Summer Feasting

Zucchini and summer squash display such rapid middle of summer growth that some gardeners sneak out at night and gift their surplus on local doorsteps. If you discovered a mountain of summer squash in your garden or on your doorstep, steaming, sautéing, baking, grating raw in salads, slicing and dipping, dehydrating, and making noodle shapes for sauce are some of the many ways squash can be devoured.

Unlike the sweet fruits of summer, zucchini and summer squash are actually non-sweet fruits that tend to be easy to digest and very balancing to the body. So feel free to indulge and find new ways to eat these tender fruits. You’ll reap the health benefits these squash offer.

Recent studies have shown, zucchini and other summer squash rank in the top three foods high in antioxidant rich carotenoids like alpha-carotene, zeaxanthin, and lutein. Summer squash are also high in potassium, vitamin C, manganese, and vision preserving vitamin A, as well as B-1 and B-6. These nutrients support bone health including the health of the teeth, heart health, healthy weight, cancer prevention, collagen production (think beautiful skin) and eye health. Beyond eating them raw, steaming them with the skin intact (as opposed to boiling or microwaving), has been shown to be the best way to preserve those nutrients.

Summer squashes are members of the Cucurbitaceae family and are relatives of both the melon and the cucumber. All parts of summer squash are edible, including the flesh, seeds, and skin. For Native Americans, squashes were so prized they were coined as one of the “Three Sisters” along with corn (maize) and beans.

Zucchini can have a yellow skin, green skin, or striped and speckled skin. Black Beauty, Golden, Caserta, Cocozelle, Round, and Dark Green are some of the popular varieties and as one more bonus, zucchini is one of the summer squash types that produces edible flowers.

Golden Summer Crookneck and Early Prolific Straightneck are the varieties many of us refer to as summer squash and they are most often yellow in color – although they can also be pale green.

Scallop Squash, also called Patty Pan, can be white, pale yellow, or light green in color and are the shape of a thick sand dollar or saucer. Scallop Squash often have a sweeter flesh than other summer squash.

The trick to harvesting fresh zucchini and summer squash all summer is to plant in succession in late spring, sowing a few seeds every two weeks. This way if your neighbor doesn’t leave you a basket of these beauties, you’ll still be enjoying squash in salads or warmed up with fresh garden tomatoes, basil, and onions. Instead of high carb noodles, make spirals or ribbons with your squash and then indulge in pasta sauces over nutrient rich, hydrating (95% water), low-calorie summer squash.

Feeling adventurous? Find novel ways to make zucchini bread and zucchini chips. Your search engine will lead you to many recipes, both raw and cooked, that you will be proud to present at parties or for just you and your clan.

When it comes to produce, should we choose organic or local? The obvious answer is “both.” But when local, organic produce is not available, which is the greener and healthier choice?

People who vote for organic will argue that organic is always healthier because it is not genetically modified and is not sprayed with pesticides and herbicides. On the other hand, many of the eco-conscious cite the enormous carbon footprint involved in the transportation of produce. It is a bit ridiculous to buy organic California grown oranges in Florida and vice-versa. Buying locally not only saves on fossil fuels, it also keeps money in the local economy.

So, if you’re buying for health, you should always buy organic, and if you’re buying for environmental reasons, you should always buy local, right? Not necessarily.

Which is Healthier?

Locally grown fruits and vegetables may actually be healthier than organic fruits and vegetables shipped in from afar. While GMOs should be avoided at all costs, if health is your primary concern, try to find out if the farmer practices crop rotation. This is necessary to determine the nutritional value of the produce. Consider the distance organic produce travels with the substantial loss of enzymes and nutrients compared to fresh produce. And remember that organic farmers are allowed to use some harmful pesticides under many circumstances. Then consider the significant increase in vitamin and mineral content in produce grown on local farms that practice crop rotation.

The vitamins and mineral content of produce is not always higher when produce is organic, not when the nutrition is determined by the health of the soil and the freshness of the produce. While organic practices typically do promote healthier soil and more nutritious produce, with big business fully on the organic bandwagon soil quality is not always taken into consideration. Consequently, crop rotation, one of the best ways to help restore the soil, can be ignored.

The average person, that is, a person whose health is not degraded to the point where chemical sensitivities are an issue, would do better to ingest a little more pesticides with a lot more vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and enzymes. It behooves the consumer who shops in this manner to choose wisely. If buying conventional for health’s sake, conventional produce that typically contain the highest concentrations of pesticides, like berries and apples, should be avoided. It is likely that the increased benefits of local fresh strawberries are nullified by the enormous amounts of pesticides conventional farmers use to grow them.

Which is Greener?

When purchasing produce, we should consider long term ramifications of decisions. Voting with the pocketbook is the most powerful vote anyone can make considering its frequency and potential to evoke real change. Money talks. Every time a purchase of conventional produce is made a vote is cast for non-organic, environmentally harmful practices. Buying non-organic produce encourages everything the environmentally conscious stand against. Purchasing local conventional produce for the purpose of saving carbon emissions is penny wise and pound foolish.

