I know that we have not had the best summer ever this year when it comes to sunshine & warmth but back in June, a couple of grow bags in my back garden were bulging over with cut and come again salad leaf. The satisfying feeling picking part of your daily foodstuffs is bloody fantastic, also a calming experience and the biggest thing of all is you know exactly where it has been and what has happened to it “AND IT TASTED LIKE SALAD LEAF”.

MODIFIED ATMOSPHERE PACKAGING: ( M.A.P. )

Modern -atmosphere packaging can increase the shelf life by up to 50%

In MAP, the oxygen is reduced from 21% to 3% and Carbon Dioxide is correspondingly raised, slowing visible signs of deteriation.

A good wash:

The Chlorine levels used to wash (MAP) salads are around a mega 20 times more than the chlorine levels used to keep your local swimming pool clean. It is therefore no surprise that a (MAP) salad has very little taste and can stay in your fridge for days seemingly with no signs of dying off.

A study on anti oxidents in lettuce was carried out by the Rome Institute for Food and Nutrition. Lettuce that was harvested that day was given to volunteers to eatthat day and the others got to sample lettuce from the same source that had been MAP packaged for 3 days.

Blood samples were then analysed from the 2 groups.

The volunteers who ate the fresh salad showed an increase in the bloods anti-oxidant levels.

The volunteers who were given the MAP salads showed no inrease in anti-oxident levels after eating the lettuce.

Bagged salads like this did not exist until 1992.

Between 1992 and 2000 nearly 6 % of food poisoning outbreaks were linked to pre-washed salads and prepared fruits and vegetables.

Two serious outbreaks of Salmonella poisoning in the UK were traced back to lettuce.

Clean obsession:

Over the last 10 - 15 years people seem to be squirting anti-bacterials left, right and centre.

During over a decade in the catering industry, I have many times witnesses managers and owners making a big point of instucting that antibac’s are used to clean down at the end of a shift and squirted on worksurfaces at pretty much any opportunity. Most of the cleaning fluids & spray’s that I was asked to use in commercial kitchens restricted breathing, hurt the chest and stung the eye’s. Isn’t that more harmful than what might happen if you just cleaned with soaps and hot water ?

We are not meant to live in a clinically spotless environment.

A little dirt can be a good thing.

Say the word ‘hemp’ and most people think of hippies dressed in dungarees. And dope. The plant is a member of the cannabis sativa family, which marijuana also belongs to. What they’re less likely to realise is that while hemp actually contains only trace elements of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the ingredient in dope that makes you stoned, it is packed with an amazing amount of fatty acids, minerals and proteins that are fantastically good for you (so much so, one nutritionist I mentioned it to said a diet of hemp seed and water alone would be fairly healthy) one.

The above text was taken from an article in The Guardian telling the story of how Henry and Glynis Braham produced the “good oil” made from Hemp seeds. Link to full story below.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2004/nov/07/foodanddrink.features9

Hemp seeds contain a whole protein profile, every protein known and many amino acids. I am giving annother link now to a page from tha cannabis userg guide as the author of this page has discribed what I was going to say about hemp seeds so eloquently. eloquently.

http://www.schmoo.co.uk/thclub/hemp.htm

“However harmless a thing is,

If the law forbids it,

most people will think it’s wrong.”

-W. Somerst Maughn

problems, problems:

Fish farming can cause more ecological problems than it can solve.

Bloody ironic:

Fish being Pescivores eat other fish. Fish are industrally caught and made into fish meal pellets to feed the farmed fish leaving depleated stocks for the wild fish to feed on….mental !

World Wildlife Fund:

It takes more than 3 tonnes of wild fish flesh, in pellet form, to create just 1 tonne of wild salmon.

In the shit:

So what happens to all that fish poo down at the farm.

The tide does not flush it out. Some sea lochs and costal bays have witnessed a crash in their bio-diversity due to huge levels of salmon poo.

Toxic Algal Blooms:

Scallop fisheries along Scotlands West Coast have been suspended in the summer months for a few years due to toxic algal blooms.

