Tag Archives: Nutrition

Tips on Successful Veggie Growing

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How to Grow The Top 10 Most Nutritious Vegetables in Your Garden

By Colleen Vanderlinden

Treehugger

A perfectly ripe, juicy tomato, still warm from the sun. Sweet carrots, pulled from the garden minutes (or even seconds!) before they’re eaten. Growing your own vegetables is one of those activities that balances practicality and indulgence. In addition to the convenience of having the fixings for a salad or light supper right outside your door (or on your windowsill), when you grow your own vegetables, you’re getting the most nutritional bang for your buck as well. Vegetables start losing nutrients as soon as they’re harvested, and quality diminishes as sugars are turned into starches. For the tastiest veggies with the best nutrition, try growing a few of these nutrient-dense foods in your own garden.

And don’t let the lack of a yard stop you – all of them can be grown in containers as well.

1. Broccoli

Broccoli is high in calcium, iron, and magnesium, as well as Vitamin A, B6, and C. In fact, one cup of raw broccoli florets provides 130% of your daily Vitamin C requirement.

  • How to Grow Broccoli
  • Grow Broccoli in Containers: One broccoli plant per pot, pots should be 12 to 16 inches deep.
  • What to Watch Out For: Cabbage worm. If you start seeing pretty white butterflies fluttering around your broccoli, you’re guaranteed to start seeing little green worms all over your broccoli plants. To avoid this, cover your broccoli plants with floating row cover or lightweight bed sheets. If you start seeing cabbage worms, simply pick them off by hand.

2. Peas

There is nothing like peas grown right in your own garden – the tender sweetness of a snap pea just plucked from the vine is unlike anything you can buy in at a store. Aside from being absolutely delicious, peas are high in fiber, iron, magnesium, potassium, and Vitamin A, B6, and C.

  • How to Grow Peas
  • Grow Peas in Containers: Sow peas approximately 2 inches apart in a pot that is at least 10 inches deep. Provide support for peas to climb up.
  • What to Watch Out For: Hot weather. Once the weather turns hot, pea production will pretty much shut down. Grow peas in early spring and late summer/autumn, or any time of year when temperatures are consistently between 40 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

3. Beans (especially navy beans, great northern beans, kidney beans)

While snap beans (green beans/wax beans) are a great addition to any garden, it’s the beans we grow as dried beans that are real nutritional powerhouses. Dry beans, in general, are high in iron, fiber, manganese, and phosphorous.

  • How to Grow Beans
  • Grow Beans in Containers: Bush beans are your best option for growing in containers. Plant beans four inches apart in a container that is at least 12 inches deep.
  • What to Watch Out For: Harvest at the right time. Harvest dry beans when the pods have completely dried on the vine. The pods should be light brown, and you should be able to feel the hard beans inside. Shell the beans, and let them sit out a few days to ensure that they’re completely dry before storing them in jars in a cool, dark, dry place.

4. Brussels Sprouts

The bane of many a childhood, Brussels sprouts get a bad wrap mostly due to overcooking. When prepared right, Brussels sprouts are sweet, tender, and delicious. They also provide tons of fiber, magnesium, potassium, and riboflavin, as well as high levels of Vitamins A, B6, and C.

  • How to Grow Brussels Sprouts
  • Grow Brussels Sprouts in Containers: Grow one plant per 16-inch deep container.
  • What to Watch Out For: Cabbage worms (see “Broccoli, above.)

5. Tomatoes

Fresh, homegrown tomatoes are the reason many gardeners get into vegetable gardening in the first place. There’s just nothing that compares to eating a perfectly ripe tomato, still warm from the sun. Tomatoes are also incredibly good for us, packing plenty of fiber, iron, magnesium, niacin, potassium, and Vitamin A, B6, and C. They’re also a great source of the antioxidant lycopene.

  • How to Grow Tomatoes
  • Grow Tomatoes in Containers: Container sizes will vary depending on the variety you’re growing. If you’re growing an indeterminate variety, your container will need to be at least 18 inches deep. For determinate varieties, 12 inches is a good depth, and for dwarf or “patio” type tomatoes, 8 inches is perfect. One tomato plant per pot.
  • What to Watch Out For: Tomato horn worm can be a problem in many areas – these large caterpillars should be removed by hand whenever you see them. Also watch out for signs of blight, which is a real problem in many parts of the U.S.