To further complicate matters, the way food miles are calculated often misses a big piece of the puzzle. When purchasing an apple grown locally, for example, one should take into account the fact that the apple grown on a small scale farm may have arrived to the market via a small farmer’s pickup truck that traveled 65 miles to the market with around 100 apples or so. Compare this to a semi truck carrying two or three thousand apples. We can do the math to calculate the fuel consumed per apple, but in most cases, the math gets way too complicated. Farmers often bring their produce to large farmer’s markets in their area via their pickups and flatbeds, where the produce is shipped all over the country via tractor trailers.

A Better Idea

Ask the local grocery store manager if s/he carries local, organic produce. When shopping at farmer’s markets ask the vendors if they have organic produce and if they practice crop rotation. When the answer is no, move on. This is how change happens.

Even Better

Grow as much of your own food as you can.

Make your own vitamin C at home, and make it better than any store-bought vitamin C

Vitamin C Recipe

So you may not know that almost all of the vitamin C supplement manufacturers are making their vitamin C from genetically engineered corn. What! You exclaim. How am I supposed to get enough vitamin C into my family if I don’t buy store bought supplements? Answer: You make your own! What you are about to read is something that the giant pharmaceutical companies don’t want you to see.

Even the health food stores don’t want you to know about this secret. You can make your very own vitamin C supplement that is ten times better than anything you could buy in a store at NO EXTRA COST TO YOU!

Does it have a 1,000 mg of vitamin C per dosage? Nope. Does it have the USRDA amount per dosage? Not at all. Has it been approved by the FDA?  Absolutely not!

What homemade vitamin C does have is live enzymes that allow the vitamin C to be 100% assimilated into your body.  It has its own natural source of rutin, hesperidin, and bioflavonoids. It’s easily acquired, easy to make, and even tastes good, too. It’s just orange & lemon peels.

It’s that easy. Any organic orange or lemon peels left over from the fruit you  buy will do the trick.  Save all of your peels after you eat the inside of the fruit and cut them into thin strips. Place them on a plate on your dining room table and let them dry at room temperature for a couple of days until dry and crisp. You can also dehydrate the peels with a food dehydrator and then store them for about a year in a dry container. For consumption, one idea is to break up peels into smaller pieces and mix them with your favorite tea. This makes the tea taste great, but the downside to this approach is that heat destroys the enzymes. A better option is to place the peel strips into your coffee grinder and grind them into a powder (which won’t hurt the enzymes) and use to mix with your early morning smoothie. One rounded teaspoon will supply you with more organic vitamin C complex, rutin, hesperidin, and bioflavonoids than your body needs for the day, regardless of your size. And this homemade citrus peel powder mixed in your blender with some fresh organic apple juice tastes good too.

Check out these articles if you are looking for tips to boost your immune system, or heal from chemotherapy. Also, be sure to read up on Leaky Guts and Autoimmune Diseases.

Recommended Supplements:

• Total Nutrition Formula

Further Reading:

• Total Nutrition – Make your own Homemade Multivitamin and Mineral Formula
• Homemade Calcium and Magnesium
• Things You Should Know About Garlic – DIY, Recipes, Other Tips

I buy most of my groceries from DeKalb Farmer’s Market. I also like to shop at local, smaller farmer’s markets as well, but their hours tend to be limited and difficult for me to shop there. Living in the city of Atlanta provides a lot of good choices for fresh and organic produce.

But there are no farmer’s markets close to where I live. There are a few supermarkets within walking distance. Whole Foods, Kroger, and Publix are the three close to me. Every now and then (like this morning) I get hungry before Whole Foods opens. I woke up at 4 a.m. this morning famished after a day of extremely intense physical activity and I wanted breakfast. In fact, I think, after only 4 hours of sleep hunger is what woke me up. I felt like my stomach was about to start eating itself. So I went to Kroger because they are open 24 hours a day.

When I go grocery shopping for the week my diet mainly consists of salads (to see an example of the kind of salads I eat once or twice a day, check out the 80% raw article). I only had a few dollars to spend so I went straight for the produce. I bought three oranges and two apples, a red bell pepper, and a kiwi. This was my breakfast. They were all organic.

It was not pleasant eating this food. Don’t get me wrong, yesterday I bought two apples, two oranges, and an heirloom tomato at Whole Foods and loved them. I ate them in one sitting right before my martial arts class. I absolutely love fruits and vegetables. But every single time I buy any produce at any of the conventional grocery stores the food tastes empty. It’s a chore to eat this produce.

I understand why so many people don’t like fruits and vegetables. I understand why getting a child to eat their vegetables’ is futile power struggle. It’s because most of the produce we purchase in this country looks good on the shelves, but is void of nutrition and consequently, void of taste!

