Spring=Garden=Good

Spring is such a beautiful time for good food.  The wild—ramps, wild onions, fiddelheads, morels, dandelions, violet blossoms.  The cultivated—radishes, pea shoots, asparagus, chives, rhubarb, garlic scapes, tender greens, scallions.  That particular green of sunlight on leaves and the scent of fruit blossoms shake us out of hibernation.  It’s a wonder that we all don’t succumb to spring fever and skip out of work each fine day to forage and tend and till.

Spring is a time when we can set ourselves up to eat well all year-round by grafting fruit trees, planting our gardens, signing up for a CSA, or using that tax refund for a food dehydrator or pressure canner.  It’s gardening that’s on my mind this spring the most.  With a freshly tilled new garden at home and an increasingly popular community garden program at work, I’ve been reflecting on the powerful positive impacts of gardens. Which is why, of course, they’re spreading like wildfires in Milwaukee and across the country—supported by community activists and public health officials alike.

People garden for many reasons—the pleasure of being outside, the remarkable taste of fresh food, the connections made with other gardeners, the security offered by a plot of food, the money saved by growing your own groceries, and so on.  Intuitively, people feel that gardening is good.  And there’s been some good scientific research into the benefits of community gardens to support those intuitions.  A few of the benefits I like to remind people of if there’s even a whisper that they think its all just feel good fluff:

• Gardening is a promising practice for diabetes prevention and control through healthy activity and food.
• Children & adults who garden eat more fruits and vegetables.
• A garden program promotes healthy food security.
• Gardening reduces stress and calms the nerves.
• Gardening helps youth with self-esteem.
• Gardens strengthen communities.
• “Horticultural Therapy “can help with mental health issues, such as post traumatic stress disorder, depression; and anxiety and may help ex-convicts with rehabilitation
•  Gardening can reduce food miles & support local economies & cultures

Gardening can also promote food biodiversity.  The Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity estimates that “300,000 vegetable varieties have become extinct over the last century.”

By growing heirloom and endangered foods in our gardens we can help save these foods from extinction.  The vegetables that have been boarded onto Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste are a good place to start if you’d like to grow endangered veggies—they are rare and delicious and storied.  Some Ark of Taste vegetables (seeds may be sourced through Seed Savers Exchange for most of these) that may be well suited for growing in Wisconsin include:

• Amish Deer Tongue lettuce
• Grandpa Admire's lettuce
• Speckled lettuce
• Tennis Ball lettuce (black seeded)
• Early Blood Turnip-rooted beet
• Beaver Dam pepper
• Bull Nose Large Bell pepper
• Fish pepper
• Hinkelhatz Hot pepper
• Jimmy Nardello's Sweet Italian Frying pepper
• Sheepnose pimiento
• Amish Paste Tomato
• German Pink Tomato
• Sheboygan Tomato
• Red Fig Tomato
• Aunt Molly’s Husk Tomato (ground Cherry)
• Valencia Tomato
• Lina Cisco’s Bird Egg Bean
• True Red Cranberry bean
• Hidatsa Shield Figure bean
• Yellow Indian Woman Bean
• Hutterite Soup bean
• Mayflower Bean
• Turkey’ Hard Red Winter Wheat
• Roy’s Calais flint corn

If you want to learn more about growing food and/or want to be a part of an organized initiative to install home and community gardens in Milwaukee, consider being a part of the 4^th Annual Great Milwaukee Victory Garden Blitz. Their motto at VGI: “Move Grass. Grow Food.”  My thoughts exactly…

Another Reason to Go Organic

                            Crop Dusting Helicopter-(Ironically Beautiful)

Not to be overly dramatic, but toxic chemicals in our food may be messing with our kid's heads.  

The newest addition to the growing list of reasons to choose organic food: high urinary organophosphate concentrations have been linked to twice the incidence of ADHD in children 8-15 years old.  Organophospates (OP), which are used in agriculture precisely because they attack the nervous system of insects, are known to accumulate in human tissues, though its often believed to be in low enough levels to not impact our health.  We are, afterall, a lot bigger than insects.  But if size matters, than wouldn't our children be the canaries in the coal mine?   A new study in the journal Pedriatrics, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Urinary Metabolites of Organophosphate Pesticides, explores the high rates of ADHD and pesticide metabolites.   From the authors:

WHAT’S KNOWN ON THIS SUBJECT: Exposure to organophosphates has been associated with adverse effects on neurodevelopment, such as behavioral problems and lower cognitive function. Studies have focused, however, on populations with high levels of exposure, relative to the general population.

WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS: We conducted a study with 1139 children 8 to 15 years of age, representative of the US population. The findings showed that children with higher urinary levels of organophosphate metabolites were more likely to meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD.

So what does this mean for eaters?  Though this study has not shown a causal relationship (meaning we can't say that OPs cause ADHD) I do think it is better to be safe than sorry. I whole heartedly recommend choosing foods grown without toxic pesticides (or at least those grown without a lot of pesticides or those that are known to have lower residues of pesticides.)  The Environmental Working Group has published a list, called the Dirty Dozen, of the twelve typically most  contaminated fruits and veggies: peaches, strawberries, apples, domestic blueberries, nectarines, cherries, imported grapes, celery, sweet bell peppers, spinach, kale, collard greens and potatoes.  These foods would be best to buy organic or to grow naturally in your own garden plot. The foods found by the EWG to have the least pesticide residue, the Clean Fifteen, (sixteen are actually listed) are onions, sweet corn, sweet peas, asparagus, cabbage, eggplant, sweet potatoes, avocados, pineapples, mangoes, kiwi, domestic cantaloupe, watermelon, grapefruit and honeydew.

Sustainable Nutrition Bottom-line:  Eat your organic veggies and fruits and plenty of them!  For a clear explanation of what organic means and many more reasons why you might want to choose organic, read the past blog post, "Is Organic Better for You?".  For those folks who don't have the extra money for pesticide free food at the market, consider growing your own.  Check out Kitchen Gardeners International or the Milwaukee's own Victory Garden Initiative for more information and gardening resources.

Gardens for Change

A Victory Garden on the White House lawn seems a no brainer to me:

the most influential house in the nation + edible garden

= inspiration for more gardens

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to "open the doors of government" and asks us "to be involved in your own democracy again" on his change.org site. To speed this along, staffers have created an open forum to propose and vote on ideas for change. The 10 ideas with the most votes will be presented to the Obama on Jan 16th. Ideas for change range from "Free Single payer Healthcare" to "End the War in Iraq" to "Make the grid green in 10 years" to "Forgive student loans" and many ideas in between.

I cast my first vote for "Victory Gardens 2.0"- not because the other ideas aren't important, they are, but because in a time when a we are facing several major crises, simple, practical, and beautiful solutions should be considered. Gardening for change addresses health, environmental stewardship, resource conservation, hunger and economics. As a dietitian, I like to start health promotion and disease prevention from the ground up.

Voting ends on January 15th. Vote now.