How can we use sensory-specific satiety to our advantage?
When we eat the same foods over and over, we become habituated to them and end up liking them less. That’s why the “10th bite of chocolate, for example, is desired less than the first bite.” We have a built-in biological drive to keep changing up our foods so we’ll be more likely to hit all our nutritional requirements. The drive is so powerful that even “imagined consumption reduces actual consumption.” When study participants imagined again and again that they were eating cheese and were then given actual cheese, they ate less of it than those who repeatedly imagined eating that food fewer times, imagined eating a different food (such as candy), or did not imagine eating the food at all.
Ironically, habituation may be one of the reasons fad “mono diets,” like the cabbage soup diet, the oatmeal diet, or meal replacement shakes, can actually result in better adherence and lower hunger ratings compared to less restrictive diets.
In the landmark study “A Satiety Index of Common Foods,” in which dozens of foods were put to the test, boiled potatoes were found to be the most satiating food. Two hundred and forty calories of boiled potatoes were found to be more satisfying in terms of quelling hunger than the same number of calories of any other food tested. In fact, no other food even came close, as you can see below and at 1:14 in my video Exploiting Sensory-Specific Satiety for Weight Loss.
No doubt the low calorie density of potatoes plays a role. In order to consume 240 calories, nearly one pound of potatoes must be eaten, compared to just a few cookies, and even more apples, grapes, and oranges must be consumed. Each fruit was about 40 percent less satiating than potatoes, though, as shown here and at 1:45 in my video. So, an all-potato diet would probably take the gold—the Yukon gold—for the most bland, monotonous, and satiating diet.
A mono diet, where only one food is eaten, is the poster child for unsustainability—and thank goodness for that. Over time, they can lead to serious nutrient deficiencies, such as blindness from vitamin A deficiency in the case of white potatoes.
The satiating power of potatoes can still be brought to bear, though. Boiled potatoes beat out rice and pasta in terms of a satiating side dish, cutting as many as about 200 calories of intake off a meal. Compared to boiled and mashed potatoes, fried french fries or even baked fries do not appear to have the same satiating impact.
To exploit habituation for weight loss while maintaining nutrient abundance, we could limit the variety of unhealthy foods we eat while expanding the variety of healthy foods. In that way, we can simultaneously take advantage of the appetite-suppressing effects of monotony while diversifying our fruit and vegetable portfolio. Studies have shown that a greater variety of calorie-dense foods, like sweets and snacks, is associated with excess body fat, but a greater variety of vegetables appears protective. When presented with a greater variety of fruit, offered a greater variety of vegetables, or given a greater variety of vegetable seasonings, people may consume a greater quantity, crowding out less healthy options.
The first 20 years of the official Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommended generally eating “a variety of foods.” In the new millennium, they started getting more precise, specifying a diversity of healthier foods, as seen below and at 3:30 in my video.
A pair of Harvard and New York University dietitians concluded in their paper “Dietary Variety: An Overlooked Strategy for Obesity and Chronic Disease Control”: “Choose and prepare a greater variety of plant-based foods,” recognizing that a greater variety of less healthy options could be counterproductive.
So, how can we respond to industry attempts to lure us into temptation by turning our natural biological drives against us? Should we never eat really delicious food? No, but it may help to recognize the effects hyperpalatable foods can have on hijacking our appetites and undermining our body’s better judgment. We can also use some of those same primitive impulses to our advantage by minimizing our choices of the bad and diversifying our choices of the good. In How Not to Diet, I call this “Meatball Monotony and Veggie Variety.” Try picking out a new fruit or vegetable every time you shop.
In my own family’s home, we always have a wide array of healthy snacks on hand to entice the finickiest of tastes. The contrasting collage of colors and shapes in fruit baskets and vegetable platters beat out boring bowls of a single fruit because they make you want to mix it up and try a little of each. And with different healthy dipping sauces, the possibilities are endless.
Are you growing purslane yet (I mean, deliberately)? Its claims to fame are split, 50-50: invasive weed versus superfood. As the latter, it is delicious, and it hollers of summer. Browsing my photograph archives recently, I found bunches of purslane being sold at the Union Square greenmarket in Manhattan for $2 in 2018; in 2011, they were being sold for $2 per pound. Last week I bought loose, perfect purslane stems from my local Brooklyn farmers’ market. They were $20 for a quarter pound. I laughed out loud. But I bought some, because I don’t grow it. Luckily, you don’t need much purslane to benefit from this summer annual’s juicy, omega-3-rich fatty leaves, and their succulent crunch. And if you have weeded the uninvited plant from your garden beds and are now snickering at a person foolish enough pay for purslane, just simmer down and be thankful that you have at hand a plant whose nutritional numbers may silence dissent.
Above: Purslane for sale at a farmers’ market.
To some people, purslane is essential. It was lauded by the Romans. And, in Sylvia Townsend Warner’s The Corner that Held Them, a novel I’m reading, set in a 14th century English convent during the Black Death, a nun laments: “It is bad enough to be without a priest. Surely we need not be without purslane.”
Aside from its tremendously high levels of fatty acids, including omega-3‘s, purslane (Portulaca oleracea) also contains Vitamins A, C, and E, calcium, potassium, magnesium, and melatonin. It has been studied for its antidepressant effects, as well as for its neuroprotective qualities, with positive results.
Now, is it worth $20 for a quarter pound? The minute you put a price on something, the sticker shock can make people sit up and take it seriously for the first time.
Above: Circa 2011, purslane sold for just $2/lb at Union Square.
At the same market where it was selling for $20/quarter pound, a man asked me with friendly interest, How do you eat purslane? I started rattling off the ways: raw, in salads; raw, with flaky salt; raw in tomato sandwiches; pickled; cooked slowly with lamb; cooked in vegetable curry. He looked a little surprised. He didn’t buy any. Maybe I was overzealous. Or maybe he had a gardenful at home. I hope so.
This dish for creamed peas and potatoes is a wonderful side dish that your family will love.
❤️WHY WE LOVE THIS RECIPE
We love delicious side dishes and this one doesn’t disappoint. It’s an old-fashioned dish that our Nanny used to make, and we all loved it. It’s a great addition to any meal and we sometimes add it to our holiday menu. Check out all our favorite holiday dishes here.
SWAPS
We make this dish with bacon drippings, but you don’t have to. You can easily make this without it, and it’s still delicious. We peel the potatoes, but you don’t have to do that either. We make this with evaporated milk, but you can use regular milk.
This dish for Creamed Peas and Potatoes is delicious. Perfect side dish for any occasion and a wonderful addition to the holiday season.
Prep Time 10 minutesmins
Cook Time 20 minutesmins
Total Time 30 minutesmins
Course Side Dish
Cuisine American, southern
3large russet potatoescan use red potatoes
3slicesbaconcooked crisp
1tablespoonbacon drippings
3tablespoonsbutter
1/4cupchopped green onioncan use regular onion
1/4cupall-purpose flour
112 ounce can evaporated milk (can use regular milk)
1/4teaspoonblack pepper
1/2teaspoonsalt
116 ounce bag frozen green peas (can use fresh peas)
Peel the potatoes and cut into pieces. You can leave peelings on but I don’t. Cover with water and bring to a boil on stove. Cook potato pieces about 8 minutes. Do not overcook or they will become mushy.
Cook the bacon in a skillet on top of the stove, remove and drain, set aside. Save 1 tablespoon of the bacon drippings in the skillet. Add the butter and onion to the bacon drippings and saute’ onions. Sprinkle in flour and pour in milk and cook until mixture starts to thicken like you are making gravy. You don’t want it too thick.
Pour in peas and drained potatoes. Add salt and pepper. Turn heat to low for peas to cook. Only takes about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and crumble bacon on top.
Keyword easy recipe, easy side dish, easy skillet meal, peas, peas and potatoes, potatoes, the southern lady cooks
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Does the so-called miracle tree live up to the hype?
Moringa (Moringa oleifera) is a plant commonly known as the “miracle” tree due to its purported healing powers across a spectrum of diseases. If “miracle” isn’t hyperbolic enough for you, “on the Internet,” it’s also known as “God’s Gift to Man.” Is moringa a miracle or just a mirage? “The enthusiasm for the health benefits of M. oleifera is in dire contrast with the scarcity of strong experimental and clinical evidence supporting them. Fortunately, the chasm is slowly being filled.” There has been a surge in scientific publications on moringa. In just the last ten years, the number of articles is closer to a thousand, as shown here and at 1:02 in my video The Benefits of Moringa: Is It the Most Nutritious Food?.
What got my attention was the presence of glucosinolates, compounds that boost our liver’s detoxifying enzymes. I thought they were only found in cruciferous vegetables, such as cabbage, broccoli, kale, collards, and cauliflower. Still, it turns out they’re also present in the moringa family, with a potency comparable to broccoli. But rather than mail-ordering exotic moringa powder, why not just eat broccoli?Is there something special about moringa?
“Moringa oleifera has been described as the most nutritious tree yet discovered,” but who eats trees? Moringa supposedly “contains higher amounts of elemental nutrients than most conventional vegetable sources,” such as featuring 10 times more vitamin A than carrots, 12 times more vitamin C than oranges, 17 times more calcium than milk, 15 times more potassium than bananas, 25 times more iron than spinach, and 9 times more protein than yogurt, as shown here and at 2:08 in myvideo. Sounds impressive, but first of all, even if this were true, it is relevant for 100 grams of dry moringa leaf, which is about 14 tablespoons, almost a whole cup of leaf powder. Researchers have had trouble getting people to eat even 20 grams, so anything more would likely “result in excessively unpleasant taste, due to the bitterness of the leaves.”
