The Joy of Fresh Vegetables from the Garden

freshveggiesIt may seem geeky but my favourite food is fresh vegetables from the garden. People think I’m weird but there is truly nothing as surprisingly succulent as that first crunch of a baby carrot that you’ve cleaned by wiping it on your pants.

Steamed baby carrots with a whisker of melted butter epitomize simple, real, delicious food. The taste is sweet; the texture, firm, yet tender. If you’ve ever eaten a garden baby carrot you will agree that it should be illegal to refer to the others as baby carrots. How can they possibly have taste when they are nothing more than old carrots, peeled to a “baby” shape and dipped in bleach to preserve them? Yum! Bleach!

If you’ve ever sat in a pea patch on a hot August afternoon, gorging on the fruits of the vines, you know exactly how I feel about fresh vegetables. In fact, eating peas directly from the shells is a surefire way to get kids to eat their veggies. Contrast those tasty morsels with pureed baby-food peas or ordinary canned peas and it’s not hard to understand why kids often despise vegetables. If more kids were turned loose in a pea patch, I’m confident more kids would love veggies.

Admittedly some vegetables need help. I like turnips and parsnips cooked with a little brown sugar.  It’s how my mom and grandmothers served them. My kids thought they didn’t like turnips so I used to cook them with carrots and puree them with a little butter and brown sugar. They loved them!

Tell me; have you ever had asparagus just picked from the garden? The flavour is like none other, almost like eating the smell of freshly cut grass, sweet and green. Sometimes you’ll find spears as slim as licorice string with a tassel at the end. I suggest eating them raw and absorbing their fresh pea taste or very lightly steaming them.

Fresh garden vegetables contain trace minerals that are largely absent from vegetables grown in commercial operations.  Those minerals are vital building blocks for many processes performed by a healthy body and are undoubtedly the key to fresh vegetables’ explosive taste.

Ideally home-grown vegetables are not subjected to chemicals to make them grow or to kill insects and weeds; these poisonous substances may cause more damage to our health than we receive from eating vegetables.

Another advantage to eating home-grown produce is it doesn’t have to travel for hundreds or thousands of miles; instead it can be picked and eaten when ripe. The eater gets to enjoy all the benefits of the food with fewer of the costs, both monetary and environmental.

There is nothing so satisfying than to walk through the garden with a bowl in hand, planning lunch based on what is ripe and ready. A handful of fresh leaves with a home-made dressing, a few baby potatoes sautéed in butter, and a mess of beets and greens provide the basis for a meal that simply cannot be bought.

If you have a chance to grow and/or eat fresh vegetables from the garden, I urge you to do it. Your taste buds and your body’s engine will thank you.  If you have no clue how to raise your own garden, it’s not as difficult as you might think.  Here are some resources to get you started:

One Million Gardens http://www.onemilliongardens.com/

Garden Planner http://www.growveg.com/Default.aspx,

Documented Experiences of a Home Gardener: http://www.albertahomegardening.com/

Rah! Rah! RAW! Updated July 2013

rawfoodRaw Food, that is.

Incorporating more raw food into your diet is one of the best moves you can make towards optimum health. It’s not necessary to toss out your stove to enjoy the benefits of eating raw foods, simply add more of them to each meal.

Why raw?

Raw food is “living food”. As opposed to dead foods, (anything that is processed and/or cooked), living foods still have their enzymes intact. Enzymes are catalysts for every function of the body from blinking to breathing.

Cooking also destroys food’s naturally occurring vitamins and strips away most antioxidants. (One exception is that cooked tomatoes have more lycopene, a nutrient known to prevent prostate cancer, than raw tomatoes). Our bodies were designed to eat primarily raw foods and many of our modern diseases can be controlled or eliminated with a raw food diet.

I first became aware of the benefits of eating living foods about 30 years ago. When planning the “real estate” of my plate, I strive to ensure at least 2/3 is plant based and of that, at least half is raw. Lately I’ve worked at increasing the ratio of raw to cooked foods based on the miracles eating raw has brought to others.