The produce I bought at Kroger was organic. But it was organic produce that was produced by a huge farm that probably produces organic food almost exactly like they produce conventional food. And the produce was probably weeks old. It was bland and hard to eat. I could have as easily swallowed cardboard or Styrofoam. My mouth was getting tired from chewing, but I could barely produce enough saliva to swallow this food that my body didn’t seem to want any more than my taste buds did.

If you are looking to start eating healthy and are looking to incorporate more raw fresh fruits and vegetables into your diet, you must find a farmer’s market or a grocery store that prides itself in quality produce. If you need help locating a farmer’s market, check out Local Harvest.

And grow as much of your own food as you can! If you’re just getting started with growing your own food, Mike Liebermam’s Urban Organic Gardener is a blog you must follow, especially if you have limited space and/or a limited budget.

I feel sorry for anyone who does not have access to good produce. I can’t imagine living the way I do and eating the way I do with the kind of crap I bought this morning.

There are lots of reasons to eat organic. here are 17.

1. It’s Healthier

Organic foods contain considerably higher levels of vitamins, minerals, and cancer-fighting antioxidants than their conventional counterparts.

2. No Unnatural Additives, Preservatives, or Flavors

Organic foods do not contain hydrogenated fats, artificial colors, artificial flavors, preservatives, artificial sweeteners, or monosodium glutamate (MSG), all of which can cause health problems.

3. No Pesticides

More than 400 chemical pesticides are routinely used in conventional farming. Pesticide residues are present in non-organic food. The average conventionally-grown apple has between 20-30 artificial poisons on its skin, even after it is washed.

4. No Genetic Modifications

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are not currently allowed under organic standards. GMOs pose significant health risks and environmental hazards.

5. No Antibiotics or Hormones

Antibiotics and hormones given to farm animals cause health issues in humans. For instance, hormones in milk and meat are believed to be the reason children are reaching puberty at earlier ages than ever before.

6. Organics Aren’t Really More Expensive

Conventionally produced foods have hidden costs, including billions of dollars in federal agriculture and energy subsidies that favor big business. Chemical regulations and testing, hazardous waste disposal, environmental damage and cleanup, and illnesses and hospitalizations are other hidden costs to our non-organically grown foods. We pay for these subsidies with taxes.

7. Protect Your Children

Children are often more vulnerable to toxins than adults. Children should be fed an organic diet and taught how to resist our junk-food culture. It may take years before ailments associated with chronic or episodic contact with toxins become acute. Good food choices have a substantial effect on a child’s future health.

8. High Standards

Organic food usually comes from trusted sources, companies that are more likely to care about your health.

9. Care for Animals

Animal welfare is taken very seriously under organic standards. The appalling treatment of the majority of our farm animals is not acceptable under organic standards.

High Standards

Organic food usually comes from trusted sources, companies that are more likely to care about your health.

10. Care for Animals

Animal welfare is taken very seriously under organic standards. The appalling treatment of the majority of our farm animals is not acceptable under organic standards.

11. Better for the Environment

Organic farming does not pollute the environment through pesticide runoff or contaminate other crops and seed banks with GMOs.

12. Top for Taste

Organic tastes so much better! Fruits and vegetables are full of juice and flavor. Try them yourself. A side-by-side taste test allows you to easily taste and feel the difference.

13. Support Small Scale Local Farmers

Organic farms are more likely to be small and independently owned and operated. By buying locally produced foods, you help insure local farms are viable. Huge corporate agribusiness is significantly less efficient than the small farmer.

14. Save Energy

Buying organic and whenever possible buying from your local farmer, saves energy. You won’t be contributing to the environmental and social costs of the worldwide transport of foods and fertilizers. Fertilizer is naturally occurring; it isn’t shipped from across the nation. Crops travel fewer miles from farm to market and save energy in transport. You won’t be supporting a system based on the exploitation of third world labor.

15. Promote Biodiversity

Many large scale agricultural businesses practice mono-cropping, planting large plots of land with the same crop year after year. This practice strips nutrients from the soil and causes farmers to become more and more dependent on fertilizers. It also upsets nature’s pest control. The more bugs found on a farm, the higher the percentage of beneficial insects in the population. Solid blocks of one crop attract pests who like to eat that particular crop. Increased genetic resistance to pesticides has caused crop losses to double in the last 50 years. Organic growers practice crop rotation, cover cropping, and composting. They work with Mother Nature, not against her. Clearly more biodiversity is necessary in farming, and buying organic supports this movement.

16. Prevent Soil Erosion

Conventional farming has extracted wealth from the land at the expense of our topsoil, causing a worldwide topsoil crisis. Across North America, soil is eroding seven times faster than it can be replaced. Cornell University reports erosion costs at about $44 billion a year. Organic sustainable farming practices ensure nutrient rich soil and healthier crops.

17. Protect Farm Workers’ Health

Farm workers are exposed to extremely high levels of agricultural poisons, higher than any segment of the population. The devastating effects on them and their families are well documented. These are the people who tend and harvest our food, and they deserve better. You can help farmers by supporting a safe work environment and voting with your pocketbook by purchasing organic foods.