Secondly, the nutritional claims in these papers are “adapted from Fuglie,” which is evidently a lay publication. If you go to the nutrient database of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and enter a more reasonable dose, such as the amount that might be in a smoothie, about a tablespoon, for instance, a serving of moringa powder has as much vitamin A as a quarter of one baby carrot and as much vitamin C as one one-hundredth of an orange. So, an orange has as much vitamin C as a hundred tablespoons of moringa. A serving of moringa powder has the calcium of half a cup of milk, the potassium of not fifteen bananas but a quarter of one banana, the iron of a quarter cup of spinach, and the protein of a third of a container of yogurt, as seen below and at 3:15 in my video. So, it may be nutritious, but not off the charts and certainly not what’s commonly touted. So, again, why not just eat broccoli?
Moringa does seem to have anticancer activity—in a petri dish—against cell lines of breast cancer, lung cancer, skin cancer, and fibrosarcoma, while tending to leave normal cells relatively alone, but there haven’t been any clinical studies. What’s the point in finding out that “Moringa oleifera extract enhances sexual performance in stressed rats,” as one study was titled?
Studies like “Effect of supplementation of drumstick (Moringa oleifera) and amaranth (Amaranthus tricolor) leaves powder on antioxidant profile and oxidative status among postmenopausal women” started to make things a little interesting. When researchers were testing the effects of a tablespoon of moringa leaf powder once a day for three months on antioxidant status, they saw a drop in oxidative stress, as one might expect from eating any healthy plant food. However, they also saw a drop in fasting blood sugars from prediabetic levels exceeding 100 to more normal levels. Now, that’s interesting. Should we start recommending a daily tablespoon of moringa powder to people with diabetes, or was it just a fluke? I’ll discuss the study “Moringa oleifera and glycemic [blood sugar] control: A review of the current evidence” next.
Culinary herbs add freshness and flavor to our meals. Growing them at home means that a quick trip to the garden or to the pot at the front door can yield a handful of aromatic goodness. It is often assumed that herbs require full sun to thrive, but many herbs prefer to grow in shade, or at least in partial shade. These shade-loving herbs include plants native to regions as diverse as the Mediterranean, North America, and Southeast Asia. Some of them are deeply familiar, and others may be more surprising.
Here are 13 herbs for shade that are staples in my kitchen. (If you have a favorite shade herb that you don’t see here, let us know in the comments.)
It took me years to learn that basil appreciates shade where summers are very hot. It begins to make sense when you realize that Ocimum species are native to tropical Asia and Africa, which conjures leafy forests. While basil will grow in full sun (with adequate watering), in hot summer climates it thrives in either full shade, afternoon shade, or dappled shade. The most shade-loving basils in my experience are purple, Thai, and Greek, in that order. Lemon basil also likes shade, while sweet (so-called Italian) basil will take more sun. Purple basil relishes shade, where it is as ornamental as it is delicious. During this very hot July my Thai basil planted in full sun is tall and full of flowers, but wilts twice a day, while the pot in full shade has remained more compact, is bushy with fragrant leaves, and has not bloomed yet; plus, it does not require double watering.
Mint
Above: This mint is Mentha spicata.
The mint we buy in grocery stores is Mentha spicata, a semi-aquatic perennial native to Eurasia and Southwest Asia. With a tendency to proliferate when planted in-ground, contained in a (large) pot it loses its invasive potential. This mint thrives in shade, where it will also guzzle less water than if it is planted in sun. Harvest it by pinching or cutting it back to another set of leaves, and water it deeply, rather than sprinkling the surface of the soil.
Coriander, or Cilantro
Above: Bolting ain’t bad—cilantro’s flowers turn to delicious coriander seeds.
The herb cilantro (Coriandrum sativum, native to Southern Europe and the Mediterranean) is also known as coriander in English, while in the United States, the seeds are always called coriander. Grown in shade, cilantro is slow to bolt and you will be harvesting its succulent leaves for longer than from a plant in full sun. When it does bloom, the pollinated flowers form citrus-forward seeds, which are an ephemeral delicacy while still green.
Parsley
Above: Parsley dislikes humid heat and will appreciate shade.
Parsley, another soft herb, will flourish in half a day of shade or in high, bright shade. Whether it’s curly or flat-leaf, Petroselinum crispum, native to Europe and parts of the the Mediterranean, will be slower to bolt when shaded.
We can raise BDNF levels in our brain by fasting and exercising, as well as by eating and avoiding certain foods.
There is accumulating evidence that brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) may be playing a role in human depression. BDNF controls the growth of new nerve cells. “So, low levels of this peptide could lead to an atrophy of specific brain areas such as the amygdala and the hippocampus, as it has been observed among depressed patients.” That may be one of the reasons that exercise is so good for our brains. Start an hour-a-day exercise regimen, and, within three months, there can be a quadrupling of BDNF release from our brain, as seen below and at 0:35 in my video How to Boost Brain BDNF Levels for Depression Treatment.
This makes sense. Any time we were desperate to catch prey (or desperate not to become prey ourselves), we needed to be cognitively sharp. So, when we’re fasting, exercising, or in a negative calorie balance, our brain starts churning out BDNF to make sure we’re firing on all cylinders. Of course, Big Pharma is eager to create drugs to mimic this effect, but is there any way to boost BDNF naturally? Yes, I just said it: fasting and exercising. Is there anything we can add to our diet to boost BDNF?
Higher intakes of dietary flavonoids appear to be protectively associated with symptoms of depression. The Harvard Nurses’ Health Study followed tens of thousands of women for years and found that those who were consuming the most flavonoids appeared to reduce their risk of becoming depressed. Flavonoids occur naturally in plants, so there’s a substantial amount in a variety of healthy foods. But how do we know the benefits are from the flavonoids and not just from eating more healthfully in general? We put it to the test.
Some fruits and vegetables have more flavonoids than others. As shown below and at 1:51 in my video, apples have more than apricots, plums more than peaches, red cabbage more than white, and kale more than cucumbers. Researchers randomized people into one of three groups: more high-flavonoid fruits and vegetables, more low-flavonoid fruits and vegetables, or no extra fruits and vegetables at all. After 18 weeks, only the high-flavonoid group got a significant boost in BDNF levels, which corresponded with an improvement in cognitive performance. The BDNF boost may help explain why each additional daily serving of fruits or vegetables is associated with a 3 percent decrease in the risk of depression.
What’s more, as seen here and at 2:27 in my video, a teaspoon a day of the spice turmeric may boost BNDF levels by more than 50 percent within a month. This is consistent with the other randomized controlled trials that have so far been done.
Nuts may help, too. In the PREDIMED study, where people were randomized to receive weekly batches of nuts or extra-virgin olive oil, the nut group lowered their risk of having low BDNF levels by 78 percent, as shown below and at 2:46.
And BDNF is not implicated only in depression, but schizophrenia. When individuals with schizophrenia underwent a 12-week exercise program, they got a significant boost in their BDNF levels, which led the researchers to “suggest that exercise-induced modulation of BDNF may play an important role in developing non-pharmacological treatment for chronic schizophrenic patients.”
What about schizophrenia symptoms? Thirty individuals with schizophrenia were randomized to ramp up to 40 minutes of aerobic exercise three times a week or not, and there did appear to be an improvement in psychiatric symptoms, such as hallucinations, as well as an increase in their quality of life, with exercise. In fact, researchers could actually visualize what happened in their brains. Loss of brain volume in a certain region appears to be a feature of schizophrenia, but 30 minutes of exercise, three times a week, resulted in an increase of up to 20 percent in the size of that region within three months, as seen here and at 3:46 in my video.
Caloric restriction may also increase BDNF levels in people with schizophrenia. So, researchers didn’t just have study participants eat less, but more healthfully, too—less saturated fat and sugar, and more fruits and veggies. The study was like the Soviet fasting trials for schizophrenia that reported truly unbelievable results, supposedly restoring people to function, and described fasting as “an unparalleled achievement in the treatment of schizophrenia”—but part of the problem is that the diagnostic system the Soviets used is completely different than ours, making any results hard to interpret. There was a subgroup that seemed to correspond to the Western definition, but they still reported 40 to 60 percent improvement rates from fasting, but fasting wasn’t all they did. After the participants fasted for up to a month, they were put on a meat- and egg-free diet. So, when the researchers reported these remarkable effects even years later, they were for those individuals who stuck with the meat- and egg-free diet. Evidently, the closer the diet was followed, the better the effect, and those who broke the diet relapsed. The researchers noted: “Not all patients can remain vegetarian, but they must not take meat for at least six months, and then in very small portions.” We know from randomized controlled trials that simply eschewing meat and eggs can improve mental states within just two weeks, so it’s hard to know what role fasting itself played in the reported improvements.
A single high-fat meal can drop BDNF levels within hours of consumption, and we can prove it’s the fat itself by seeing the same result after injecting fat straight into our veins. Perhaps that helps explain why increased consumption of saturated fats in a high-fat diet may contribute to brain dysfunction—that is, neurodegenerative diseases, long-term memory loss, and cognitive impairment. It may also help explain why the standard American diet has been linked to a higher risk of depression, as dietary factors modulate the levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor.
Women with breast cancer should include the “liberal culinary use of cruciferous vegetables.”
