drinks and alcohol. They had become obese and had developed high blood pressure and diabetes.

Returning to the wild, they consumed only what they could obtain by hunting and fishing kangaroo,turtle, and crocodile, for example. With much activity expended in the search for food and consuming only about 1,200 calories daily, they lost their excess weight within several weeks. After two months in the wild, their blood sugar levels fell. There was significant improvement in their bodies' ability to remove sugar from the blood after eating, and they experienced a partial, and in some cases complete, reversal of adult-onset diabetic abnormalities.

These findings confirm results of other studies showing that, in cases of adult-onset diabetes, normal functioning of the insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas can be partially restored if high blood sugar levels are reduced. According to the researcher conducting the aborigine study, the main finding was that "a low-fat, low-calorie is an effective diet for control of diabetes....The low-fat content of the diet may be one of the most important therapeutic components, particularly for reducing the vascular complications of diabetes." This conclusion is remarkably similar to many of the present-day dietary recommendations for achieving and maintaining general health.

Elsewhere, the dietary habits of paleolithic  humans have come under renewed investigation. Researchers have noted that humans today "are confronted with diet-related health problems that were previously of minor importance and for which prior genetic adaption has poorly prepared us. Chronic illness affecting older, postreproductive people could have little selective influence during evolution, yet such conditions are now the paramount cause of morbidity in Western nations."  The food of "stone age" humans is regarded as having "the nutrition for which human beings are in essence genetically programmed."


Differences between the diet of our remote ancestors and that of present industrialized society have important implications for health. Increasingly, physicians and nutritionists are convinced that the dietary habits adopted by Western civilization over the past century contribute to coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and some types of cancer. These conditions, which have become dominant health problems only recently, are virtually unknown among the few surviving hunter-gatherer populations whose food habits resemble the stone-age diet. How did some of these differences come to be?

The introduction of agriculture, a mere 10,000 years ago, radically changed human nutritional patterns. The proportion of meat in the diet declined drastically, while vegetable food came to comprise up to 90% of the total diet. As a result, people came to be considerably shorter than they had been in pre-agricultural times. Their skeletal remains show sub-optimal nutrition, both from protein-calorie deficiency and the interactions between malnutrition and infection. Since the Industrial Revolution, the animal-protein content of Western diets has become more nearly adequate. Once again, we are nearly as tall as the early, biologically modern humans. However, our diets still differ markedly from theirs, and these differences are crucial in what has been termed "affluent malnutrition."

For example, the animal protein eaten by paleolithic populations (deer,bison,horse, mammoth, etc.) differed considerably from the meat available to us in the modern supermarket. It had less total fat, more essential fatty acids ( emphasis mine) and a much higher ratio of polyunsaturated to saturated fats than ours does. The fat of wild animals contains an appreciable amount of one particular fatty acid, now being investigated for its possible property of preventing the development of atherosclerosis.(emphasis mine). Domestic beef contains nearly undetectable amounts of this valuable nutrient. Meat from free living animals contains fewer calories and more protein per unit of weight than meat from domesticated animals. Our paleolithic ancestors consumed more structural fat and less depot fat.

Foods from the vegetable kingdom reflect another difference between our ancestor's diet and ours. As foragers they ate a wide range of roots, beans, nuts, tubers, fruits and, at times, even flowers and edible gums. We have a relatively narrow variety of domesticated crops produced by horticulturists and traditional agriculturists. Furthermore, many of our domesticated plant foods have higher ratios of starch to protein than do their wild counterparts.

The paleolithic diet not only differed substantially from the typical Western diet of today, but it also differed somewhat from the recommendations currently advocated by nutritionists and federal agencies. The foods we eat are classified into four basic groups: protein foods, fruits and vegetables, dairy products and grain products. We are encouraged to have two or more daily servings from each group to achieve balance. But our ancestors who lived prior to the development of a stable agriculture of domesticated crops and animals, derived all their nutrients solely from the first two food groups. Dairy foods were non-existent, and cereal grains were rare. Yet various estimates, using modern standards, reveal that the paleolithic diet offered the health benefits of much more fiber than is now contained in a typical western diet, and the sodium intake of our remote ancestors was only one-sixth
of that present in the typical salt-laden American diet.

Of what value are these findings? The extent to which some major chronic diseases of industrialized society are related to the typical Western diet is now being critically analyzed. Evidence of linkage is accumulating steadily. Medical research in diverse fields are beginning to formulate a generally preventative diet against such conditions as atherosclerosis and cancer. The diet of our remote ancestors cannot be duplicated by us, but it can serve as a reference standard for modern nutrition as we continue to strive toward that elusive goal: achieving an optimal diet.