6. Red Bell Peppers

Red bell peppers are high in potassium, riboflavin, and Vitamins A, B6, and C – in fact, one cup of red bell pepper packs an amazing 317% of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C and 93% of the recommended Vitamin A.

7. Beets

Beets are a great “two-fer” crop – you can harvest the beet roots, of course, but you can also harvest and eat the greens. Young beet greens are delicious when added raw to a salad, and larger beet greens can be sauteed as a quick side dish or used the way you’d use other greens such as spinach. Beet roots are very high in iron, potassium, and vitamin C. Beet greens are even better, as they are high in iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc, and Vitamins A, B6, and C.

  • How to Grow Beets
  • Grow Beets in Containers: Plant beet seeds three inches apart in a container that is twelve inches deep. Because each beet seed is actually a cluster of seeds, be sure to thin the seedlings to one per cluster. Thinnings can be added to salads or sandwiches.
  • What to Watch Out For: Knowing when to harvest. Beet roots are at their best when they are harvested small – between one and two inches across. At this size, they are sweet and tender. Larger beets tend to be kind of woody and less flavorful.

8. Leaf Amaranth

Leaf amaranth is a less-common vegetable that is well worth a try in your own garden. The leaves have a sweet and slightly tangy flavor that works well in a variety of dishes, from stir-fries and soups to simply steaming it all by itself. As a bonus, leaf amaranth is one of the few heat-tolerant greens. It won’t bolt in the heat of summer the way spinach and kale are prone to. Nutritionally, leaf amaranth is very high in calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium, riboflavin, zinc, and Vitamins A, B6, and C. Everyone should be growing this!

  • How to Grow Leaf Amaranth
  • Growing Leaf Amaranth in Containers: Scatter the tiny seeds over the soil’s surface in a pot that is at least 8 inches deep. Harvest the leaves when they are two to four inches tall. You will be able to get at least two or three harvest before you’ll have to sow more seeds.
  • What to Watch Out For: Leaf amaranth is fairly easy to grow, and relatively problem-free. Rarely, leaf miners can become a problem.

9. Carrots

Carrots are at their sweetest, crunchiest best when freshly harvested from the garden. These icons of healthy eating deserve their “good-for-you” rep – they’re very high in fiber, manganese, niacin, potassium, and Vitamins A, B6, and C. Their only drawback is that they do tend to be high in sugar, so if you’re watching your carb intake, you’ll want to limit the amount of carrots you eat.

  • How to Grow Carrots
  • Grow Carrots in Containers: Sow carrot seeds two to three inches apart in a pot that is at least twelve inches deep. Look for shorter varieties, such as ‘Thumbelina,’ or ‘Danver’s Half Long.’
  • What to Watch Out For: Harvesting at the perfect size. Carrots are at their tastiest when harvested small. Leaving them in the ground too long can result in overly large, woody carrots. You’ll also want to make sure to keep your carrots evenly moist, as letting the soil dry out too often can also result in somewhat bitter, fibrous carrots.

10. Leafy Greens

OK, I cheated here. I can’t recommend just ONE leafy green, because they are all incredibly good for us, as well as delicious — kale, collards, spinach, turnip or dandelion greens — how can you possibly choose just one? In general, the “green leafies” contain high amounts of calcium, iron, potassium, and Vitamins A, B6, and C.

  • How to Grow Kale and Other Leafy Greens
  • Grow Greens in Containers: Grow one kale or collard plant per ten inch deep pot. Other greens can be grown a few plants to a pot — they should be planted at least 4 inches apart and harvested small.
  • What to Watch Out For: Heat and cabbage worms. Most leafy greens are cool-weather crops, so they’re best grown in spring and fall in most areas – hot weather will cause them to bolt. In addition, many of these greens are members of the Brassicas family, which means they are prone to cabbage worm infestations. Control them with the same methods outlined in the “Broccoli” section, above.