Both the Women’s Intervention Nutrition Study and the Women’s Health Initiative study showed that women randomized to a lower-fat diet enjoyed improved breast cancer survival. However, in the Women’s Healthy Eating and Living Study, women with breast cancer were also randomized to drop their fat intake down to 15 to 20 percent of calories, yet there was no difference in breast cancer relapse or death after seven years.
Any time there’s an unexpected result, you must question whether the participants actually followed through with study instructions. For instance, if you randomized people to stop smoking and they ended up with the same lung cancer rates as those in the group who weren’t instructed to quit, one likely explanation is that the group told to stop smoking didn’t actually stop. In the Women’s Healthy Eating and Living Study, both the dietary intervention group and the control group started out at about 30 percent of calories from fat. Then, the diet group was told to lower their fat intake to 15 to 20 percent of calories. By the end of the study, they had in fact gone from 28.5 percent fat to 28.9 percent fat, as you can see below and at 1:16 in my video The Food That Can Downregulate a Metastatic Cancer Gene. They didn’t even reduce their fat intake. No wonder they didn’t experience any breast cancer benefit.
When you put together all the trials on the effect of lower-fat diets on breast cancer survival, even including that flawed study, you see a reduced risk of breast cancer relapse and a reduced risk of death. In conclusion, going on a low-fat diet after a breast cancer diagnosis “can improve breast cancer survival by reducing the risk of recurrence.” We may now know why: by targeting metastasis-initiating cancer cells through the fat receptor CD36.
We know that the cancer-spreading receptor is upregulated by saturated fat. Is there anything in our diet that can downregulate it? Broccoli.
Broccoli appears to decrease CD36 expression by as much as 35 percent (in mice). Of all fruits and vegetables, cruciferous vegetables like broccoli were the only ones associated with significantly less total risk of cancer and not just getting cancer in the first place, as you can see here and at 2:19 in my video.
Those with bladder cancer who eat broccoli also appear to live longer than those who don’t, and those with lung cancer who eat more cruciferous veggies appear to survive longer, too.
For example, as you can see below and at 2:45 in my video, one year out, about 75 percent of lung cancer patients eating more than one serving of cruciferous vegetables a day were still alive (the top line in red), whereas, by then, most who had been getting less than half a serving a day had already died from their cancer (the bottom line in green).
Ovarian cancer, too. Intake of cruciferous vegetables “significantly favored survival,” whereas “a survival disadvantage was shown for meats.” Milk also appeared to double the risk of dying. Below and at 3:21 in my video are the survival graphs. Eight years out, about 40 percent of ovarian cancer patients who averaged meat or milk every day were deceased (the boldest line, on the bottom), compared to only about 20 percent who had meat or milk only a few times a week at most (the faintest line, on the top).
Now, it could be that the fat and cholesterol in meat increased circulating estrogen levels, or it could be because of meat’s growth hormones or all its carcinogens. And galactose, the sugar naturally found in milk, may be directly toxic to the ovary. Dairy has all its hormones, too. However, the lowering of risk with broccoli and the increasing of risk with meat and dairy are also consistent with the CD36 mechanism of cancer spread.
Researchers put it to the test in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer who were given pulverized broccoli sprouts or a placebo. The average death rate was lower in the broccoli sprout group compared to the placebo group. After a month, 18 percent of the placebo group had died, but none in the broccoli group. By three months, another 25 percent of the placebo group had died, but still not a single death in the broccoli group. And by six months, 43 percent of the remaining patients in the placebo group were deceased, along with the first 25 percent of the broccoli group. Unfortunately, even though the capsules for both groups looked the same, “true blinding was not possible,” and the patients knew which group they were in “because the pulverized broccoli sprouts could be easily distinguished from the methylcellulose [placebo] through their characteristic smell and taste.” So, we can’t discount the placebo effect. What’s more, the study participants weren’t properly randomized “because many of the patients refused to participate unless they were placed into the [active] treatment group.” That’s understandable, but it makes for a less rigorous result. A little broccoli can’t hurt, though, and it may help. It’s the lack of downsides of broccoli consumption that leads to “Advising Women Undergoing Treatment for Breast Cancer” to include the “liberal culinary use of cruciferous vegetables,” for example.
It’s the same for reducing saturated fat. The title of an editorial in a journal of the National Cancer Institute asked: “Is It Time to Give Breast Cancer Patients a Prescription for a Low-Fat Diet?” “Although counseling women to consume a healthy diet after breast cancer diagnosis is certainly warranted for general health, the existing data still fall a bit short of proving this will help reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence and mortality.” But what do we have to lose? After all, it’s still certainly warranted for general health.
Switching to a plant-based diet has been shown to achieve far better outcomes than those reported on conventional treatments for both active and quiescent stages of Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis.
Important to our understanding and the prevention of the global increase of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), we know that “dietary fiber reduces risk, whereas dietary fat, animal protein, and sugar increase it.” “Despite the recognition of westernization of lifestyle as a major driver of the growing incidence of IBD, no countermeasures against such lifestyle changes have been recommended, except that patients with Crohn’s disease should not smoke.”
We know that “consuming whole, plant-based foods is synonymous with an anti-inflammatory diet.” Lists of foods with inflammatory effects and anti-inflammatory effects are shown here and at 0:50 in my video, The Best Diet for Crohn’s Disease.
How about putting a plant-based diet to the test?
Cutting down on red and processed meats didn’t work, but what about cutting down on all meat? A 25-year-old man “with newly diagnosed CD…failed to enter clinical remission despite standard medical therapy. After switching to a diet based exclusively on grains, legumes [beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils], vegetables, and fruits, he entered clinical remission without need for medication and showed no signs of CD on follow-up colonoscopy.”
It’s worth delving into some of the details. The conventional treatment he was started on is infliximab, sold as REMICADE®, which can cause a stroke and may increase our chances of getting lymphoma or other cancers. (It also costs $35,000 a year.) It may not even work in 35 to 40 percent of patients, and that seemed to be the case with the 25-year-old man. So, his dose was increased after 37 weeks, but he was still suffering after two years on the drug. Then he completely eliminated animal products and processed foods from his diet and finally experienced a complete resolution of his symptoms.
“Prior to this, his diet had been the typical American diet, consisting of meat, dairy products, refined grains, processed foods, and modest amounts of vegetables and fruits. Having experienced complete clinical remission for the first time since his Crohn’s disease diagnosis, the patient decided to switch to a whole food, plant-based diet permanently, severely reducing his intake of processed foods and limiting animal products to one serving, or less, per week.” Whenever his diet slipped, his symptoms started coming back, but he could always eliminate them by eating healthier again. After six months adhering to these diet and lifestyle changes, including stress relief and exercise, a follow-up “demonstrated complete mucosal healing [of the gut lining] with no visible evidence of Crohn’s disease.”
We know that “a diet consisting of whole grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables has been shown to be helpful in the prevention and treatment of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, gallbladder disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and many cancers. Although further research is required, this case report suggests that Crohn’s disease might be added to this list of conditions.” That further research has already been done! About 20 patients with Crohn’s disease were placed on a semi-vegetarian diet—no more than half a serving of fish once a week and half a serving of meat once every two weeks—and they achieved a 100 percent remission rate at one year and 90 percent at two years.
Some strayed from the diet, though. What happened to them? As you can see below and at 3:32 in my video, after one year, half had relapsed, and, at year two, only 20 percent had remained in remission. But those who stuck with the semi-veg diet had remarkable success. It was a small study with no formal control group, but it represents the best-reported result in Crohn’s relapse prevention published in the medical literature to date.
Nowadays, Crohn’s patients are often treated with so-called biologic drugs, expensive injected antibodies that suppress the immune system. They have effectively induced and maintained remission in Crohn’s disease, but not in everybody. The current remission rate in Crohn’s with early use of REMICADE® is 64 percent. So, 30 to 40 percent of patients “are likely to experience a disabling disease course even after their first treatment.” What about adding a plant-based diet? Remission rates jumped up to 100 percent for those who didn’t have to drop out due to drug side effects. Even after excluding milder cases, researchers found that 100 percent of those with serious, even “severe/fulminant disease, achieved remission.”
If we look at gold standard systematic reviews, they conclude that the effects of dietary interventions on inflammatory bowel diseases—Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis—are uncertain. However, this is because only randomized controlled trials were considered. That’s totally understandable, as that is the most rigorous study design. “Nevertheless, people with IBD deserve advice based on the ‘best available evidence’ rather than no advice at all…” And switching to a plant-based diet has been shown to achieve “far better outcomes” than those reported on conventional treatments in both active and quiescent stages in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. For example, below and at 5:37 in my video, you can see one-year remission rates in Crohn’s disease (100 percent) compared to budesonide, an immunosuppressant corticosteroid drug (30 to 40 percent), a half elemental diet, such as at-home tube feedings (64 percent), the $35,000-a-year drug REMICADE® (46 percent), or the $75,000-a-year drug Humira (57 percent).
Safer, cheaper, and more effective. That’s why some researchers have made the “recommendation of plant-based diets for inflammatory bowel disease.”
It would seem clear that treatment based on addressing the cause of the disease is optimal. Spreading the word about healthier diets could help halt the scourge of inflammatory bowel disease, but how will people hear about this amazing research without some kind of public education campaign? That’s what NutritionFacts.org is all about.
Eating a diet filled with animal products can disrupt our microbiome faster than taking an antibiotic.
If you search online for “Crohn’s disease and diet” or “ulcerative colitis and diet,” the top results are a hodgepodge of conflicting advice, as you can see below and at 0:15 in my video Preventing Inflammatory Bowel Disease with Diet.