The author, Beatrice Trum Hunter, MA, has written more than 30 books on food and environmental issues, frequently before widespread public awareness. She was food editor of Consumer's Research Magazine for more than two decades. She is an honorary member of The Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, as well as an honorary fellow of The International Academy of Preventative Medicine and an honorary member of The American Academy of Environmental Medicine. She has been the recipient of many awards, including The Jonathan Forman Award of The Society for Clinical Ecology, The New Hampshire Society for Preventative Dentistry, and The Donnon Pepper Humanitarian Award. She can be reached at 243 Falls Road, Deering, N.H. 03244

HEALTHY SOIL EQUALS HEALTHY PEOPLE

                      

The Intelligent Gardener: Growing Nutrient- Dense Food

By Steve Solomon with Erica Reinheimer

For thousands of years people have known that the nutrient density of the soil determines our health and longevity. Groups of people, such as the Indians and settlers in North America, would pack up and move when the soil in their areas became depleted. Weston Price, through his research and keen observation, also realized that the health of the soil played an extensive role in the health of the people.

Steve Solomon, the author of The Intelligent Gardener begins his book  by sharing a summary of what Weston Price discovered concerning nutrient dense food. “Every healthy community Price visited -  which included humans of every color, shape and hair texture, who had many types of lifestyles and ate many types of diets – was found to be composed of good natured, honest, responsible people possessed of an innate spiritual awareness that did not require regular church attendance to awaken. Their women did not fear childbirth, did not suffer much during it and rarely died from it. And the reason for their health: food with high nutrient density.”

Unfortunately, today, there is not much room left for moving to new land where we can find mineral dense virgin soil. If the human race is to survive, there is an urgent need for understanding exactly what elements need to be put back into the earth to replace the vital soil elements we are fast using up. The health of the American people appears to be diminishing in conjunction with the depletion of our nation’s soil. Degenerative disease is becoming rampant and moral character is declining along with the increased illness.

Steve Solomon started out as an organic gardener. At one point he discovered that while eating food mostly grown in his own organic garden, his teeth began to loosen. This caused him to investigate further which led him to realize that while adding compost to the garden soil was very important, the organic matter just wasn’t comprehensive enough to supply all the mineral needs of vegetables being replanted in the same soil year after year. He feels that “compost rarely contains the ideal mineral balance to grow nutrient dense – food. Excessive additions of compost usually imbalance the soil’s mineral profile and degrade nutritional outcomes.” As mineral density of the soil declines, so does the health of the growing plants and the people who consume them. The author offers a fascinating look at how the rise and decline of civilizations relates to soil fertility.

In his book Solomon includes everything you need to know about testing your soil for mineral density. He talks about what labs are best to use and has added numerous charts and worksheets to help the gardener figure out how much of what specific ingredients need to be added to the garden, according to soil test results and how large of an area you are fertilizing. The author discusses when you may want to use a complete organic fertilizer as opposed to adding mineral components to the soil separately.

In the middle of the book the author includes information on what nutritional elements the plants and humans need and what products supply these factors.  Some of these elements are magnesium, calcium, boron, sulfur, phosphorous, sodium, iron, manganese, copper, and zinc. He also talks about what to do when there are excesses of specific soil ingredients.

While Solomon feels that compost alone does not adequately remineralize the soil, it is still an important component and he devotes a hefty section of the book on how to create balanced and effective compost. When he discusses the idea that you should try to get your compost ingredients from clean sources, he emphasizes the point that nutrient density of our food may be far more important than being overly particular about pesticide residues. It is the author’s opinion that if we eat foods that are highly dense in nutrition, then our bodies will operate at peak performance and should have no problems in detoxifying the pesticide residues in the food. Here is an important quote from page 258.  “ Our fundamental health problem, the basic bottom line, is not that there are pesticide residues in our foods; the real problem is that only residues of nutrition remain in them.

“The Intelligent Gardener” is packed full of helpful information  concerning all you need to know about creating healthy soil that will nourish  garden vegetables and the humans who consume them. The author aptly expresses the dire need for focus on the critical subject of soil nutrient density and how our soil is being stripped of life sustaining properties. It is impossible for civilizations to prosper or even for human kind to survive without the adequate nourishment, which comes from properly mineralized soil. Solomon also speaks about the politics and monetary concerns surrounding the fertility of our soil.

I recommend this book to all who care about obtaining robust personal health and also to those who are concerned about the health of our governments, which run the world. The Intelligent Gardener offers much general information that anyone can understand but if the reader wants to implement some of the more detailed advice I think it would be helpful to have at least some inclination towards math and chemistry. This book is not necessarily for a beginning gardener…but more for the intermediate level. Steve Solomon’s book needs to be widely read!

