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Increasingly we’re hearing about how local, seasonal food is richer in nutrients than canned or out-of-season produce that’s been shipped in from afar.
UT Southwestern Medical Center nutrition experts say we can be even more deliberate with our menu choices by choosing seasonal fruits and veggies that offer specific health benefits.
Their tip today: Eat fresh melons in season — and that means late summer in the US — to get a boost of potassium. That mineral can help athletes and those suffering from high blood pressure.
“Melons like cantaloupe and watermelon are particularly high in potassium,” says Lona Sandon, assistant professor of clinical nutrition at UT Southwestern and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. “One fourth a cantaloupe contains 800 to 900 milligrams of potassium, roughly 20 percent of the recommended daily value.”
Get there as soon as the market opens … the bigger the market the more customers there will be … vendors are in a better mood than we’ll be later in the day …
BRING YOUR OWN BAGS
All vendors have bags but with the exception of the odd paper bag vendor (they cost vendors more money than plastic, so fewer have them) you’ll be toting home thin plastic bags.
BRING CASH
All vendors take cash, many take checks and none take plastic. Few Farmer’s Markets have ATM’s conveniently nearby, so cash is king.
We all need to start eating closer to home, and with all due respect, I don’t mean down at the corner KFC.
I’m talking about finding fresh, locally grown produce for home cooking. Do we even need to list the reasons? Buying local food cuts down on polluting “food miles”, bypasses refrigeration trucks, supports local farmers and puts nutrient-rich foods on our plates.
But unless you grow a lot of your own food, how can you distinguish what came from your friendly local farmer in Illinois (or Texas or California) from what came from a rain forest-encroaching big-Ag operation 2,000 miles away?
You’ve already heard about how curcumin, or turmeric, may help reduce your chances of getting Alzheimer’s, a disease that is virtually unheard of in India where this spice turns up in a lot of dishes.
Today’s news brings another reason to eat your turmeric-spiced curry: It may help reduce the size of your tummy. Researchers at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University found that mice fed high fat diets that were supplemented with curcumin gained less weight than a control group that was fed a high fat diet without curcumin.
The scientists warn in a news release that they don’t know if the results can be replicated in humans. What they observed, however, was that the curcumin seemed to inhibit a process known as “angiogenesis” that helps grow fat, which would appear to be applicable to larger (get it?) life forms as well.
The bunnies are bountiful in our backyard this year; they’re large and prolific. They’re rabbits.
So it was with an eye out for trouble that we installed the garden this past weekend. This is a second veggie garden, which we put in to test the Evo Organics handy-dandy Weed Free Garden Watering Blanket.
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Discerning diners would probably not find this much of a topic for dinner discussion, but back in the fields where their broccoli is grown, fungus can stop a good crop cold. Most farmers apply fungicides to deal with the problem, but fungicides, a subset of pesticides, can kill beneficial organisms and cause environmental damage in the course of attacking the problem invader.
Fungicides, like other pesticides, also can wind up growing better fungus as the disease adapts to fend off the poison. The fungus becomes resistant to the pesticide, and creeps back ever-more resilient. Which requires more chemical treatments; which can increase resistance; requiring more treatments…
To try to break this cycle, researchers in Canada have been developing new “green” fungicides that are less environmentally damaging because they go in for a targeted kill. This surgical approach plays off the plant’s own defense strategy by attacking the fungal infection as it ramps up to break through the plants defenses. Effectively, the new eco-fungicides, called “paldoxins,” disrupt the fungus’ response to the plant.
It seems that the iconic American wide, grassy lawn, which has lately been encroached upon by rock beds and strips of native flowers designed to cut down on watering, is undergoing some more surgery. It is now giving up real estate to another pursuit: Homeowners are claiming portions of their lawns for produce production.
Landscapers have noted the emergence of these small scale agricultural endeavors, with a new survey by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) finding that about 20 percent of residential landscape architects report they are replacing part or all of traditional grass lawns with food/vegetable gardens.
Experts have been arguing about it, and you probably wonder every time you get ready to fork over an extra buck or two for a pack of tomatoes, apples or strawberries.
Does organic taste better?
Some say yes. Some say no difference. It’s a bitter debate. Lots of folks swear that conventionally grown fruits and veggies can, after being splattered with pesticides and gassed for long haul transport, mutate into bland poseurs, lacking the zest, character and even texture of their chemical-free cousins. My palate tends to agree — some of the tangiest food turns up in my organic co-op basket.
UT Southwestern Medical Center nutrition experts say we can be even more deliberate with our menu choices by choosing seasonal fruits and veggies that offer specific health benefits.
