A million Vancouverites street-partyed with a million new friends on Robson, Granville, Georgia and Denman Streets Feb 28. Olympic fever!
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Mornings are the best times for me to mess about with seeds in my kitchen. I’m currently soaking
And I’m growing sesame seeds and chia seeds (remember the chia pets from the 1980s?) on a small square sheet of nori on a saucer. I am a kitchen gardener! The brilliant thing about soaking all these seeds – nuts, beans, and lentils are all seeds – is that it starts the germination process. The amount of Vitamins A, B, and C in seeds is increased through soaking and sprouting (a longer soak), in preparation for growing and nourishing a plant. Soaking and sprouting also convert inhibitors such as phytic acid that are present in all seeds into a neutral form that no longer inhibits the action of our own enzymes. And they inactivate aflatoxins that are carcinogens found in grains. The starchy part of the grain is transformed into sugar and some of the complex sugars are broken down to make them easier to digest, helping us avoid the intestinal gas that can result from eating beans for instance. Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig contribute an article entitled, Be Kind to Your Grains…And Your Grains Will Be Kind To You to The Weston A. Price Foundation, which is a brilliant resource for traditional ways of nourishing our bodies. Fallon and Enig are also the authors of Nourishing Traditions, a wonderful read and bible for wholesome nutrition. If you’re tempted to start soaking, get yourself a source of filtered water, a jar with a lid, and half a cup of almonds. Start them one evening and try them each day for the next three or four days. Just keep rinsing and pouring off the soak water and add them to breakfast, salads, and breads. They soften up and become absolutely delicious. Nina Shoroplova Even the heavens are weeping: it’s my last day of holistic nutrition schooling! I’ve loved it. It’s exciting; I now get to share the wisdom. Please Retweet and Sign this Petition ‘What am I eating? I want to know.’ – http://301.to/hmo Here’s a short documentary produced as part of a campaign for urban agriculture in Vancouver, Canada, by students taking CMNS 425 at Simon Fraser University (SFU). Spreading Seeds from Alex Burr on Vimeo. SFU also has a Local Food Project with three programs
Have you heard of the 100 Mile Diet? The term became popular after Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon wrote about their year-long experience of eating locally in the Canadian bestselling book of the same name. The idea is one of the driving forces behind the growing local food movement. If you want to take the pledge for one meal, a meal a week, a whole week, or more, their website has a map to help you calculate your 100-mile circle of food supply. For Vancouverites, this area includes the Fraser Valley, southern Vancouver Island, Courtenay, Pemberton, Hope, Everett, Port Angeles, and Neah Bay. You’d eat well during the summer. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Canada’s federal agency governing food safety and inspection, has a ruling on the definition of “local” that is stricter than Smith and MacKinnon’s definition:
That definition of local would certainly limit food choices. Yet, the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture estimates that “the average American meal travels about 1500 miles to get from farm to plate.” What a difference and what a staggering distance! At what cost do we enjoy avocados in the winter?! Just so we know what grows locally here in Vancouver year-round, here’s a link to a seasonal chart of local produce put together by Farm Folk / City Folk on their Get Local site. So the next time you buy parsnips in Vancouver in February, you could be buying local. Read the small print on the packaging, and if the parsnips aren’t local, ask the grocery store why they aren’t. I link to great sites: Nutritional & Spiritual Wisdom, Alternative Medicine, food agencies, wise publishers, & Wrasma @ wholenina.com/blog. Sometimes I wake up firing on all cylinders, bristling with ideas. I have 2 capture them before they disappear like so many wisps of dreams. I recently saw the film Avatar and loved it, not just for the way it marries science fiction with fantasy, and not just for the gorgeous images of flora and fauna on the imaginary moon, Pandora, but for the strong spiritual theme that underlies the whole story. Mike Robbins, best-selling author and motivational speaker, has written a great piece on the three spiritual messages in Avatar:
Nina Check out my “Vancouver’s West End” pic on Code.Vancouver2010.com: http://bit.ly/bafCj3: cherry blossom tree at Lost Lagoon. |
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