h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of the simplest ways of getting a complete protein is rice, dahl (lentils) and vegetables. Organic is best. Cheap, cheerful and healthy. And I agree with AGB on the other thread - 5 servings of fruit and vegetables a day.

Interestingly I heard the other day that food manufacturers contribute to the nation becoming overweight. For instance, if a 6 oz bag of potato chips fills a person, they will manufacture 5 oz bags, so people are tempted to open more than one ... and of course, you have to finish that one too.

The other interesting thing was that if a person is 20% overweight, they will buy twice as much as a person who isn't, so it pays the manufacturers to get people eating too much. Getting existing customers to buy more costs less in advertising than attracting new customers.

Cheaper food has more calories, too. It's filled with sugar and fat and preservatives, which goes right to the hips. Healthy foods cost more - I suppose because they're of higher quality, and can't be made by an assembly line.

Agreed! I used to work for a Trading Standards department and I learned there that food manufacturers favourite parts of food are 'water and air'. I think they have to declare water if it's more than 5% of the foodstuff. Try looking at the water content of cheap processed ham, for instance! (I don't these days, being veggie.)

I agree with everything you've said Lentilla and ZFS...

The cheapest food of all is that which we grow ourselves. And the added advantage is that you know exactly what's gone into it. Or, more to the point, what hasn't gone into it.

I grow enough veg to sustain me all year round, in a 15m x 5m plot. Heaps (literally) of manure, compost and grass cuttings keep the soil good and productive. Big freezers, cupboards available for jars of preserves and some weekends of hard graft at certain times of the year, are all it takes.

Home grown food tastes better, is fresher, can be chemical-free if you're organic. And you get that amazing sense of utter smugness when folk a) admire the productive veg plot and b) complement you on the fantastic-tasting meals that you produce.

Can't beat it!


F/b

Agree with you F/b. I do admire the commitment that this takes. I have friends who have an allotment - mind you they have six children and live on a very limited income, and all the children help tend it.

I remember going to friends in Belgium, who just went into the garden to pick whatever they needed for the next meal. As you say, you can't beat it for freshness and taste. You have to be really disciplined to make it work, though.

Here you are again ZSF! You pop up all over the place.

I'm not sure it's discipline, but organisation and passion. It honestly doesn't take that much effort to produce heaps of veggies: I reckon it works out about an hour a day if it was spread throughout the year.

Of course, it's not as simple as that and there are peaks and troughs of activity, so it gets hectic some weekends in spring and early summer. Then there's the big clear up in the autumn/early winter, which takes time. But this time of year it's mainly picking, which is quick and easy.

Having said all that, I spend as much time in the kitchen processing fresh produce in the summer.

Perhaps I should be thinking about a vegetable-growing entry? Oh, surely there's masses about that already in the Guide... I need to check.


F/b

I think gardening is one of those things that it is nice to have someone to do it with, F/b and at present I don't.

Mina has done some entries on gardening, however I can't remember anything about vegetable gardening. Yes, I'm sure there are entries to be written on this subject.

Wide interests - that's why I pop up all over the place - some might say I have nothing better to do - I was waiting for my freezer to be delivered, which came about a quarter of an hour ago. I'm now having a cup of tea before going out to buy wrapping paper, etc for my son's presents.

I garden alone, but share my enthusiasm with anybody who'll listen, my produce with anybody who'll take it and the resulting meals with good friends. So really, I share it all.

Having said that, I loved it when my husband was alive and we planned and perpetrated our garden dreams together. It certainly added a joy to the whole process that I don't feel all the time these days.

But generally, I feel more alive in the garden (head down in the beans) than I do most other times.

Perhaps it's in the genes. My father was a veg garden Enthusiast and all of his children have inherited it. Or perhaps it was the fact we were brought up on heaps of fresh veg and we just can't bear to buy the supermarket cardboard, so we have to grow our own?

Whatever, gardening and food generally has got me through some very hard times in my life and it will always be an abiding passion.


F/b

I think it does make a difference how you were brought up. My father hates gardening. My mum never had time and had little inclination. I was brought up in a small terraced house with a tiny front garden and a fully paved back yard, so I have no gardening inheritance whatever. My work in the garden tends to be sporadic. With a small child and working full time, and in a Victorian house that always seems to need work, there seems always to be other things to do.

I do admire your enthusiasm!

I find fresh vegetables are my main key to healthy eating.

Rather than waste time and space on cheap crops like carrots, onions and potatoes, I grow parsnip, baby leek, and giant garlic. Raspberries and runner beans live in tubs on the patio. That way I get all my favourites for very little time and effort.

Growing veg certainly helps my diet. First it's cheap, it's fresh and it's on the doorstep. I've no excuse not to eat it.

Second, it reminds me what food really is. It helps me connect to the source of my food. Food is more than just fuel, an inconvenience to be suffered three times a day. It's what I'm made of. My body deserves the time and effort to get the balance right.