The Great Escape:

In 2005 almost a millon salmon escaped from salmon farms along Scotlands west coast outnumbering wild salmon numbers along said coastal waters.

When these fish are free what are the consequences?

Some will make it to wild rivers and breed with wild salmon, the outcome being hybrid salmon lurking in our waters.

If you go fishing ( and I am not talking about paying to fish in some privately owned loch ) you would expect anything that you catch to be wild, surely, but even if you buy “wild” salmon…..is it really?

Escapee farmed fish will transmit parasites to the wild community.

Powerful chemicals ( so strong they are not allowed to be used in any other food production ) are used to treat sea lice in the fish farms but what do these chemicals do to the eco-system?

It fucks it up.

TV ad ‘to bust heart attack myth’

Tonight the ITV1 are showing a one off advert showing what a ( non Hollywood style heart attack is like ).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7552424.stm

The above BBC page link shows a preview of The Brittish Heart Foundations advert.

The British Heart Foundation ad will be shown just once - on ITV1 at 2117 BST on Sunday 10 August.

It will demonstrate the wide range of symptoms, including pain in the arm or the jaw that can signify an attack.

250 people a day die because the do not recognise the signs.

All good Opticians + Optometertrists will be aware that Lutein -Zeaxanthin is the primary anti-oxidant to provide good eyehealth and helps to reduce the risks of cataracts.

Macular degeneration is said to be uncureable BUT it is known that if detected in the early stages the progression can be slowed down by increased levels of Lutein-Zeaxanthin.

This anti-oxidant is primarily sourced from cruciferous vegetables - the dark green leafy vegetables such as Kale, Cabbage, Spinach, and Broccoli.

When parents say “eat your veg, it will put hairs on your chest” they could be better off saying ” you need to eat it to protect your eyes”

For some reason there seems to be a much more widely known saying for what causes blindness and it is not “playing with your food”.

So what is Macular Degeneration and how is it caused.

I am not an optician. I am just interested in food and how different foods can harm or help parts of the body. So put it very simply the macular is part of the eye behind the retina. When the macular degenerates ( common sign of ageing ) your ability to see well degenerates and could eventually lead to complete blindness.

This condition is usually labeled Adult Macular Degeneration ( AMD )

Genetic influences can be a factor of the onset of ( AMD )

Smoking can double the risks of Adult Macular Degeneration.

But on the good side, we can do something about preventing it in the first place. I have copied the Nutritional text below from http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/conditions/amd.shtml

Nutrition - the role of vitamins and minerals and antioxidants in helping to prevent AMD isn’t clear. Some scientific evidence suggests a diet rich in antioxidant vitamins and minerals may help reduce the risk of a person developing AMD, although other studies suggest the scientific evidence isn’t strong enough to recommend this.

However, a diet rich in antioxidant vitamins and minerals is unlikely to cause any harm. It makes sense to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables each day, particularly kale and leafy green vegetables.

I was prescribed prescription glasses about 10 years ago when I was a croupier, dealing cards for up to 3 hours at a time was making my sight blurry & giving me headaches so I needed them for my job.

My last visit to the opticians was about 3 years ago. I was 35 then and was surprised when I was bluntly told ” your sight is good at the moment but you will be struggling to see without strong glasses by the time you are 40″.

I’m glad I love my fruit & veg because now 38 i’m stil not needing spec’s and can see perfectly well.

Also now a reformed smoker so even more chance that I can dodge this and prove my optician wrong.

We can alter our bloods by what we eat. If we have high blood cholesterol it can be lessened by adding some kelp to your diet for example. ( see yesterdays post on Seaweeds ).

We can alter our bloods but we cannot change its type.

Whoever we are, we will live with the same blood type that we were born with until we die. Even if a body requires at some stage a blood transfusion the transfused blood needs to be of the type you originally had or it just won’t do.