What does science say? A systematic review of the medical literature on dietary intake and the risk of developing inflammatory bowel disease finds that Crohn’s disease is associated with the intake of fat and meat, whereas dietary fiber and fruits appear protective. The same associations are seen with ulcerative colitis, the other major inflammatory bowel disease—namely, increased risk with fat and meat, and a protective association with vegetable intake.
Why, according to this meta-analysis of nine separate studies, do meat consumers have about a 50 percent greater risk for inflammatory bowel disease? One possibility is that meat may be a vehicle for bacteria that play a role in the development of such diseases. For instance, meat contains “huge amounts of Yersinia.” It’s possible that antibiotic residues in the meat itself could be theoretically mucking with our microbiome, but Yersiniaare so-called psychotropic bacteria, meaning they’re able to grow at refrigerator temperatures, and they’ve been found to be significantly associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This supports the concept that Yersinia infection may be a trigger of chronic IBD.
Animal protein is associated with triple the risk of inflammatory bowel disease, but plant protein is not, as you can see below and at 1:39 in my video. Why? One reason is that animal protein can lead to the formation of toxic bacterial end products, such as hydrogen sulfide, the rotten egg gas. Hydrogen sulfide is not just “one of the main malodorous compounds in human flatus”; it is a “poison that has been implicated in ulcerative colitis.” So, if you go on a meat-heavy, low-carb diet, we aren’t talking just about some “malodorous rectal flatus,” but increased risk of irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel syndrome (ulcerative colitis), and eventually, colorectal cancer.
Hydrogen sulfide in the colon comes from sulfur-containing amino acids, like methionine, that are concentrated in animal proteins. There are also sulfites added as preservatives to some nonorganic wine and nonorganic dried fruit, but the sulfur-containing amino acids may be the more important of the two. When researchers gave people increasing quantities of meat, there was an exponential rise in fecal sulfides, as seen here and at 2:37 in my video.
Specific bacteria, like Biophilia wadsworthia, can take this sulfur that ends up in our colon and produce hydrogen sulfide. Eating a diet based on animal products, packed with meat, eggs, and dairy, can specifically increase the growth of this bacteria. People underestimate the dramatic effect diet can have on our gut bacteria. As shown below and at 3:12 in my video, when people are given a fecal transplant, it can take three days for their microbiome to shift. Take a powerful antibiotic like Cipro, and it can take a week. But if we start eating a diet heavy in meat and eggs, within a single day, our microbiome can change—and not for the better. The bad bacterial machinery that churns out hydrogen sulfide can more than double, and this is consistent with the thinking that “diet-induced changes to the gut microbiota [flora] may contribute to the development of inflammatory bowel disease.” In other words, the increase in sulfur compounds in the colon when we eat meat “is not only of interest in the field of flatology”—the study of human farts—“but may also be of importance in the pathogenesis of ulcerative colitis…”
I went to college to study art history and journalism, and I spent a lot of my free time cooking and planning dinner parties. So after graduating I went to culinary school with the plan to combine my loves of communication and food. I dove into any experience I could find in my hometown of Houston, Texas –– teaching cooking classes, working in food nonprofits, developing recipes, and even farming. Eventually, I moved to New York to work as a recipe developer and food stylist, including at meal kit companies Marley Spoon and Dinnerly.
In my free time, I continue my quest to perfect kolaches and breakfast tacos that taste like home. You’ll find me shopping at the farmers market, having elaborate picnics, or hosting dinner parties that start with crudité and end with a candy plate.
Nothing makes me happier than helping create more enthusiastic home cooks — except perhaps a good salad. My favorite way to cook and eat is seasonally, locally, and sustainably. I want to give people the tools and access to do that, too!
Is it possible to reverse type 1 diabetes if caught early enough?
TheInternational Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention has already had its share of miraculous disease reversals with a plant-based diet. For instance, one patient began following a whole food, plant-based diet after having two heart attacks in two months. Within months, he experienced no more chest pain, controlled his cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugars, and also lost 50 pounds as a nice bonus. Yet, the numbers “do not capture the patient’s transformation from feeling like a ‘dead man walking’ to being in command of his health with a new future and life.”
I’ve previously discussed cases of reversing the autoimmune inflammatory disease psoriasis and also talked about lupus nephritis (kidney inflammation). What about type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease we didn’t think we could do anything about? In contrast to type 2 diabetes, which is a lifestyle disease that can be prevented and reversed with a healthy enough diet and lifestyle, type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which our body attacks our pancreas, killing off our insulin-producing cells and condemning us to a life of insulin injections—unless, perhaps, it’s caught early enough. If a healthy enough diet is started early enough, might we be able to reverse the course of type 1 diabetes by blunting that autoimmune inflammation?
As I discuss in my video Type 1 Diabetes Treatment: A Plant-Based Diet, we know that patients with type 1 diabetes “may be able to reduce insulin requirements and achieve better glycemic [blood sugar] control” with healthier diets. For example, children and teens were randomized to a nutritional intervention in which they increased the whole plant food density of their diet—meaning they ate more whole grains, whole fruits, vegetables, legumes (beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils), nuts, and seeds. Researchers found that the more whole plant foods, the better the blood sugar control.
The fact that more whole fruits were associated “with better glycemic [blood sugar] control has important clinical implications for nutrition education” in those with type 1 diabetes. We should be “educating them on the benefits of fruit intake, and allaying erroneous concerns that fruit may adversely affect blood sugar.”
The case series in the IJDRP, however, went beyond proposing better control of just their high blood sugars, the symptom of diabetes, but better control of the disease itself, suggesting the anti-inflammatory effects of whole healthy plant foods “may slow or prevent further destruction of the beta cells”—the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas—“if dietary intervention is initiated early enough.” Where did this concept come from?
A young patient. Immediately following diagnosis of type 1 diabetes at age three, a patient began a vegetable-rich diet and, three years later, “has not yet required insulin therapy…and has experienced a steady decline in autoantibody levels,” which are markers of insulin cell destruction. Another child, who also started eating a healthier diet, but not until several months after diagnosis, maintains a low dose of insulin with good control. And, even if their insulin-producing cells have been utterly destroyed, individuals with type 1 diabetes can still enjoy “dramatically reduced insulin requirements,” reduced inflammation, and reduced cardiovascular risk, which is their number one cause of death over the age of 30. People with type 1 diabetes have 11 to 14 times the risk of death from cardiovascular disease compared to the general population, and it’s already the top killer among the public, so it’s closer to 11 to 14 times more important for those with type 1 diabetes to be on the only diet and lifestyle program ever proven to reverse heart disease in the majority of patients—one centered around whole plant foods. The fact it may also help control the disease itself is just sugar-free icing on the cake.
All this exciting new research was presented in the first issue of The International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention. As a bonus, there’s a companion publication called the Disease Reversal and Prevention Digest. These are for the lay public and are developed with the belief I wholeheartedly share that “everyone has a right to understand the science that could impact their health.” You can go behind the scenes and hear directly from the author of the lupus series, read interviews from luminaries like Dean Ornish, see practical tips from dietitians on making the transition towards a healthier diet, and enjoy recipes.
The second issue includes more practical tips, such as how to eat plant-based on a budget, and gives updates on what Dr. Klaper is doing to educate medical students, what Audrey Sanchez from Balanced is doing to help change school lunches, and how Dr. Ostfeld got healthy foods served in a hospital. (What a concept!) And what magazine would be complete without an article to improve your sex life?
The journal is free, downloadable at IJDRP.org, and its companion digest, available at diseasereversaldigest.com, carries a subscription fee. I am a proud subscriber.
Want to learn more about preventing type 1 diabetes in the first place? See the related posts below.
Above: Two chrysanthemum green pies—round, and square.
Chrysathemum Green Pies
Makes two 10-inch pies
Chrysanthemun greens add their unique, bright flavor to a yeasted pie that makes a satisfying autumn lunch or supper, or a portable treat for a picnic (it is so crisp and narrow that I have slipped it into the laptop pocket of my backpack, more than once. Well-wrapped, of course). This recipe can also be made using dandelion greens, spinach, chard, or lamb’s quarters. Adding feta is optional, but places the pie firmly in the Mediterranean. It surprised me to learn, when I first researched them, that the chrysanthemum greens prized in East Asia are native to the Mediterranean, and Central Asia.
Dough
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1¼ cups tepid water
1 lb all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon salt
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
Filling
2 lbs chrysanthemum greens and tender stems and leaves, washed
6 oz feta cheese, roughly crumbled, or cubed (optional)
1 Tablespoon sumac
2 teaspoons gochugaru, chile flakes, or Aleppo pepper
¼ teaspoon freshly-ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon salt
Egg wash
For the dough: In a mixing bowl combine all the ingredients and stir until a cohesive dough forms. Turn out onto a board or clean surface and knead (or stretch and pull) until the sticky dough feels silky, supple and elastic— about 10 minutes. Return to the cleaned, lightly oiled bowl and cover. Allow to rise until it has doubled, about 1 -2 hours, depending on the ambient temperature. (I use the microwave as a proofing box. If a finger-poke into the dough fills in, it needs more rising-time. If a dent remains, it’s ready.) Return the dough to a board or clean surface and knead for a few seconds. Cut it in four equal pieces, and form each piece into a ball. Cover, and rest for 10 minutes.