I eat good food because I'm worth it.

Sounds good! I also heard that carrots take up chemicals really well, so I always buy organic carrots (well I buy as much organic produce as I can, but it's not always available) and if there aren't any, I go without. Same goes for tomatoes - I like to know that what I'm buying isn't GM modified.

It does my soul good to read all these comments. I agree wholeheartedly, but it frightens me how many people eat rubbish and have no idea what chemicals, hormones etc they're putting into their bodies.


F/b

It doesn't make sense does it? And these are often sensible people who don't smoke, don't drink and exercise regularly.

I have friends who pay a fortune for gym membership, dietary supplements and vitamin pills, but think organic veg are too expensive.

They're really careful about what books and TV their kids are exposed too, but then feed them processed cheese bilge and reclaimed turkey turds.

Organic is a bit more expensive, but then so is over-processed food.

And the children brought up on that sort of rubbish, will think it's normal food and carry on and feed it to their children in turn.

It's mad. I don't know how you persuade folk that eating unknown ingredients is a risk.

I try to spread the message by example and I grow far too much food, so that I can give away the excess, in the hope that it will inspire a few people to grow their own next year. It works, but on such a small scale that I sometimes wonder...

Still, I'd rather do something. And if I rant about it, that has the opposite affect: turns people off and makes them worried about 'alternative living'. !

I'm off to cool my head...


F/b

Yes, I think that cheap processsed food is a false economy. And you never know the results on your children. By eating simple nutritious food, you tend to avoid the reactions that you can get from processed foods, including hyperactivity and attention deficit.

Yes, you build up a generally more healthy body through years of 'real' food.

Also, by consuming food that's not stuffed with hormones, antibiotics and so on (isn't it pork which is particularly bad for that?), we build up good immune systems too.

As my Mum used to say, a mouthful of dirt every now and then did nobody any harm.


F/b

Hey Frenchbean, thanks to you I've been evangelising too!

I've just dug over and replanted my whole front garden. The kids who play on my street wanted to help, so I encouraged them to get as dirty as possible. They loved it.

I also encouraged them to play gently with any bugs and insects they found. I identified them, we discussed them a bit, then put them back on the soil.

Finally I planted loads of herbs, and showed them how to enjoy the smell without picking the leaves. That lead to a cookery discussion; some of them were convinced that ALL plants were poisonous!

(Quote: Carrots? Potatoes? Oh, they're not plants.... they come from supermarkets!)

I remembered what you said about growing too much and giving it away - evangelising on a small scale. Maybe I had no lasting effect, but at least one of the kids now knows baked beans are vegetables!

There is alot of praise for organically grown veg here, and damning of processed foods,
I wonder what effect the artificial ingredients in processed food
would have on the evolution of the species.
It has alredy been proven that our reliance on chemicals/medicines
has weakened our immune systems ( as a species ), I think , given enough time , organic foods could become poisonous to our race.
It is certainly the route we are going down! I am obviously in favour of people eating fresh produce , but I can't see anything bucking the fast food trend!

Hi Mojo's bigstick - I'm delighted that my foody evangelising has spread!

It sounds a great garden. Just maybe one of those kids will go home and talk about it, and even want to dig their own patch of garden?

You never know what impact you have, which is unfortunate, but you have to believe that kids want role-models. If you're not like their parents, but not too threateningly different, you're almost bound to fit the bill for one of them. And one kid will one day to be UK Prime Minister, US President. Perhaps it'll be one of the ones you showed how to smell herbs?

When I was growing up, my parents 'gave' each of us children a patch of garden that was our own. I planted masses of strawberries and got really upset when everybody else wanted to eat them! All my life I watched my Dad grow all our veg and fruit. His rhythm of gardening seeped into my soul and - lo and behold - without a single lesson, I was an adult able to grow veg and fruit.

Keep on keeping on Mojo!


F/b

most of this trouble caused by the need to diet/eat healthy along with bad eating habits are only as a result of parental neglect brought about by the change in life styles within two or three generations.
myself i have only been subjected to the meat and two veg three meals a day mentality for five years of my fifty years between ages 10--15.followed by five years of eating on the move at work (waiter hotel trade) by product being coffee or tea cup will be still retaining heat but be empty haveing downed it in 30secs flat ,since then only eaten when hungry ,on occasions will not eat for two three days again as far as food groups combined at mealtimes no leg of lamb nothing else ,next time half pound cheese ,oh yes dont forget the lack of forageing for food as a child blackberrys apples ect found in the parkland and open spaces other plants from geraniums to seacabbage mushrooms and the like off.
most dieticians would throw hands up with horror if faced with my diet should we trade places so to speak for a month .
basicly i;m saying horses for courses dietry needs are the one constent in all our lifes but we all need different combinations of instant energy and storage foods according to occupation ect
so untill you/we stop and think before we change diets when less intake of food that is not needed we will have percieved problems that can be solved by "wonder diets"