IS VEGANISM A HEALTHY LONG TERM DIET CHOICE?

Beyond Broccoli: Creating a Biologically Balanced Diet When a Vegetarian Diet Doesn’t Work

By Susan Schenck, Lac

Much confusion exists today concerning what constitutes a healthy diet. Fad diets come and go, many of which are politically and economically motivated. Since our food supply has become centralized, (created, shipped and stored for us) people have gradually lost the natural instincts to forage for and to raise natural unprocessed foods. This unnatural separation from our food supply has dulled our intuitive faculties, resulted in poor food choices, and has produced a world of physical, spiritual and emotional suffering.

In the book “Beyond Broccoli”, the author, Susan Schenck, tackles the controversial and increasingly popular diet trends: vegetarianism and veganism. Having been a strict vegan for 6 years, followed by a year of vegetarianism, Schenck began experiencing health problems which she later attributed to certain vitamin and mineral deficiencies produced by her exclusion of animal based protein. Beyond Broccoli is written from this unique perspective of experience and gradual deterioration of health.

The author divides the book into five major sections, each section consisting of several chapters. The sections included are: 1. The Vegetarian Mystique  2. Evolution of the Human Diet. 3. Finding Balance in Fats, Carbohydrates, and Proteins. 4. Morality, Spirituality and Sustainability of Eating Meat. 5. What’s for Dinner?

 In chapter one Schenck shares her personal experience when following a raw vegan diet. While the author feels that veganism and vegetarianism are valuable aides in short term detoxification, she has experienced first hand that these diets, which exclude most or all animal protein, are not healthy long term solutions for most people. She relates to us how in the beginning of her vegan experience she gained abundant energy and felt very healthy. Schenck now feels that this increased feeling of well being was due to the detoxifying nature of a plant based diet….and that it is the long term exclusion of animal products that begins to take it’s toll on many. I found this to be an important point for those considering embarking on a vegan or vegetarian diet.  After several years of excluding animal protein, Schenck’s health gradually began to deteriorate. She discusses some of her symptoms and talks about the vitamin and mineral deficiencies, which she feels, may have caused these symptoms.

The author covers the myths surrounding vegetarianism and has researched into the origins of vegan and vegetarian lifestyles. Weston Price was very interested in the primitive groups who ate very minimal animal foods or none at all. Schenck shares with us a quote by Weston Price that reveals what he discovered in his research.

“ As yet I have not found a single group of primitive racial stock which was building and maintaining excellent bodies by living entirely on plant foods. I have found in many parts of the world most devout representatives of modern ethical systems advocating the restriction of foods to the vegetable products. In every instance where the groups involved had been long under the teaching, I found evidence of degeneration in the form of abnormal dental arches to an extent very much higher than in the primitive groups who were not under this influence.”

The author advocates balance in the diet and encourages the consumption of animal protein (sometimes raw), healthy fats, nuts, berries, plenty of fresh and preferably raw vegetables, apples and berries. She also thoroughly discusses why she feels the addition of grains to the diet should be limited. Schenck’s opinons are based on research and she backs up all of her ideas with documentation.

The book also includes detailed and interesting discussions focused on the politics of agriculture, the sustainablility of raising animals for food, the quality of protein in animal products versus the protein found in grains and vegetables, what specific foods are especially good for brain function, and the digestibility of different foods. Another important topic covered is diabetes. Schenck links the exponential rise in diabetes to the emphasis on grains, and other high carbohydrate foods, in the American diet.

The author also includes the sensitive issue of the morality or ethics of eating meat. I thought she made an interesting point when she speaks of the long drawn out chase when animals hunt each other down in the wild and the fear that the animal being chased must be experiencing. She compares this scenario to animals that are more quickly and hopefully humanely killed by humans.  Schenck expresses it this way…  “We should raise animals on farms in natural sunlight, letting them express their animal beingness.  It is said, “Let them have only one bad day in their lives,” the day in which they die. This day is unavoidable, domesticated or wild. Such animals on a traditional farm will live longer than they do in the wild and suffer less tortuous deaths.” We are also reminded that the world is set up in a way that all life feeds off of other life and that by denying this fact we are denying nature’s wisdom. When we disregard nature’s laws we will always suffer the consequences.

Schenck hopes that after reading her book vegans and vegetarians will try to include at least some animal protein into their diets. However, realizing that not everyone will want to do this, she includes a section advising what foods vegetarians and vegans should include and avoid.