For the filling: Steam the chrysanthemum greens in a large, covered pot over high heat until they are completely wilted and tender, but bright green —about 6 minutes. Transfer them to a colander and dunk into a bowl of cold water to refresh them. Drain, and squeeze as dry as possible. Roll them up in a tea towel to press out extra moisture (no one wants a soggy pie). Chop them roughly. Place the greens with optional feta in a bowl, add the sumac, chile of choice, pepper, and salt, and toss well to mix.
To assemble: Preheat the oven to 425°F. Oil two baking sheets or line them with parchment.
Press your palm down on each dough ball to flatten it and release the air inside. Working with two balls at a time, roll or press the dough flat into 10 to 11-inch discs (any larger will make the base too thin and fragile). Gently wrap one disc around your rolling pin and transfer to a baking sheet. Readjust its shape if it stretches in the transfer. Heap half the chrysanthemum green filling onto the dough and spread it evenly, leaving the outside ½-inch clear. Wet that edge with water. Place the second rolled-out disc on top of the first, covering the filling. Press down and seal the edges, either by pressing with a fork’s tines, or turning the edges up and crimping with your fingers. Cover this pie while you make the second one.
Brush each pie with the egg wash, cut a steam vent in the middle of each, and slide into the hot oven. (If your oven is small, bake one at a time, covering the waiting pie with damp cloth while the other bakes.)
Bake until golden, about 25 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool, or enjoy piping hot!
I went to college to study art history and journalism, and I spent a lot of my free time cooking and planning dinner parties. So after graduating I went to culinary school with the plan to combine my loves of communication and food. I dove into any experience I could find in my hometown of Houston, Texas –– teaching cooking classes, working in food nonprofits, developing recipes, and even farming. Eventually, I moved to New York to work as a recipe developer and food stylist, including at meal kit companies Marley Spoon and Dinnerly.
In my free time, I continue my quest to perfect kolaches and breakfast tacos that taste like home. You’ll find me shopping at the farmers market, having elaborate picnics, or hosting dinner parties that start with crudité and end with a candy plate.
Nothing makes me happier than helping create more enthusiastic home cooks — except perhaps a good salad. My favorite way to cook and eat is seasonally, locally, and sustainably. I want to give people the tools and access to do that, too!
The Buchinger-modified fasting program is put to the test.
A century ago, fasting—“starvation, as a therapeutic measure”—was described as “the ideal measure for the human hog…” (Fat shaming is not a new invention in the medical literature.) I’ve covered fasting for weight loss extensively in a nine-video series, but what about all the other purported benefits? I also have a video series on fasting for hypertension, but what about psoriasis, eczema, type 2 diabetes, lupus, metabolic disorder, rheumatoid arthritis, other autoimmune disorders, depression, and anxiety? Why hasn’t it been tested more?
One difficulty with fasting research is: What do you mean by fasting? When I think of fasting, I think of water-only fasting, but, in Europe, they tend to practice “modified therapeutic fasting,” also known as Buchinger fasting, which is more like a very low-calorie juice fasting with some vegetable broth. Some forms of fasting may not even cut calories at all. As you can see below and at 1:09 in my video The World’s Largest Fasting Study, Ramadan fasting, for example, is when devout Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset, yet, interestingly, they end up eating the same amount—or even more food—overall.
The largest study on fasting to date was published in 2019. More than a thousand individuals were put through a modified fast, cutting daily intake down to about ten cups of water, a cup of fruit juice, and a cup of vegetable soup. They reported very few side effects. In contrast, the latest water-only fasting data from a study that involved half as many people reported nearly 6,000 adverse effects. Now, the modified fasting study did seem to try to undercount adverse effects by only counting reported symptoms if they were repeated three times. However, adverse effects like nausea, feeling faint, upset stomach, vomiting, or palpitations were “observed only in single cases,” whereas the water-only fasting study reported about 100 to 200 of each, as you can see below and at 2:05 in my video. What about the benefits though?
In the modified fasting study, participants self-reported improvements in physical and emotional well-being, along with a surprising lack of hunger. What’s more, the vast majority of those who came in with a pre-existing health complaint reported feeling better, with less than 10 percent stating that their condition worsened, as you can see in the graph below and at 2:24 in my video.
However, the study participants didn’t just fast; they also engaged in a lifestyle program, which included being on a plant-based diet before and after the modified fast. If only the researchers had had some study participants follow the healthier, plant-based diet without the fast to tease out fasting’s effects. Oh, but they did! About a thousand individuals fasted for a week on the same juice and vegetable soup regimen and others followed a normocaloric (normal calorie) vegetarian diet.
As you can see below and at 2:54 in my video, both groups experienced significant increases in both physical and mental quality of life, and, interestingly, there was no significant difference between the groups.
In terms of their major health complaints—including rheumatoid arthritis; chronic pain syndromes, like osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, and back pain; inflammatory and irritable bowel disease; chronic pulmonary diseases; and migraine and chronic tension-type headaches—the fasting group appeared to have an edge, but both groups did well, with about 80 percent reporting improvements in their condition and only about 4 percent reporting feeling worse, as you can see below and at 3:25 in my video.
Now, this was not a randomized study; people chose which treatment they wanted to follow. So, maybe, for example, those choosing fasting were sicker or something. Also, the improvements in quality of life and disease status were all subjective self-reporting, which is ripe for placebo effects. There was no do-nothing control group, and the response rates to the follow-up quality of life surveys were only about 60 to 70 percent, which also could have biased the results. But extended benefits are certainly possible, given they all tended to improve their diets, as you can see below and at 4:00 in my video.
They ate more fruits and vegetables, and less meats and sweets, and therein may lie the secret. “Principally, the experience of fasting may support motivation for lifestyle change. Most fasters experience clarity of mind and feel a ‘letting go’ of past actions and experiences and thus may develop a more positive attitude toward the future.”
As a consensus panel of fasting experts concluded, “Nutritional therapy (theory and practice) is a vital and integral component of fasting. After the fasting therapy and refeeding period, nutrition should follow the recommendations/concepts of a…plant-based whole-food diet…”
Oftentimes when I’m out in the garden, I’ll pop a cherry tomato or blueberry straight from the bush and into my mouth. I’m not worried about washing it, but that’s because I’m an organic gardener! There are many different scenarios when it comes to washing fruit and vegetables, and I’m here to offer to guidance.
It’s funny how perspectives of cleanliness can change based on relationships. As an organic gardener, I see the fruit, vegetables, and herbs that come out of my garden as the cleanest and healthiest food that has ever been. It’s similar to how I feel as a mother. I just don’t get grossed out by snot and slobber from my own kid, as I can imagine other people would.
When I look at my relationship with the garden, I think about how much care and effort I put into the soil, into every seed that is grown, and into the water and fertilizers that feed it.
I know that each piece of produce has been nurtured in the most healthy way possible because I’m the one who nurtured it. With this knowledge, when I’m out in the garden, and a sun-warmed tomato is just begging to be picked and eaten, I pop it into my mouth without a second thought.
That doesn’t mean you want to skip washing the fruit and vegetables you plan to consume.
Whether your fruits and vegetables are picked from your garden, arrive in a CSA box, or were chosen from a market, it’s good practice to give your fruits and vegetables a wash before you eat them. I took some time to look more critically at how and why to wash fruit and vegetables to provide you with some answers to your burning questions.
This post will cover…
Washing Fruit and Vegetables From the Store
More and more experts are now advising that the produce also be washed with warm, soapy water before putting it away. This is the process I use.
Wash hands for 20 seconds with warm water and soap.
Unpackage and wash skin-on produce (like apples, avocados, beets, etc) for 20 seconds with warm, soapy water. For lettuce and cabbage, remove the outer leaves and compost. Wash the rest with water and spin in a salad spinner. For berries, remove from the packaging and rinse. Dry and store as usual. Not all produce is the same, just use common sense.
Any produce that I feel needs some extra cleaning, I use my homemade fruit and vegetable wash. I spray it on 2-3 times and let it sit for a couple of minutes before rinsing off with water.
Wash hands for 20 seconds with warm water and soap.
Apply hand lotion so your skin doesn’t break down (and feel like snakeskin!).
Always wash produce before storage, with the exception of some fruits and veggies that are best washed right before consuming.
How to Wash Vegetables and Fruit from the Garden
Unless your garden is in a public space or in proximity to exposure, garden fruit and veg don’t need the full soap and water procedure.
If you’re doing a big harvest out of the garden, then it’s worth setting up some washing buckets outside before you bring your produce indoors. Set up three buckets and fill them full of drinking water.
Take your freshly harvested vegetables and dunk them in the first bucket, swish them around, then pull them out, give them a shake, and pop them in the second bucket. If your vegetables aren’t very muddy or soiled, then you can remove them from the second bucket, put them in a salad spinner, and spin out the water.
If they were quite muddy in the first bucket, then move them over to the third bucket for the final rinse before putting them in a salad spinner.
This is really great for salad greens and root vegetables as they should be washed immediately when harvested and then they can be stored clean and ready to eat. There are some freshly harvested fruit like blueberries, grapes, tomatoes, apples, and some vegetables like kale that I don’t like to wash before bringing them inside because I want to keep the protective bloom on their skin as long as possible.
These are all vegetables and fruits I don’t wash until I’m ready to eat them.
You can see bloom on the outside of blueberries as a grayish coating that comes off when you touch the blueberries with your fingers or when you wash them. You might also notice it on some of the other vegetables in your garden. The purpose of it is to help protect the fruit from insects and bacteria, so when I bring in produce that has bloom, I don’t wash it until right before I’m about to eat it, allowing the produce to protect itself as long as possible and stay fresh for longer.
