This raises a lot of questions for me, most of which I’m unable to answer. First, why bother? Well, turns out that industries that use a lot of salt, such as the textile industry, have problems with salt caking. Because salt crystals have 6 sides, they tend to stack up and that stacking causes clumps. So in industry that clumping is an expensive, and that answers the why. Next, does this change the basic chemical structure of salt? And amino acids are proteins. So does that make the new salt a no-no for vegetarians? I don’t know.

Not to worry, however, the new salt won’t be on the market for at least ten years. I have a handful of other links to check out for more info; Food Production Daily and Newsweek too.

I was pleasantly surprised, then, because she states repeatedly that there is no miracle, there is no short-cut, there is no quick fix. Losing weight and keeping it off are about lifestyle changes, exercising, drinking enough water. She devotes sections of the book to information about how various prescription drugs can affect weight loss, including information that I’d never heard before about antihistamines, of all things.

Her style is conversational, and her tone encouraging. If I have to find fault anywhere, though, it is in her assumption that all readers of the book live in New York City. She takes a considerable number of pages to talk about walking routes in Central Park, and makes frequent mention of various hotspots and their menus. She does make a great point in all those mentions of trendy restaurants, however, and that is that you should not be afraid to ASK for healthier alternatives wherever you frequently dine. In my efforts to cut “bad” carbs, I’ve had great responses from waiters when I ask that they simply don’t bring us a bread basket…if it isn’t on the table, I’m not tempted to eat it. Likewise, ask for a fresh veggie platter for an appetizer; even if it isn’t on the menu, the worst thing that can happen is the waiter will tell you, “No.”

At 267 pages, I breezed through this book in a morning. Recipes, a glossary, “where to find it” pages, an index and footnotes take up pages 181-267, so even if you’re not a big reader, this isn’t much time to invest in some interesting and helpful tips on your journey to a healthier lifestyle

This latest study took 60 rats, divided them into 3 groups, and fed the control group ordinary feed. Group two got feed laced with strawberry extract, and group three had their feed laced with blueberry extract. The rats’ mental abilities were tested with an underwater maze, and the rats who received the ordinary feed performed the worst on the tests. While researchers aren’t ready yet to extrapolate their findings to humans, adding more fresh foods to your diet will only improve your health. And the added benefit of stimulating mental acuity is just wonderful.

Blueberries are in season in North America from May through October, which means that we’re nearing the end of the season. If you can still buy fresh blueberries in your area, freeze any that you are unable to use immediately in zip-top bags, without washing. Washing the berries causes them to absorb water, which will deteriorate the quality of the berries over time. They can still be rinsed when you are ready to use them. Add fresh berries to your morning yogurt or granola, or just eat them as a snack.

Strawberries are in season from early spring to mid summer in North America, but a few things make this an irrelevant fact. One, strawberries are the most popular berry worldwide so supermarkets work hard to make sure that strawberries are available almost year-round, by importing them from the southern hemisphere. Buy local berries whenever you can and organic if at all possible. Strawberries can absorb pesticides through their skins, so your chances of getting a nice dose of pesticides with your berries and cream are very high. To freeze strawberries, gently wash and pat dry. Arrange them in a single layer on a flat pan or cookie sheet and place them in the freezer. Once frozen, transfer the berries to a plastic bag zip-top bag and return them to the freezer. Adding a bit of lemon juice will help to preserve the strawberries’ color.

To add more berries to your diet, think about tossing some in a salad; a chain of cafés near my home has a summer salad with strawberries, mandarin orange slices and a reduced-fat poppy seed dressing. Fresh is always best, but freeze berries if you’re able to so that you can enjoy them even when there’s snow on the ground. For more information about the berry studies, please check out these links. CBS News, Web MD, and Science News

All summer long, I’ve been growning tomatoes, with a modest level of success. The picture above shows the sum of 3 months work. Yes, the two tomatoes pictured above with a quarter, are all the fruits that I got off my 6 plants.

They’re cute, I’ll give you that. But not really worth the effort, if you ask me. I first decided to grow tomatoes after reading The $64 Tomato, by William Alexander. Mr. Alexander tells a story in his book about how each of his heirloom tomatoes cost him $64 to produce. “Wow.” I thought. “That’s nuts.” And the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to try my own hand at growing some varietal that would be wonderful to share with friends and family. I also thought that there was no way that I could spend so much on each tomato.