Try growing one or two (or all!) of these nutrient-dense, delicious vegetables in your own garden, and you’ll get double the health benefits: healthy food and time spent outdoors, nurturing your plants

from:    http://wakeup-world.com/2011/06/17/how-to-grow-the-top-10-most-nutritious-vegetables-in-your-garden/

Small Farmers on the Chopping Block

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How the Supercommittee Could Kill New Farmers Markets

—By Tom Philpott

| Wed Nov. 2, 2011 2:00 AM PDT
Farmers marketFarmers markets are just one of the sustainable ag programs now on the chopping block. NatalieMaynor/Flickr

Remember the farm bill, that monstrously complex, twice-a-decade omnibus legislation that shapes US agriculture and hunger policy? You know, the one that Michael Pollan andother sustainable foodies wrote so much about four years ago? Well, it’s back, earlier than expected (the last one doesn’t expire until 2012). And it has found itself caught in the crosshairs of DC budget hysteria—in a way that will likely reinforce the worst, most agribiz-friendly elements of US ag policy and defund the best parts, including programs that help farmers transition to organic and help communities start new farmers markets.

What gives?

In a story two weeks ago, Politico‘s David Rogers laid out what’s going on. The House and Senate ag committees have created a joint panel of four who are working furiously to do in a matter of days what usually takes more than a year: craft national food and farm policy for the next half-decade. They want to get it done in time to submit it to the budget-slashing “supercommittee,” whose work is scheduled to be done by Nov. 23.

The ag panel seeks to cut farm bill spending by $23 billion over the next 10 years, Rogers reported. The panel hasn’t submitted its proposal to the supercommittee yet—it’s expected to do so early this week—but Rogers wrote that broad outlines have emerged:

Nothing is set in stone, but the leadership anticipates that $14 billion to $15 billion would be cut from commodity supports—or roughly 24 percent from the baseline now projected by the Congressional Budget Office. At the same time, conservation programs would face a $6.5 billion reduction, or a 10 percent cut, and nutrition programs like food stamps would be asked to come up with $4 billion to $5 billion in savings, a less than 1 percent cut.

On the surface, given the austerity fever plaguing Washington, this distribution of cuts might seem to make sense: The commodity programs take a big cut, conservation takes a smaller one, and anti-hunger take a relatively minuscule one.

But in reality, the commodity cuts won’t change the incentives that push farmers to plant millions of acres of farmland with just a handful of crops: corn, soy, cotton, and wheat. That’s because the plan appears to be to replace the current system of direct payments—which pay commodity farmers $5 billion a year based on their acreage historically devoted to subsidy crops—with one based on government-funded revenue insurance that holds farmers’ incomes steady when prices drop.

Like the old system, the new insurance scheme would apply only to farmers who grow those subsidized commodity crops. The new setup would be cheaper than direct payments—projected to cost $3.5 billion per year versus $5 billion—but it continues to ensure that corn and soy will continue to blanket millions of acres: agribusiness as usual, in other words. Indeed, the National Corn Growers Association—the agribiz-linked voice of the nation’s industrial-scale corn farms—has vigorously endorsed the switch.

While the commodity cuts won’t affect the industrial-agriculture juggernaut, the cuts to conservation programs could have real ecological impact. And paring back food stamps at a time when a record 45 million Americans rely on them seems unconscionable.

Moreover, a whole slew of small farm bill programs designed to help farmers transition to organic, communities roll out new farmers markets, AND new farmers with start-up costs, could see draconian cuts. These programs, the result of years of lobbying work from groups like the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and the Community Food Security Coalition,have been grouped together by USDA deputy secretary Kathleen Merrigan under the banner ofKnow Your Farmer, Know Your Food. Ferd Hoefner, policy director at NSAC and a veteran of farm bill fights dating to the ’70s, told me that such programs could lose as much as half of their funding under the current process.

All of that aside, the most egregious thing about the backroom farm bill being slapped together is that it completely shuts out grassroots participation in crafting national food and farm policy. The public farm bill fervor that rose up in 2007-08 has slammed up against a brick wall enclosing secret congressional hearings.

Now, it’s true the supercommittee’s efforts to cobble together a debt deal could fail. If that happens, what becomes of the backroom farm bill now being put together? I put that question to Hoefner. “Anyone’s guess,” he said. But the deal being made now will likely be the “starting point” for negotiations going forward, he added. And that, I think, is bad news for those of us who would like to see significant food policy reform.

Tom Philpott is the food and ag blogger for Mother Jones

from:    http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/11/farm-bill-supercommittee


Challenges of Gluten Free Living

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Ron Mattocks

Adventures In Going Gluten-Free

Posted: 9/23/11 08:26 AM ET

I never suspected that 39 would be the age when I had to consider that I may actually be mortal.