Apples should be washed just before being eaten.
Why Wash Fruit and Vegetables from the Garden?
I feel pretty good about the soil and the water that I use in my garden. I use a drinking-water-safe hose for watering the vegetable beds, and I don’t use synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides.
That being said, you never know what might be lurking in the soil or water. While I feel confident that popping some fresh berries into my mouth while gardening is not going to be the end of me, I still practice washing larger harvests.
The other reason for washing fruit and vegetables you harvest from the garden is to remove any little bits of soil, debris, and insects that might be hiding. You know the old saying that the only thing worse than finding a worm in your apple is finding half a worm? Well, the only thing worse than finding a caterpillar in your salad is finding half a caterpillar.
I’m not that squeamish about bugs, and I know I’ve probably eaten my fair share. And, frankly, more people eat bugs than don’t. But I still give my kale and lettuce a good wash and send the aphids down the drain.
Wash vegetables to get dirt, debris, and insects off your produce.
Washing Organic Fruits and Vegetables from a CSA or Market
While you know what goes into the fruits and vegetables that you’re growing in your garden, it’s unclear exactly what is going into plants that come from other sources.
Even when something is marked “organic” it doesn’t necessarily mean that the soil, water, and land where it grew will meet your expectations. Plus, after the plants are harvested, then they can be touched by many hands and be exposed to many different environments, none of which you get to be privy to.
I would say that it’s just as important, if not more so, to wash purchased produce, especially considering the fact that nearly half of all foodborn illnesses come from produce. I use my homemade fruit and vegetable wash with vinegar and citric acid for anything that doesn’t come from my garden.
A salad spinner is very helpful for cleaning all kinds of greens and herbs.
What About Boxed or Bagged Salad Mixes and Pre-Cut Vegetables?
In some cases, you may purchase boxed or bagged salad mixes or pre-cut vegetables that are labelled “pre-washed.” I’m more skeptical of the cleanliness of these prepared products than I am of the whole, unpackaged vegetables.
In many cases, once you cut up a vegetable it begins to decompose more rapidly than if it was left whole. And yet the shelf life of these prepared foods seems to be much longer than fresh ones I can keep in my fridge, which makes me suspicious.
I always wash pre-cut salad mixes, and I’m shocked that when I wash them in the salad spinner, the water often turns green or cloudy. When I wash freshly harvested greens from my garden, there may be a few aphids floating in there, maybe even a spider, but the water is clear
I suspect that there’s some sort of fumeric acid or anti-fungal treatment added to extend shelf life and that’s not something that I want to consume. After all that pre-washing and adding chemicals, studies show that the pre-washed salads still probably need to be washed anyway, so I just skip them and go for a whole head of lettuce from the market instead.
You should still wash any produce that’s labelled as “pre-washed.”
Should I Use Plain Water or Produce Wash?
Research says that using plain tap water to wash fruit and vegetables is effective at removing the majority of the contaminants that could be on them.
When I wash sprouts I usually add a few drops of food-grade hydrogen peroxide into the water just to be extra careful.
As I mentioned above, I typically only use water to clean the produce that comes from my garden. But anything that I buy from the store, I like to use my homemade fruit and vegetable wash. This extra layer of cleanliness helps to remove the more difficult stuff, such as apple wax and surface-level pesticides.
Soaking vegetables and fruits in an acidic solution helps to remove bacteria and any surface-level pesticides.
Can I Eat Bruised, Past-its-Prime Produce?
I don’t believe that things from the garden have to be perfect, but it’s also important to use your common sense and not eat things that are spoiled.
It may be tempting to salvage a crop if you’ve grown gorgeous produce and all of a sudden, just before harvest, it got munched by a critter or attacked by a fungus.
Use your judgement to see if cutting off the affected portion leaves you with something that is still edible, but remember that even if it’s edible that doesn’t necessarily mean you should eat it.
If you cut off the undesirable section and what you have left is a piece of nice, tasty produce, go ahead and eat it, but keep in mind that often when a fruit or vegetable has succumbed to damage or disease, its flavour has also been affected (see more on that here).
There’s an Ayurvedic principle that states you should not eat anything unless it’s delicious. I try to live by this. If the food is no longer fresh and delicious, then it probably isn’t going to serve me to eat it. It will, however, make excellent compost.
Slight bruising is quite okay to ingest.
Can I Wash Off Bugs and Still Eat My Vegetables?
What about bugs? Wormy apples, aphiddy kale, and leaf-mined lettuce sure aren’t pretty, but they are also aren’t the end of your harvest. Insects on garden-grown vegetables are a certainty, but eating them is not so black and white. It depends more on how much you can stomach.
In most cases, the insects won’t hurt you to eat them, despite the fact that they might be somewhat unappetizing.
Probably the worst thing they’re going to do is suck all the delicious flavour out of your food, leaving it less tasty than it would have been had it not been shared with some six-legged friends.
In most cases, I’ll just wash off any bug damage and remove any discolouration or unappetizing-looking parts. The insects should come right off when washing fruit and vegetables, and the rest is just fine to eat.
Above: Best cooked over coals, the chard stems can also be grilled stovetop, in a pan.
Above: Make more than you think you will need; they disappear in a flash. Above: Swiss chard stem snack attack.
Swiss Chard Stems with Anchovy or Miso Dressing
Makes enough dressing for a large bunch of Swiss chard (about 24 stems)
Grilling the stems over coals infuses them with that incomparable smoky flavor. The Swiss chard stems are delicious hot, right off the smoking grill, but they can also be kept for up to a day in the fridge (remove them half an hour before serving). For individual party-portion canapés, slice the chard once cool, and heap them onto bite-sized toasts no more than 15 minutes before they are served. If you are cooking the stems over coals or on a gas grill, toast some day-old slices of bread alongside, to serve with the juicy stems and to sop up every drop of dressing.
For a vegan version, substitute 2 Tablespoons of miso for the anchovies.
Stems from 1 bunch Swiss chard (about 18 – 24 stems), ends trimmed, and washed
6 olive oil-packed anchovies, drained and finely chopped
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup white wine vinegar
Bring a pot of water to the boil. Drop in the chard stems and cook until barely tender, until just tender, about 4 minutes. Drain, and lay flat in a dish.
In a small bowl and jar mix together the anchovies, vinegar, and oil until emulsified. Alternatively, blend all the ingredients until very smooth. Pour the dressing over the blanched chard stems and turn to coat them very well.
For cooking over coals: Wait until your charcoal is red with a fine layer of ash. Remove the Swiss chard stems from the marinade* and grill them until they take some color on each side, about 2 minutes per side.
For pan-cooking: Heat dry skillet over high heat for half a minute, then add the stems in single layer (there will be smoke). Cook on one side for a couple of minutes, then flip. Continue to cook until the other side has charred in spots.
* (You can reuse any saved dressing, adding it to cooked pasta, or tossing crisp salad leaves in it.)
Just because you’re eating a vegetarian or vegan diet doesn’t mean you’re eating healthfully.
“Plant-Based Diets Are Associated with a Lower Risk of Incident Cardiovascular Disease, Cardiovascular Disease Mortality, and All-Cause Mortality in a General Population of Middle-Aged Adults”: This study of a diverse sample of 12,000 Americans found that “progressively increasing the intake of plant foods by reducing the intake of animal foods is associated with benefits on cardiovascular health and mortality.” Still, regarding plant-based diets for cardiovascular disease prevention, “all plant foods are not created equal.” As you can see in the graph below and at 0:40 in my video Vegetarians and Stroke Risk Factors: Vegan Junk Food?, a British study found higher stroke risk in vegetarians. Were they just eating a lot of vegan junk food?
“Any diet devoid of animal food sources can be claimed to be a vegetarian [or vegan] diet; thus, it is important to determine” what is being eaten. One of the first things I look at when I’m trying to see how serious a population is about healthy eating is something that is undeniably, uncontroversially bad: soda, aka liquid candy. Anyone drinking straight sugar water doesn’t have health on top of mind.
A large study was conducted of plant-based eaters in the United States, where people tend to cut down on meat for health reasons far more than for ethics, as you can see in the graph below and at 1:20 in my video.
Researchers found that flexitarians drink fewer sugary beverages than regular meat eaters, as do pescatarians, vegetarians, and vegans, as you can see below and at 1:30.
However, in the study from the United Kingdom where the increased stroke risk in vegetarians was found and where people are more likely to go veg or vegan for ethical reasons, researchers found that pescatarians drink less soda, but the vegetarians and vegans drink more, as shown in the graph below and at 1:44.
I’m not saying that’s why they had more strokes; it might just give us an idea of how healthfully they were eating. In the UK study, the vegetarian and vegan men and women ate about the same amounts of desserts, cookies, and chocolate, as you can see in the graph below and at 1:53.
They also consumed about the same total sugar, as shown below and at 2:02.
In the U.S. study, the average non-vegetarian is nearly obese, the vegetarians are a little overweight, and the vegans were the only ideal weight group. In this analysis of the UK study, however, everyone was about the same weight. The meat eaters were lighter than the vegans, as you can see below, and at 2:19 in my video. The EPIC-Oxford study seems to have attracted a particularly “health-conscious” group of meat eaters weighing substantially less than the general population.
Let’s look at some specific stroke-related nutrients. Dietary fiber appears to be beneficial for the prevention of cardiovascular disease, including stroke, and it seems the more, the better, as you can see in the graph below and at 2:43 in my video.