I have been under the belief since I was a child that my blood belongs to the rarest blood group but, as I am unsure of this I am keen to find out when my donors card comes through the post in a few weeks time. I was finally allowed to give blood for the first time in 6 years this week. I have tried frequently but when I have attended any donor sessions it has either been too soon after a tattoo or too soon after returning from travels, the last being Vietnam, so a years gap was needed before any chance of my blood being taken. I asked if they could confirm my blood group for me & was told a card with your blood type is sent to you after about 4 weeks so I will find out then if my childhood memory serves me well.

Today is the first day of The Olympic Games in Beijing and that reminded me of something I was told by a friend a few years ago but I had not checked this out until tonight but it does seem wholly viable to be fact. I was told that if you were AB- and you were travelling to China ( when I was told this they meant not nowadays but in the past ) you needed to take a bag of your own blood with you as there was no AB- in the country.

Remebering this tonight I have looked online and found chart showing the most common and the rarest blood types in different countries around the world. To view the chart go to http://the-red-thread.net/blood.html

Below is a fantastic post that I read on the above site.

Posted Monday, Mar. 18, 1985

There is no coat of arms on the flask, but somewhere in one of Britain’s hospitals a convalescent patient has some of the world’s most exclusive blood flowing through his or her veins. The regal donor of the precious stuff was Prince Charles, 36, who has become the first member of the royal family ever to give blood, in his case, O Rh-negative. The unprecedented puncturing of royalty was to reassure Britons after a nationwide scare about AIDS caused a drop in donations. At the North London Transfusion Center, the Prince was asked whether he was homosexual, injected drugs into his veins or had had sex with anyone in those two groups. After those regulation indignities (and his negative answers), he had an apprehensive question of his own: “Is it going to hurt?” When the pint was finally drawn, Charles pretended to apologize because his blood was not blue: “I’m afraid it’s red like anyone else’s.” Fancy that.

Last night I mentioned the Welsh laver bread, so here I am listing a few types of seaweeds and giving some information on how they can be eaten and what ways the body can benefit from adding some marine vegetation to your diet.

LAVER: Eating:

Appart from the aforementioned laver bread in Wales the Welsh also marinate laver in oil & lemon juice & serve it on toast with a fair pinch of black pepper. The clever thing about cooking laver on toast is that the water that the Laver is cooked in becomes thick and turns into a jelly which vegetables, meat or fish can be added to making a very nutritious soup.

In Scotland laver is diped in oatmeal & fried.

KELP:

Dashi which is a rick stock, is made from kelp as kelp has a high concentration of the flavour-enhancing glutamic acid.

GIANT KELP:

Giant kelp which contains fluoride, calcium, and iron amongst other minerals and is extremely rich in iodine. The healthy components in giant kelp helps with bone mineralization & bone density, it will alkalize the blood, treat swollen lymph glands, lower blood cholesterol, is very benificial to thyroid function and removes radioactive tissues from the body. Kelp is a mega superfood!

IRISH MOSS:

Is named misleadingly as it is in fact a seaweed. In Ireland is both steamed and served with potatoes or cabbage and the Irish are strong believers in a cup of tea made from Irish moss to cure colds and coughs.

DULSE:

Dulse is used in salads and sandwiches, rich in iodine, calcium and also phosphorus. The funky thing about dulse is that it is possible that it contains more potassium than any other foodstuffs. Go to this page http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/potassium-000320.htm from The University Of Maryland Medical Center to read just what can be effected in the body if your potassium levels are wrong. But don’t panic as a diet which contains enough fruit and vegetables will supply your daily potassium needs.

SPIRULINA:

Spirulina floats on water like green scum and is collected and dried.

As it contains so many minerals, calcium, manganese, phosphorus, zinc, & selenium, is rich in B vitamins, chlorophyll, beta carotene and Vitamin E and also an amino acid phenylalanine which surpresses the appetite. Due to the vitamin and mineral content it can cleanse the blood and detox both liver and kidneys.

Spirulina can be used to treat hypoglycemia, hepatitis, malnutrition, and anemia and strenghtens the immune system.

Spirulina also contains a pigment called phycocyanin. which has been studied with positive effects as a cancer inhibitor.

I am currently slightly addicted to the commercial version we buy in the uk, and as Japan is notorious for it’s ceremonious ways of drinking tea I wondered if there were special occasions when rice crackers were given & of course there is.