Not that I’m a Greek god, but at six-foot one, 190 pounds (give or take), my body’s always been naturally fit — until recently anyway. Over the course of the past 10 months, I’ve experienced recurring back problems, suffered from chronic fatigue and been diagnosed with astigmatism. I feel this is fundamentally unfair, especially considering that at 39, Brad Pitt hadn’t even married Jennifer Aniston, let alone thought about playing daddy to six children with Angelina Jolie. And yet, here he is nearly a decade — a decade — older than I am and still flaunting sit-up-free abs that could be mistaken for rumble strips, while mine are starting to resemble something closer to a single, large speed bump!

My most recent ailment has been the addition of an intolerance to gluten. This should’ve come as no surprise given that the hereditary nature of this autoimmune disease means a sizable portion of my mother’s side of the family already deals with this minor inconvenience. Aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, young and old, are affected by the gluten gene or some form of it. And even though it’s shown up at varied stages of our lives, like a coven of vampires who can trace their origins back to a single point of origin, we all agree that our vampire creator is Grandma. Of course, no one blames her — these things can’t be controlled — and furthermore, after two colonoscopies, I can attest to the fact that Grandma feels sorry about the whole thing.

Let me back up here for a moment. Yes, you read that correctly. I’ve already been subjected to a pair of colonoscopies before having reached the required age for AARP membership (even though my wife believes I should be admitted on a honorary basis considering how often I yell at the television). In both cases, however — and I’m not kidding — the clinic staff claimed that while waking from the anesthesia, I called out my grandmother’s name. Coincidence? Maybe. What I believe, though, is that in my unconscious state, Grandma appeared in my dreams to apologize for the reason behind why a camera was presently snaking its way up toward my intestines. In turn, I tell her there’s no need to apologize for something that’s not her fault. Then I ask why, on top of the whole gluten thing, she had to pass along the virus that caused her lips to break out with cold sores. It really made for some awkward dating situations in high school.

I’ve been gluten free now for several months, which comes off sounding as if I’m some sort of addict celebrating his most recent stint of sobriety. To some extent there are temptations to fall off the wagon — for me it’s pie — yet by recalling the consequences, I can maintain my resolve. What’s irritating to me, however, is expending all the energy in staying disciplined only to be “glutened” (that’s what they call it) from eating something you never would’ve suspected contained gluten. Twizzlers for example, and Play Doh for Pete sakes! I love Twizzlers. I used to eat whole bags at one shot, which of course, explains a lot about the next day’s events — not anymore. Play Doh, on the other hand, although surprising, doesn’t bother me as much. It’s a bit bland to me, and to be honest, I’ve never really been much of an arts-and-crafts kind of guy.

The grocery store is another matter. I’ll give them credit for expanding their gluten-free offerings, but why these items are placed in the same aisle as 85 percent of the manufactured baked goods produced by Pepperidge Farms, Mrs. Bairds and Sara Lee seems counterproductive in my opinion. It’s almost as if someone’s trying to play a game of “Stump the Chump” at the expense of my defect digestive tract.

For their part, the companies dedicated to making gluten-free products are doing a good job from what I can tell, although, I would like to pick the brains of those responsible for naming these items. My question to them would be why do they think forcing the word gluten into the product’s nomenclature is a solid marketing strategy? Glutino, Glutimins, Glutes — all brand names whose sole function is reminding me of what I am to avoid eating while simultaneously revealing to the cashier my embarrassing secret in same way it would if I were to hand her a tube of Vagisil.

In light of all the above, I then find it both annoying and amusing that anyone would choose a gluten-free diet as a means of being trendy. Such was the case a few weeks ago during a friend’s birthday dinner where a hip, single lawyer in her late twenties went on and on to my wife about how healthy it was to be gluten-free even if you don’t need to be.

“The other day, I had this thing with tomatoes, and onions and chicken wrapped in a flour tortilla. Sooo good.”

“Flour tortillas have gluten in them,” my wife said.

“Gluten’s in flour?” The lawyer sounded genuinely surprised by this Gluten-101 factoid. “Well then I must be gluten intolerant because I was pooping all night after that.”

Pooping. Classy — and from a lady who just explained why she prefers shopping at Neiman Marcus over Saks

to read more, go to:    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ron-mattocks/going-gluten-free_b_976698.html