The sad fact is that I spent about $25 total, which means that each of the two tomatoes above cost me $12.50. Far more than I would pay in a mega-mart, and much more than from a roadside stand. All of this makes me immediately wonder, “What DID I do wrong?” Well, many things, I think. Not growing the tomatoes from seed was one mistake. Keeping them in pots was another. Thinking that the first time I ever tried to grow tomatoes on my own that they’d be a rousing success was a third.

The funny thing is that I do plan to try again. Perhaps gardeners suffer from eternal optimism, or some odd psychosis, because I’m undeterred. And determined to try again.

At a local vegetarian cafe the other day, I had a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich, made with locally grown orange tomatoes, dilled havarti and gruyere cheeses. I’d never tasted an orange tomato, and was instantly smitten with the milder flavor, the lack of an acidic “bite” and a pleasant grainy-ness to the texture. And so I will try to grow some orange tomatoes next summer.

A quick check of the Slow Foods USA website shows that the varietal I had the other day is in danger of disappearing, all the more reason to give growing them a shot.

Beat the eggs with the egg substitute. Add feta, spinach and onion. Dice one tomato, and add to mixture. Add garlic seasoning. Pour into a greased round cake pan and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Slice the second tomato into rounds and place on top of quiche. Return to the oven and bake for an additional 30-45 minutes, or until the eggs are completely set. Garnish with shredded cheese.

4 fresh peaches, peeled, cut in half and pits removed
1 1/2 cups fresh raspberries
1 tsp sugar substitute
juice of 1 lemon
4 scoops low fat vanilla ice cream
blanched sliced almonds for garnish
4 dessert serving glasses

Sprinkle the sugar substitute and lemon juice over the raspberries. Mash, then press through a sieve to remove the seeds. Place 1/2 peach in the bottom of each serving dish. Add 1 scoop of ice cream. Top with another peach half and drizzle with raspberry sauce. Garnish with almond slices.

Then, a few days later, I even had two tiny tomatoes.

As we’ve moved through the summer, the tomato plants have been growing splendidly, no small miracle considering my track record with plants. Our July has been unseasonably hot, and I’ve had to water nearly every day. The next step for my plants is to transplant them out of the containers that I unwisely chose for them at the start of the summer. When I planted them, they were so small that I couldn’t imagine that they might get too big for the pots. Surprise, surprise, they’ve outgrown the containers. If I had perhaps had one plant per pot, that might have worked. Three plants per pot is not really working well, so I plan to move them into the ground next.

I knew that trouble with pests was in my future when I planted tomatoes. One day, while checking for non-existent blooms, I noticed slugs. Yuck. My sister told me beer would kill slugs, but I had to do some checking to find out just how that works.

Jo Ann Graham suggests many different organic methods for getting rid of slugs, but the beer is definitely still my favorite. To get this to work, you must either use small, shallow containers, such as the lid from bottled pasta sauce, or bury the containers so that the beer is nearly level with the soil. I’d like to think that the little buggers drink themselves to death (not a bad way to go, eh?) but there isn’t any proof of that. I used some terrible mass-produced swill (which shall remain nameless) that was hanging out in my fridge after a party, waiting to be tossed out because I can’t imagine using “good” beer on slugs. Replace the beer often, as it gets stale and diluted easily.

A chance conversation with a friend who is an avid horseback rider has brought me to a wonderful source of organic fertilizer. (You will remember that I’ve sworn off Miracle Gro after the research I did suggested that Miracle Gro could cause soil sterilization.) I live in a semi-rural area, and my friend told me that most area stables give away rotted manure to anyone who will take it. Some do sell it, but for the most part, they’ve got so much that they’re happy to give it away for free. Now before your wrinkle up your nose and say “eeewwww”, you should know that rotted manure isn’t stinky. The BBC’s h2g2 website explains it this way.

Well-rotted manure does not smell of anything more pungent than sweet earthiness and it tends to be dark brown, even black. You should not be able to distinguish individual pieces of straw or hay as it will all be rotted down. The length of the process depends upon the air temperature, the time of year (faster in summer) and the size of the manure heap. The bigger the heap, the hotter it will get inside and therefore the faster the manure will decompose. Generally, manure should be piled for at least 6 months before use. If it is mixed with wood shavings, leave it for a year as these take longer to break down.

