Does your fresh produce see the light of day?

Interesting study showing increased antioxidant activity in fruit and vegetables that are exposed to the normal Circadian rhythm of night and day - that means out of the dark cupboard and away from the cold refrigerator. Apparently this increased production in antioxidants happens around dawn and protects the fruit and vegetables from aphid attack at that time! Tested for their aphid-fighting chemicals (and their super-nutrition for humans) were cabbages, spinach, lettuce, zucchini, carrots, sweet potatoes and blueberries. Yes I know, what happens before you put them in your fridge and what about the exposure to room temperature and natural light which inevitably means reduced shelf-life of fresh produce...

There’s one sure-fire way to ensure your fresh produce is as fresh as can be and choc-a-bloc with all those protective anti-oxidants and other nutritional factors! Start a kitchen garden! Everything you need to know from the ground up in Healthy Parents Healthy Baby and Healthy Parents Healthy Toddler. Getting kids involved is a wonderful way to teach them about the source of the things that they eat and to make sure they’re eating the widest possible variety of the healthiest possible things.

Reduce those food miles - buy local or grow your own!

A new study shows that consumers will pay more for locally produced foods! And why not? Any intelligent human being, who has concerns for the planet, their own and their family’s health, but most of all for the taste, freshness and safety of foods, would be crazy to select any that have criss-crossed the country, let alone the globe! But the fact that a product, even with the cost of a multitude of food miles added, is cheaper than a locally produced competitor really beggars belief. This study indicates that labeling with “food miles” is a good way to encourage purchase of the local produce. 

Well I guess if that’s what it takes to get consumers to do the right thing... Maybe at the same time we can find a way to turn them from foods that have been fertilised artificially so they grow in all seasons, then refined, processed, partitioned before being reconstituted through a variety of manufacturing processes and made tasty and stable with a range of chemical additives? What would it take to switch consumers to choosing sustainably grown, Nature-given varieties of fruits, vegetables and animal produce?  If common sense doesn’t prevail, maybe clever labeling will?

But there's no doubt that we all need to be a lot more aware of our food purchases. Marion Nestle, commenting on the publication of NY Times investigative reporter Michael Moss’s new book: Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us says: “Anyone reading this truly important book will understand why food corporations cannot be trusted to value health over profits and why all of us need to recognise and resist food marketing every time we grocery shop or vote.”

What would it take for us all to become more conscious shoppers? We can start by looking beyond the marketing hype, reading labels very carefully and asking tough questions of our produce providers! Social media, blogs, tweets and online conversations can play a very important role in raising consumer awareness. Of course growing some vegies in your backyard garden is the best way to minimise food miles. Not as hard as it sounds - all the details in Healthy Parents, Healthy Baby.

Get a little dirt on your hands...

Well, I might have finished lambasting poor old David Koch over his misplaced breastfeeding comments, but can’t stop about those good gut microbes. Great advice from Dr. Mercola who suggests that working in your garden and opening your windows to let the fresh air in are simple measures to enhance the health of the gut microbiota. 

Read the article in its entirety, its a goodie and Mercola’s recommendations are absolutely spot on and do-able. Who can say that they consume 30-40 different species of plants in a week??? Now that’s really something to aim for! 

Good place to start would be half a dozen different varieties of leaf lettuce in your backyard garden along with herbs like mint, parsley, coriander, basil, thyme and dill. Then pick them fresh and make them part of as many meals as you possibly can. 

Last night I managed mignonette, butter and cos lettuces (thanks Dave and Pauline), rocket, radicchio, cabbage, cauliflower, capsicum, mushroom, carrot, cucumber, tomato, Spanish onion, mint and parsley. Night before that it was potatoes, kumera, pumpkin, aubergine, fennel, brown onion, capsicum, tomato and rosemary - that’s 22 different ones already. A fruit salad for breakfast tomorrow will bring it close to 30. Then the challenge will be 10 more ... asparagus, broccoli, kale, spinach ...  I’m going very easy on the grains, but they count too ... couscous, quinoa, barley ... getting close to 40! What’s your score? Need some great recipes and the dirt on starting a garden?