There are 2 main categories of rice crackers ( senbi & Arare ), although both categories come in various shapes, flavours and colours.

senbei made from japonica rice are crispy, flat but come in various shapes, usually savory and are fried, charcoal baked or grilled. There are over 15 types of sweet senbi and you can also get fish senbei, lotus senbei and bone senbei. I am assuming that the lotus senbei is using the lotus flower root and the bone senbei is using fish bones but I cannot find literature to confirm this, any comments from someone with more knowledge on the ingredients for the senbei would be most welcome. Flavourings include shoyu a salty soy sauce and mirrin a type of rice wine (less alcoholic than sake). More modern flavorings for senbei may include curry powder, wasabi ( nick named the japenese horseraddish ) chocolate and a very interesting ( and new to me!) kimchi which I read about on a site about healthy eating superfoods. Visit http://:www.eating.health.com/2008/02/01/worlds-healthiest-foods-kimchi-korea/ to read about kimichi.

ARARE are made form glutinous rice and are often baked with soya beans or peanuts inside which I find particuarly devilishly moorish! These are also often coated with sesame seeds or wrapped in norimaki edible seaweed.

Nori

300,000 metric tons of nori seaweed is harvested in Japan every year and is preesed and dried in the sun in racks of bamboo mats.

Nori is not only native to Japan though. It is found in the North Sea, Pacific coasts, Baltic Sea, Atlantic and alco on Hawaiian beaches.

In Ireland & Wales Nori is eaten as a freash vegetable, called Sloe in Ireland and Laver in Wales where they make Laver bread.

Laver is black with a purple sheen and is mild tasting.

Senbi as offerings:

Senbi is often offered to visiting house guests along with green tea and during the Second World War senbi was stamped with the imperial crest as a token of recognition and presented as a gesture of gratitude by the Japanese emperor.

Senbei & Arare are distinguished by there size, Arare bing the smaller bite sized type.

Arare in cultural celebrations:

Brightly coloured Arare are consumed on March 3rd each year in Japan to celebrate girls day & Japans Doll Festival.

Whilst some people find celery to be a boring vegetable I love it. Mind you I have not always liked the taste and texture of this particular vegetable. I have liked celery for about the past 5 years, much like mushrooms and prawns that I used to despise when I was younger.

My mum constantly asked me to try foods that she knew I did not like but she did know better than me at the time with the knowledge that your tastebuds are kind of the last part of your body to mature & grow up ( I will do a seperate post soon on how we ” taste ” our foods).

There is an urban myth kicking about that celery is a negative calorie food. What is actually the case is that celery has such a low calorific value that the body uses more calories to eat & digest it than the vegetable contains, so is great for those who are trying to shed a few pounds.

Celery is high in Vitamin C & contains blood pressure reducing qualities.

Celery powder can be bought as a detox aid.

Bergapeten in the seeds of celery can increase photosensitivity.

Warning:

Essential oil of celery should be avoided externally due to increased photosensitivity & essential oil should be avoided during pregnancy as it can be a uterine stimulant.

Pre-pregnancy though celery is a good thing as it said to increase the quality, quantity & taste of sperm.

SEVERE ALLERGIC REACTIONS:

I have a friend who has a peanut allergy. I knew before we were friends that peanuts can kill by causung anaphaylactic shock. ( Where the throat closes resticting or stopping breathing ), and as I had been told of her severe reation shortly after “Pulp Fiction” had been released I thought it was ” cool ” that she carried an adrenaline shot in her bag incase she came into contact with the dreaded nut.

I did feel sorry for her affliction a couple of times, once when she told me that if she was hugged or kissed by someone who had recently eaten a peanut she could go into anaphaylactic shock in fact if she touched a wall for example that someone who had been eating peanuts had just touched the same reaction could occur, and once, when I nonchalantly offered her a bite of my snickers bar. It’s such an easy thing to forget when it does not effect you.

Celery is within this small group of foods including peanuts that can cause such a drastic reation ( ANAPHYLAXIS ).