A few years ago a friend of mine lost his sister to cancer. A cleaner in the hospital where his sister breathed her last breathe had gotten acquainted with the family over the course of her illness and suggested that her cancer could have been prevented with a raw food diet. My friend was intrigued and bought the book the woman had recommended. He began eating raw and within about two weeks he noticed his asthma was gone. He no longer needed medication that he had taken nearly his entire life, over 50 years.

There are many cases of diabetes retreating from a raw food diet. Drew Carey of the Price is Right has reportedly cured his diabetes and lost significant pounds by eating raw.  Mike Adams, founder of the web site Natural News (which has over 100 raw food articles) cured his pre-diabetic condition by eating a diet that is 60 to 90% raw. Unfortunately, most doctors believe diabetes is incurable and must be treated with expensive medications.

One of my daughters has struggled with her weight since she was a teenager, despite working out religiously and eating “healthy”. When she began eating a primarily raw food diet she miraculously went from a size 12 to a six and for the first time in years, her stomach doesn’t hurt whenever she eats. She reports having more energy and even though it takes some extra effort to seek raw food, she vows she will never go back.

The main benefits of eating raw include:

#1 More energy. The body spends less energy digesting food and the aforementioned enzymes are not destroyed, adding to one’s vitality.

#2 Elimination is drastically improved on a raw diet. A properly functioning digestive system is vital to maintaining optimal health.

#3 More time: it takes less time to prepare raw food (once you know some of the tricks) and people on raw food diets often report that they require less sleep.

#4 Weight loss: 82.5% of people who switched to raw food diets reported losing weight.

#5 Mental Health: 87.5% of raw “foodies” report improved mental health in areas such as optimism, memory, focus, patience, and even creativity, without the dreadful side effects of anti-depressants

#6 Lowered cardiovascular disease, including lowered cholesterol and triglycerides.  C-reactive protein, an inflammatory molecule linked to heart disease, diabetes and other chronic disease is also lowered with raw food.

#7 Improved menstrual cycles; stress reduction, reduced breast and prostate cancers.

Studies show that cooked foods increase our white blood cell activity, essentially meaning our bodies see cooked food as invaders. This explains why many “dis-eases” can be treated by switching to a raw food diet.

It’s not difficult to increase your raw food consumption. An easy way is to eat fruit for breakfast.  My favourite breakfast is a sliced banana or two with some berries and/or a sliced peach with a splash of coconut milk. If you eat enough fruit, it will get you through the morning. Fruit is also a good snack anytime of day.

Another great way to increase your raw food intake is to eat salads. They don’t have to be the standard lettuce and tomato salad. You can literally turn any veggies into a satisfying meal. I invented a salad a couple years ago that is a summer favourite of mine and it has no lettuce in it at all.  See Nasturtium Salad.

Raw foods can also be added to cooked foods. A baked potato can be topped with any number of chopped raw veggies, including cabbage, broccoli, onions, and/or tomatoes.

I have attended a number of raw food workshops given by Afke Zonderland and sponsored by a local health food store, Amaranth Whole Foods Market. Afke is a marvelous woman who showed us how to make Walnut-Zucchini Crackers and some fabulous dairy-free dips.

She made a sweet potato and celery soup with cooked sweet potatoes and served it warm. I liked that she wasn’t a raw food “purist”: she argued that after a day on the ski hill she didn’t want to eat something cold and that the idea is to eat as many raw foods as possible but not be militant about it.

Afke is all about spreading the message of healthy eating. She has dozens of recipes on her website at www.foodsalive.ca. Not all her recipes are completely raw but they all incorporate some raw elements, which is really the point. She also recommended David Wolfe’s book Superfoods. His web site is www.DavidWolfe.com. I have included more resources below.

I encourage you to take small steps towards incorporating more living food into your diet. By eating less dead food, you are sure to enjoy some of the benefits without having to diet (aka, “suffer”!

Rah! Rah! Raw!

Sources:

www.NaturalNews.com has dozens of Articles on raw food including: http://www.NaturalNews.com/z030137_lifestyle_health.html

http://altmedicine.about.com/od/pop…

http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content…

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/diabetes/…

http://www.iowasource.com/food/lenk…

http://www.google.com search Raw Food for tons more resources.