I found “Beyond Broccoli” to be a very comprehensive and important examination of the subject of what we should be eating and why. It is equally important for us to understand how politics, population, and economics influence government nutritional advice. Schenck has done an excellent job in revealing the probable motivations behind nutritional propaganda. If we can understand these factors which influence what we eat then we will be better armed in determining what diet advice we should incorporate into our lives.  I found “Beyond Broccoli” to be a very enjoyable and informative book which should be of interest to omnivores, vegetarians and vegans.

Will Government Soon Require Garden Registration?

Some people may think that the person narrating the video below is being a bit paranoid. Unfortunately, I tend to agree with his concerns. It is becoming more and more apparent that events and circumstances are being manipulated to force the population to become more tied to and dependant on the governmental system..... which is being increasingly controlled by the world banking cartel. We are no longer an independently ruled nation...even though the mainstream media likes to still give us this impression.

Think about all of the pieces that are coming together to form the puzzle of totalitarian government. We are rapidly approaching the point of almost total surveillance. There are cameras and TVs everywhere. We have mobile phones and other electronics that are connected to the global positioning system. Most phones are registered to a plan so the identity of that phone owner is known. There are tracking devices in the phones. I have a friend who worked for Verizon who confirmed that. I guess it's no secret....but why then is everyone so complacent about this? Why isn't everyone concerned about being tracked and perhaps monitored at some point? I've heard many people say....well I'm not doing anything wrong....why should I worry about being tracked? Unbelievably we can even be watched or photographed from the sky! It is so bizarre that people are not opposed to this. Is it because of the cool advantages we gain through this invasive technology?

The point is there may be a time coming when raising backyard chickens or a vegetable garden may be either off limits or gardens may have to be registered so that we will either be obligated to pay heavy taxes on our food we grow or a portion will have to be handed over to the government under false pretenses. Please see the video below which appears to be the beginning of a progression to the control I just spoke of.

The puzzle pieces are...... heavy surveillance already in place, increased false flag terrorism events, orchestrated school shootings (gun recall), social networks , such as Facebook and Twitter which ask us what we are doing and to share it with the world, increased weather disasters which appear to be orchestrated, financial meltdown to weaken a country for complete takeover, making food more scarce due to the possibly orchestrated weather disasters, destabilizing the family and creating rifts between the generations, pitting people against each other with fake political parties , making people afraid to voice their opinions for fear of rejection or being labeled as a traitor, and.....demoralizing and sickening the people of our country through drugs (pharmaceutical and illegal) and debased sexual displays. Satanism is being glorified through rock music. The tendency is to try and separate us from everything that is pure and good.

So...maybe we had ought to rethink about revealing our private activities on social media. Notice how they are gradually doing away with the post office. If this happens all people will eventually be forced to use the computer which definitely has the potential to be totally monitored. Credit cards may totally replace cash...then everything we spend money on can be tracked. What about microchips? What's the future with that? If we go along unquestioningly with all of this, we will only have ourselves to blame. So...don't be afraid to speak up. Tell others about your concerns in a calm and rational way, with printed handouts ( we need to go back to hard copies) of  information that can back up your statements.

More and more restrictions are being placed upon us and it is not for "our own good" like they try to make it appear.. The current turmoil the world is facing is orchestrated and carefully choreographed. Watch how our weather disasters are blamed on global warming or climate change and observe how the storms come in rapid fire sequence to destabilize and wear down. This is not a pleasant subject and I don't enjoy creating fear in myself and others ....however, if we are blinded to the truth then we become easy pickins. Who was it that said..."Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free? I take this to mean spiritual and material truths. We need to wake up and be watchful!

As you can see I diverged from the main topic of gardens...but it all ties together and we need to see the broader picture. If we have open minds and hearts we can band together to destabilize the negative forces. Listen to the video below to see how this pattern is emerging.
 

Chicken Of The Woods

    L. cincinnatus


Foraging for mushrooms and other wild foods can be very rewarding. Wild foods have basically remained unchanged throughout recent history and therefore retain much of their natural composition or nutriment. One doesn't have to worry...yet anyway....about genetically engineered foods in the wild. Foraged mushrooms are delicious, free, very nutritious, and certain ones can be very medicinal....being used as immune building tonics ,  for cancer prevention, and more.

The mushroom pictured above is called Chicken of the Woods and doesn't seem to be well known for any specific medicinal uses but it is delicious when picked young (tasting something like chicken) and doesn't have any poisonous lookalikes....which is why I picked this for one of my first foraging and culinary adventures. There are two forms of Chicken of the Woods...the L cincinnatus which is pictured above and grows in a rosette...usually near the bottom of a tree and Laetiporus sulphureus which grows in overlapping shelves as in the picture below.