Based on studies of nearly half a million men and women, there doesn’t seem to be any upper threshold of benefit—so, again, “the more, the better.” At more than 25 grams of soluble fiber and 47 grams of insoluble dietary fiber, you can start seeing a significant drop in associated stroke risk. So, one could consider these values “as the minimal recommendable daily intake of soluble and insoluble fiber…to prevent stroke at a population level.” That’s what you see in people eating diets centered around minimally processed plant foods. Dean Ornish, M.D., got up around there with his whole food, plant-based diet. It might not be as much as we were designed to eat, based on the analyses of fossilized feces, but that’s about where we might expect significantly lower stroke risk, as shown below and at 3:25 in my video.
How much were the UK vegetarians getting? 22.1 grams. Now, in the UK, they measure fiber a little differently, so it may be closer to 30 grams, but that’s still not the optimal level for stroke prevention. It’s so little fiber that the vegetarians and vegans only beat out the meat eaters by about one or two bowel movements a week, as you can see below and at 3:48 in my video, suggesting the non-meat eaters were eating lots of processed foods.
The vegetarians were only eating about half a serving more of fruits and vegetables. Intake is thought to reduce stroke risk in part because of their potassium content, but the UK vegetarians at higher stroke risk were eating so few greens and beans that they couldn’t even match the meat eaters. The vegetarians (and the meat eaters) weren’t even reaching the recommended minimum daily potassium intake of 4,700 mg a day.
What about sodium? “The vast majority of the available evidence indicates that elevated salt intake is associated with higher stroke risk…” There is practically a straight-line increase in the risk of dying from a stroke, the more salt you eat, as you can see in the graph below and at 4:29 in my video.
Even just lowering sodium intake by a tiny fraction every year could prevent tens of thousands of fatal strokes. “Reducing Sodium Intake to Prevent Stroke: Time for Action, Not Hesitation” was the title of the paper, but the UK vegetarians and vegans appeared to be hesitating, as did the other dietary groups. “All groups exceeded the advised less than 2400 mg daily sodium intake”—and that didn’t even account for salt added to the table! The American Heart Association recommends less than 1,500 mg a day. So, they were all eating a lot of processed foods. It’s no wonder the vegetarians’ blood pressures were only one or two points lower. High blood pressure is perhaps “the single most important potentially modifiable risk factor for stroke.”
What evidence do I have that the vegetarians’ and vegans’ stroke risk would go down if they ate more healthfully? Well, in rural Africa, where they were able to nail the fiber intake that our bodies were designed to get by eating so many whole, healthy plant foods—including fruits, vegetables, grains, greens, beans, and protein almost entirely from plant sources—not only was heart disease, our number one killer, “almost non-existent,” but so was stroke. It only surged up from nowhere “with the introduction of salt and refined foods” to their diet.
“It is notable that stroke and senile dementia appear to be virtually absent in Kitava, an Oceanic culture [near Australia] whose quasi-vegan traditional diet is very low in salt and very rich in potassium.” They ate fish a few times a week, but the other 95 percent or so of their diet was made up of vegetables, fruits, corn, and beans. They had an apparent absence of stroke, even despite their ridiculously high rates of smoking, 76 percent of men and 80 percent of women. We evolved by eating as little as less than an eighth of a teaspoon of salt a day, and our daily potassium consumption is thought to have been as high as 10,000 mg or so. We went from an unsalted, whole-food diet to eating salty, processed foods depleted of potassium whether we eat meat or not.
Caldwell Esselstyn at the Cleveland Clinic tried putting about 200 patients with established cardiovascular disease on a whole food, plant-based diet. Of the 177 who stuck with the diet, only a single patient went on to have a stroke in the subsequent few years, compared to a hundred-fold greater rate of adverse events, including multiple strokes and deaths in those who strayed from the diet. “This is not vegetarianism,” Esselstyn explains. Vegetarians can eat a lot of less-than-ideal foods, “such as milk, cream, butter, cheese, ice cream, and eggs. This new paradigm is exclusively plant-based nutrition.”
This entire train of thought—that the reason typical vegetarians don’t have better stroke statistics is because they’re not eating particularly stellar diets—may explain why they don’t have significantly lower stroke rates. However, it still doesn’t explain why they may have higher stroke rates. Even if they’re eating similarly crappy, salty, processed diets, at least they aren’t eating meat, which we know increases stroke risk. There must be something about vegetarian diets that so increases stroke risk that it offsets their inherent advantages. We’ll continue our hunt for the answer next.
From a medical standpoint, labels like vegan and vegetarian just tell me what you don’t eat. It’s like identifying yourself as a “No-Twinkie-tarian.” You don’t eat Twinkies? Great, but what’s the rest of your diet like?
What are the healthiest foods? Check out my Daily Dozen.
To catch up on the rest of this series, see related posts below.
If plants are struggling and not growing well, use this garden troubleshooting guide to help determine the problem and the possible solution.
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. See my disclosure policy for more information.
Garden Troubleshooting Guide: How to Identify & Solve Common Garden Problems
Problem:
Often caused by:
Solutions to try:
Plants are weak, spindly, pale and not growing well
Weeds: Weeds can choke out other plants and take sunlight, moisture and nutrients
• Pull weeds by hand before they set seed • If area is severely infested, consider solarizing area
Plants are weak, spindly, pale and not growing well (cont.)
Poor soil
• Add good quality compost • Amend garden with a balanced organic fertilizer • Add worm castings • Add vermicomposting bins to beds • Add organic matter often to soil • Add vermiculite/perlite and coconut coir to increase water-holding capability
Plants are weak, spindly, pale and not growing well (cont.)
Wrong growing season
• Plants have a preferred growing temperature; plant at the right time • If it is still hot, wait to plant cool-season crops • If it is still cold, wait to plant warm-season crops
Plants are weak, spindly, pale and not growing well (cont.)
Lack of sunlight
• Move containers or raised beds to areas that get enough light • Reduce shade by removing trees, etc. • Thin plants – avoid crowding plants too close together • Plan your garden to avoid taller plants shading smaller plants; put trellises on the north side of your garden • Use a grow light when starting seeds indoors; keep light just a few inches from plants
(Garden Troubleshooting Guide)
Bird DamageBird DamageSun Scorch on PeppersSun Scorch on CitrusCaterpillar Damage on TecomaFrost Damaged TomatoesDying LeavesDamage from Leaf-Cutter Bees
Problem:
Often caused by:
Solutions to try:
Plants look dry around the edges and curl upward
Wind: Wind can be drying and stressful for plants
• Take advantage of natural windbreaks in garden planning • Add windbreaks; use poly tunnels or cloches for temporary wind protection
• Remove the entire plant (annual) or wait until after danger of frost to cut it back (perennial) • Cover frost-susceptible plants during frost events
Burned or yellow leaves and sunscald or burned fruit
Sun damage
• Provide shade during the hottest months of the year • Avoid planting sensitive plants in areas that receive afternoon sun • Harden off transplants before planting
Yellow leaves, slow growth, brown dry lower leaves
Underwatering
• Increase watering • Use a moisture meter to get an accurate idea of soil moisture
Plant wilts easily (Many plants in the Cucurbit family do this normally in the heat of the day; they usually perk back up as temps cool down)
Frequent, shallow watering builds fewer, shallower roots that don’t store as much moisture for the plant to use when it’s stressed
• Water the entire depth of your raised bed or container to encourage the roots to grow deep • Deep, healthy roots will provide moisture for the plant during the heat of the day
Plant looks wilted and may have any or all of the following: • Wet soil • Brown leaves • Yellow falling leaves • New growth falling off • Floppy plant • Mold • Slimy or foul-smelling roots(root rot)
Overwatering
• Do not water again until the top inch or more of soil is dry • Remove flowers • Use a moisture meter to get an accurate idea of soil moisture. • Water only when soil is dry to the touch an inch or two below the surface
(Garden Troubleshooting Guide)
AphidsCaterpillar Damage on KaleSpider MitesSplit TomatoesSunscald on TomatoesDamping Off
White (bleached) spots on leaves of newly planted seedlings
Too much sun exposure
Harden off seedlings gradually
(Garden Troubleshooting Guide)
Burned Leaves on Newly Planted SeedlingsNitrogen Deficiency
Problem:
Often caused by:
Solution to try:
Poor harvest
Plant does not produce desired harvest
• Choose varieties suited to climate (i.e., in the low desert, choose shorter days to harvest and heat-resistant varieties) • Plant at the correct time and temperature • Care for plant correctly – pay attention to plant each day • Plant in well-draining soil
Cracked tomatoes, Splitting fruit & vegetables
• Irregular watering • Heavy rains
• Use an automatic timer, oyas, drip irrigation to water tomatoes • Tomatoes don’t like big fluctuations in soil moisture • If a large amount of rain is expected, harvest fruit prior to the rain
Bolting plants (central stalk forms and develops a seed head)
Plant switches from food production to seed production
Temperature extremes (usually too hot)
Powdery mildew (a white, powdery-looking substance on leaves; usually begins as small white spots on the top of leaves and spreads)
• Water on leaves • Not enough sunlight or airflow • Humid, wet conditions
• Remove affected leaves • Move the container to a sunnier location • Prune overcrowded branches or plants to increase air circulation • Spray plants with a solution of 1 tsp baking soda or potassium bicarbonate and castile soap mixed with 1 quart water • Remove heavily-infected plants
Tomatoes won’t ripen
Too hot, too cold
• Top plant by removing cutting central stem. • Remove suckers, blossoms, and diseased leaves • Smaller tomatoes will ripen faster • Harvest fruit as soon as it flushes color (it will finish indoors) • Cover plants at night when temperatures are below 50°F • Move the container to a sunnier location
(Garden Troubleshooting Guide)
Split TomatoesRat DamageTomato DiseasesSun Scald on LeavesSplitting Fruit
Garden Troubleshooting Guide: How to Identify & Solve Common Garden Problems (cont.)
