Food for thought in your diary

FOR those who have an interest in food and a concern about food issues, the last Thursday of every month is worth marking in your diary – Cork Free Choice Consumer Group will have a speaker at the Crawford Art Gallery from 7.30pm to 10pm.

The subject can be as varied as Water, Grown your Own Vegetables, Vegetarian Food, Herbal Medicines, Bees, German Cuisine, French Cuisine, Grow your own Fruit and Nuts, Cheese Production and Bread. It is always food related and is without exception worth making an effort to attend.

The Cork Free Choice Group aims to support and promote producers of high quality food in Co Cork, especially small specialist and traditional producers, to put them in contact with interested consumers and to create more awareness of availability and production methods.

For more information contact 021-7330178, or alternatively email at [e-mail]

Sometimes there is standing room only. The recent How to grow Year Round Vegetables was so oversubscribed that over 50 people had to be turned away.

On other occasions it is not so full, as with the recent brilliant talk by Daphne Lambert on Plant Foods for Health and Vitality (it was a beautiful evening perfect for gardening), but I was one of the fortunate ones who made it.

Daphne Lambert is the owner of Greencuisine – A Healing Food Centre in Herefordshire, and is an award-winning chef, nutritionist and author of Little Red Gooseberries: Organic Recipes from Penrhos. She also contributed to A Slice of Organic Life edited by Sheherazade Goldsmith.

According to Daphne, health and vitality is far more than just food, the strength of the community, music, dance, theatre, all contribute to our sense of wellbeing but Daphne decided to concentrate on nutrition and distil it down to its most important elements.

Soil – the Fundamental Element:

All good food comes from fertile soil, but nowadays we rarely get our hands dirty any more. There are more micro organisms in a handful of rich organic soil than there are humans on earth. Our gut hasn’t changed for over 10,000 years; it’s an extraordinary eco-system.

Plant life is what supports us, but nowadays our systems are being challenged with all kinds of alien foods that are difficult, and in some cases impossible to digest. Daphne’s hypothesis is that we are not just what we eat but what we digest. Healthy vibrant soil grows healthy mineral rich food, minerals are spark plugs of life; we cannot survive without them, and they are required to activate 20,000 enzyme reactions in the body.

Daphne, who is a hugely successful practicing nutritionist and herbalist, says lack of minerals is at the base of virtually every condition she looks at. There has been a dramatic loss of minerals, particularly trace elements over the last 50 years.

Sodium 49%; potassium 16%; magnesium 24%; calcium 46%; iron 27%; copper 76%; zinc 59% – minerals in agricultural soil worldwide have fallen by 72%. If minerals are not in the soil they will not be in the plants and our bio-chemistry is dependent on minerals.

In the words of Lady Eve Balfour – one of the founders of the Soil Association – the health of humans, animals and soil are one “indivisible whole” and biological balance begins and ends with a “truly fertile soil”.

Wild plants:

Wild plants contain most minerals, then home-grown organic, commercial organic and least are found in chemically grown plants. As every organic, biodynamic and good farmer knows it is vital to feed and enrich soil with humus and well rotted compost.

We need 92 minerals and trace elements for optimum health; ideally we should be getting those from our food not from bottles of supplements.

Some foods have far greater health enhancing properties than others providing us not only with the chemical components of carbohydrates, protein, fats, minerals and vitamins but a living energy.

Living energy is found in biogenic foods which includes sprouted seeds and freshly gathered young green leaves. These foods have the restorative power to enhance our vitality and life force.

Bio-active foods are raw organic vegetables and fruits these are important to help sustain a healthy life force.

Bio-static foods are cooked organic vegetables, fruits, grains and eggs; they provide warmth and energy but are very limited in the subtle energies that feed our life force. Bio-acidic foods are highly processed chemical foods, especially white sugar and white flour products and factory farmed meat – these foods increase toxicity in the body so disrupt and deplete our vitality and our living energy.

Nettles are one of the most nourishing foods we can eat. Young leaves can be picked cooked and used like spinach, made into juice or nettle tea.

According to Fitz Albert Popp wild organic food supports us most physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Fermented foods:

Fermented foods are another group of foods vital for health, but most lacking in our Western diet. Examples are sauerkraut, Korean Kimchi, Nepalese gundrie, miso, and tempeh. Grain ferments include ogi, amazake and kvass. Dairy ferments – yoghurt and keffir.

The process of fermenting harnesses microorganisms in the environment produces alcohol, lactic acid and acetic acid. It preserves food, retains nutrients and stops spoilage. Fermented foods create nutrients, microbial cultures create B vitamins and anti-oxidants. They are powerful healing foods.

Seaweeds:

Seaweeds are another vitally important food group, according to Daphne; they are “the richest source of organic minerals and vitamins as well.” We should eat a little seaweed every day for balance and energy. Seaweeds are an excellent source of calcium, iodine (lack of iodine contributes to colds and flu and in extreme cases to goitre) they are rich in potassium, manganese, zinc, boron and silicone.

Seaweed is also good for blood pressure, nails, glossy hair… Seaweeds are easy to use; Wakame seaweed has 11 times more calcium than milk and in the correct ratio. Kelp, for example, can be added to soups, stocks and bean stews, to increase mineral content. Nori, mainly used to wrap sushi rolls, can also be snipped into salads. Dilisk or dulse, so beloved on Irish coastal communities, is high in iron and can be added to breads, soups, biscuits and mashed potatoes.

Carrageen Moss is probably the best known and most widely used of all the seaweeds and is, in my estimation a wonder food for children, adults and animals.

For more information about Daphne Lambert’s Healing Food Centre and courses visit http://greencuisine.penrhos.com/courses/ or telephone [phone].

Here are a few simple, healthy and delicious recipes from Daphne Lambert.