    Laetiporus sulphureus

The Chicken of the Woods, in the second photo directly above ,is a bit too old to eat. As you can see it has lost much of it's deep beautiful orange color and is beginning to dry out and get tough. When young and fresh...this particular variety will be bright orange on top and will have  a very bright yellow (almost fluorescent ) underside, composed of pores, not gills. So...I left this specimen alone and will come back to this tree next year and hopefully find another specimen that is a bit younger.

The Chicken of the Woods specimen at the very top is the one I took home and cooked up. I sliced up and cooked the whole mushroom at once. I then  ate two meals from it fresh and then I froze 2 containers of the same cooked specimen. Here's what it looked like in the pan! Yummmmm!

Chicken of the Woods is great sauteed and added to stir fries or scrambled eggs. It can also be added to soups or stews. After I cooked it in the pan above, it tasted so good that I ate a whole portion right out of the pan.

With Chicken of the Woods it's important to basically know what kind of tree it is growing on. Don't eat any specimens that have been growing on a conifer as some people experience toxicity from mushrooms growing on pine trees. Even though Chicken of the Woods is one of the safest mushrooms to start out with, before you go mushroom hunting it's imperative that you study several different books on the subject to become more aware of how to distinguish between the poisonous and edible mushrooms. So far I have stayed with only the mushrooms that grow on trees or on the roots of trees. Most of these are nonpoisonous ...but again get yourself a couple of good books that  concentrate on a few safe edible mushrooms with few or no poisonous lookalikes.

Several books that I have used and recommend are The Complete Mushroom Hunter: An Illustrated Guide To Finding, Harvesting, And Enjoying Wild Mushrooms By Gary Lincoff, Edible and Medicinal Mushrooms of New England and Eastern Canada By David Spahr and Medicinal Mushrooms: An Exploration of Tradition, Healing, and Culture

The link below has more beautiful photos of Chicken of the Woods
http://www.mushroom-collecting.com/mushroomchickens.html

The video below shows someone hunting for Chicken of the Woods, harvesting the mushrooms and taking it home to cook it.

 

In modern society we have become so far removed from truly natural food sources that we no longer instinctively know what we are supposed to be eating and when or how to properly prepare the food to either rid the food of anti-nutrients and toxins or to increase vitamin and enzyme content (soaking and fermenting). I am gradually learning how to forage for certain foods and medicinals and am finding the whole experience fascinating. In addition to gathering healthy free food, the whole process of hiking in the woods provides us with exercise, fresh air, sunshine and distances us from the more concentrated  artificial electromagnetic frequencies that are so rife in our environment.

In the near future I am planning to post information on growing your own mushrooms on logs outdoors. Chicken of the Woods is one type that can be grown from plug spawn. I am currently growing Shiitake mushrooms which are purported to be very medicinal and are also delicious and easy to grow. So...more about that at a later date.

For those of you who don't have access to wild mushrooms, don't have the time...or you may just want to try out these healthy culinary delights before further experimentation, you might want to visit Mountain Rose Herbs. Under the category of herbs and spices, look up Maitake, Shiitake, and Chaga mushrooms and read about their benefits by clicking on the information buttons included with each type of mushroom. These three dried mushrooms are very medicinal. Many people buy them in their supplement or pill form but I feel that the whole food is more economical and healthier....and you're getting real food...not just powder in a pill. The whole food fills you up and it's delicious!

I feel that if you like the idea of storing a bit of food, that dried mushrooms are a great prospect. I have a medium size galvanized pail down in my basement filled with 5 lbs of maitake mushrooms, enclosed in the original plastic bag they came in. Whenever I want some mushrooms to add to my soups, stews, casseroles, or scrambled eggs, I just go down cellar, take some out of the bag, reclose it well and put the pail cover back on, soak the dried mushrooms in water for half an hour to an hour (depending on the variety) and then add it to my recipe.It's been a year and a half since I bought them and they are still in great shape.Ordering 5 lbs of dried mushrooms provided more mushrooms than I expected. They are light when dry. It is much cheaper buying these dried mushrooms in bulk rather than buying small amounts in the grocery store. Mountain Rose herbs gives a 10% discount if you buy 5 or more pounds of herbs...in any combination. Mushrooms are listed under herbs and spices. This helps to pay for a little of the shipping.

So....I am learning to grow and forage my own mushrooms but in the meantime I am supplementing my stock with bought dried mushrooms. I became affiliated with Mountain Rose Herbs after buying from them for several years. I have never had any problems and their products...so far.... have always been fresh.