Problem:
Often caused by:
Solutions to try:
Lack of pollinators and beneficial insects
• Pesticide use • Lack of flowers, herbs, diverse plantings
• Do not use pesticides • Use organic controls sparingly • Plant a variety of vegetables, flowers, and herbs • Allow herbs to flower • Interplant different types of crops throughout your garden • Grow flowering plants that provide nectar and pollen
Seeds won’t germinate
• Not enough time has passed • Poor seeds • Seed dried out • Wrong temperature (too hot or too cold) • Soil is too wet • Birds / slugs ate seeds
• Do not allow newly-planted seeds to dry out • Use garden markers to mark newly-planted areas • Start indoors or in containers, and then transplant • Use fresh seeds • Use barrier methods to prevent seed loss from animals and birds • Start seeds indoors under controlled conditions
Diseases
Planting crops in same location each year
• Rotate different crop families – try to allow 2 years between planting the same family of crops • Alliums: garlic, onions, chives • Amaranths: beets, chard, spinach • Asters: lettuce, sunflowers, chamomile • Brassicas: broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, radish • Cucurbits: squash, cucumber, melon • Mint: basil, mint, rosemary, sage • Legumes: beans, peas • Nightshades: tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, eggplant • Umbels: carrots, celery, cilantro, dill, parsley
(Garden Troubleshooting Guide)
Powdery Mildew
Problem:
Often caused by:
Solutions to try:
Diseases (cont.)
Planting crops too close together
• Plants need sufficient airflow to be healthy • Plants that touch each other are more likely to have problems with diseases
Diseases (cont.)
Overwatering
• Many fungal diseases are caused by too much water in the soil or on the plant’s leaves • Plant in well-draining soil
Diseases (cont.)
Lack of sunlight
Most plants need at least 6-8 hours of sunlight to be healthy
• Barrier methods, organic gardening methods, beneficial insects • Various treatments and causes • See the article, “Organic Pest Control That Really Works”, for pest identification and treatment options
(Garden Troubleshooting Guide)
Insect DamageDamage from BirdsDamage from Hornworm CaterpillarBlossom End RotDamping OffLack of Pollination
Problem:
Often caused by:
Solutions to try:
Blossom end rot (a brown, leathery rot developing on or near the blossom end of tomatoes, peppers, etc.)
• Maintain consistent moisture levels throughout season • Cold soils limit nutrient uptake • Apply mulch to prevent moisture loss • Apply a fertilizer higher in phosphorus • Maintain soil pH at or near 6.5
Damping off (Fungal disease that causes the stem to rot and kills seedlings)
• Crowded seedlings • Overhead watering
• Use sterile potting mix • Grow in well-drained soil with plenty of light • Do not crowd seedlings • Water from the bottom • Thin layer of sand, perlite, or sphagnum moss on the top of the soil • Use a fan to circulate air
Squash, cucumbers, etc. not forming fruit (plenty of flowers, no fruit)
Lack of pollination
Hand pollinate: • Best done early in the morning • Remove the male blossom; pick off or pull back the petals and rub the stamen against the pistil of the other flower • Alternatively, use a cotton swab to transfer the pollen from the male flower to the female flower
(Garden Troubleshooting Guide)
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Beans are a warm-season legume grown for the tender pods. Growing beans in the garden is simple. They are prolific and easy to grow. With so many varieties available, beans are a staple in most gardens. Learn how to grow beans and add them to your garden. Keep reading for extra tips if you are growing beans in the low desert of Arizona.
1. Understand the different types of beans:
Bush beansgrow lower to the ground and yield one larger crop all at once followed by a smaller harvest a couple weeks later. Planting bush beans every two weeks will ensure a continuous supply. Try varieties like dragon tongue and gold rush which are not readily available in supermarkets.
Bush beans in a raised bed
Pole beans are grown on a trellis, and one planting provides a steady yield all season long. Look for stringless varieties like Kentucky wonder and rattlesnake.
Kentucky wonder pole beans climbing a trellis
Yardlong beans tolerate heat and humidity better than snap bean varieties. Try varieties such as asparagus beans, snake beans or Chinese long beans. These are very fun to grow, kids love seeing how long the beans get in the garden. Yard-long beans and tepary beans require warmer growing conditions than pole and bush beans and have different planting dates. Other types of beans you can grow include black-eyed peas and borlotti beans.
Asparagus beans
2. Learn how to plant beans correctly
Bean seeds do best when sown directly into the soil.
Plant seeds 1 inch deep, and space them 2 inches apart.
Growing beans should sprout in 5 to 10 days.
Like many other garden plants, beans need plenty of sun to grow properly.
Keep soil moist and well-drained for happy beans.
3. Plant beans at the right time
Beans need warm soil to sprout and grow well. Begin planting in the spring after last spring frost. Seeds will germinate more quickly in soil temperatures of 70°F – 90°F (21°C – 32°C). Succession plant bean seeds every two weeks throughout the growing season for a fresh supply of beans all season long.
When to plant beans in Arizona
Plant snap beans (bush and pole type) from March 15 through April and again from August through September.
Lima beans can be planted from March 15 through April and July- August.
Harvest beans when the pods are firm and about the diameter of a pencil. Pick beans when young for the best flavor. Harvest beans often to encourage production. As beans mature, they lose flavor, and the pods begin to bulge with seeds. This signals to the plant to stop producing.
Most beans do not store well; once picked, use them as soon as possible. Store in the fridge if not using them right away. Beans are delicious raw (when picked young) or cooked. Beans are high in vitamins A, B and C, as well as calcium and iron.
Kentucky Pole Bean Harvest
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Part of the reason Central Park in Manhattan is so famous is that, for a long time, it was the only real green space in the borough. Before the island’s edges were slowly reclaimed for leisure, there was nowhere else to spend time away from the streets. Back then, the rare sight of a community garden on the Lower East Side was a pull—you could practically smell the oxygen, while instinctively crossing the street to walk in its shade.
The 6&B Community Garden (on Sixth Street and Avenue B) began life in the early 1980s; still going strong, it does more than emit cooling vapors into the hot city streets. Children go there to learn about cooking, in an area that is not only low on parks and trees, but easily accessible, unprocessed food.
Briar Winters and Michael Mangieri recently spoke to us about the why and how of their outdoor program for kids (run with educator and former garden president, Barbara Caporale). They are local residents who met while working in New York’s kitchens, both with experience working on small farms. Briar now has an apothecary studio, while Michael is a chef—together, they are tackling issues of food equity in the most enjoyable way.
Why did you get involved with 6&B Community Garden?
Above: Briar Winters, founder of the Manhattan apothecary Marble and Milkweed, in the 6&B Community Garden on the Lower East Side.
Briar: I’d been in the neighborhood since 2002 and then when Michael joined me there in 2008, we started really thinking about putting down roots in the community, and becoming involved with the garden felt like a great way to meet our neighbors and be a part of something good.
Michael: Briar and I decided that if we weren’t going to move out of the city for an agrarian life, then we would find a community garden to get involved with in our neighborhood. We had often visited 6&B and when someone invited us to apply for a plot we leapt at the opportunity.
How did you take the step to teaching?
Above: Briar’s partner Michael Mangieri is a chef and baker with She Wolf Bakery.
Briar: Part of the beauty of being a part of our garden community is that it truly creates a space for all of us to contribute in whatever ways we find meaningful. We have artists, educators, craftspeople and more who lead workshops; all our events are completely free and open to the entire community.
Michael: We were beginning to be very interested in food justice, and found common ground in that with Barbara [who had recently graduated from Farm School NYC]. We took a few workshops with Edible Schoolyard and with a little trial and error found that our experience from restaurant kitchens was very useful for designing and leading hands-on workshops for kids.
Briar: Barbara worked on some grants to get the basic equipment we’d need to start, and Michael and I took a few workshops for educators put on by Edible Schoolyard at their wonderful demonstration classroom and garden in East Harlem—and then we were off!
Part of the idea of food justice is about availability of culturally appropriate food. How do you approach that?
Above: Gathering Korean Kknaennip leaves.
Briar: A big part of our program from the beginning has been an emphasis on encouraging our members to share family recipes and foods from their cultures that are meaningful to them. If we can, we try to have the garden member who shared the recipe join us at the workshop to give a little background to the kids before we start. Maybe a story, or a memory of how they remember the dish being prepared when they were young, and how they like to make it now. Whether it’s an everyday dish or something for a special occasion. It really helps to make those connections, and parents will say to us that they’ve never known their child to like this or that vegetable, but the combination of hearing about the dish from someone, and harvesting the ingredients themselves is enough to get them to try something new. Pretty magical!
Michael: In the kids cooking series we try to highlight the cultural diversity of our garden community. We established a tradition of celebrating Mexican Independence Day in September, joined by our friend Paula Jiminez who contributes recipes. In the past we also hosted the chef-owner of a local Mexican restaurant. In other workshops we’ve collaborated with garden and other community members from Afghanistan, Costa Rica, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ukraine, and Thailand.