Die-hard gardeners describe the stuff as “black gold” for very good reason. Most of the research suggests that you should mix the rotted manure into the soil in the early spring. Since we’re well past that time, my plan is to plant the tomato plants directly into the black gold and see what happens. Many of the gardening forums I’ve been checking out strongly discourage planting anything directly in fresh manure because it will “burn” the plants. The ureic acid in the fresh stuff is bad for the plants, but it does break down over time, so the rotted manure should be safe.

After I transplant the tomatoes, I will stake them with bamboo stakes and plastic ties that the local grower who sold me the plants has available for a good price. All I need to do then is keep the groundhogs and the deer out of the tomatoes. Here’s hoping that I am successful at that!

Why bother, though? You can buy tomatoes in any American mega-mart year round. Well, taste, for one. Nothing tastes quite like summer to me as much as vine ripened tomatoes. I’m also able to control the amount and types of fertilizers and pesticides used. And I like that.

The benefits of eating fresh tomatoes have been in the news lately. If you haven’t heard of lycopene, then you’ve been under a rock. Lycopene has been heralded as a possible preventative for cancer (prostate, pancreatic, breast, stomach, cervix and lung), a cholesterol-lowering miracle, and possibly even prevents macular degeneration. With all those possible benefits, eating more tomatoes is starting to sound better, isn’t it? And we all know that the best source for any nutrient is fresh food, rather than supplements.

Lycopene does all of these wonderful things because it is a powerful antioxidant. Scientists think that it inhibits the damage that free radicals can cause. In addition to all of these benefits, there are 21 vitamins and minerals to be found in a one cup serving of ripe raw tomatoes.

So eat up! Especially while tomatoes are in season in the northern hemisphere, add tomatoes to a fresh salad, or slice and dress with a little bit of olive oil, sea salt and cracked black pepper. Heavenly.

1 cup toasted pecans, ground in the food processor to a fine meal
1 cup organic unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup turbinado sugar
1 tsp bourbon
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups whole grain pastry flour
1 cup oat flour
1/2 tsp sea salt (fine grain)
organic powdered sugar

Oven 325′ F.

The grains of turbinado sugar seemed large to me, so I put those into the food processor and ground them for a few seconds. Empty the working bowl of the food processor and add the butter. Process for a few seconds, then add the sugar and cream until the butter changes to a lighter color. Add bourbon and vanilla. Sift together the whole grain and oat flours with the salt and add to creamed mixture a little bit at a time. The final dough will be heavy and a little stiff.

Pat the dough into a round 3/4 of an inch thick and put into the freezer for 10-15 minutes.

Using a 1-inch cookie cutter (I could only find a round cookie cutter, but be more creative than that) cut the cookies and place on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. There is no baking soda or baking powder in this recipe, so there isn’t a lot of rising, but the cookies do expand as the butter melts - leave some space in between the cookies to allow for that expansion. Bake for 12 minutes. They won’t look done, but if the bottoms are just slightly golden brown, they ARE done. Dust with powdered sugar while they’re still warm. Allow the cookies to cool before handling, though, as they’re really fragile right out of the oven. They taste better when cool, too. Enjoy!

2 whole ripe tomatoes cut in half horizontally
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
6 fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan Reggiano cheese
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
2 slices stale whole grain bread, toasted
1 tbsp olive oil
4 oz fresh mozzarella cheese
8 sheets tinfoil, cut slightly larger than tomato halves

Hold tomato half in the palm of your hand over the sink or a bowl. Squeeze gently, to remove the seeds and slimy “guts”. Use a grapefruit spoon to GENTLY remove the meat of the tomato. Chop coarsely. Use a coffee grinder or food processor to grind the bread into breadcrumbs. Combine breadcrumbs, garlic, chopped tomato, parmesan cheese, pepper and olive oil. Stir well to combine. Chop the basil by rolling the leaves into a tight chiffanade and cutting into thin strips, then cutting the strips crosswise. Add to tomato mixture. Stuff the tomato halves with the mixture. Add one ounce of mozzarella to each tomato half. Using two sheets of tinfoil for each tomato half, make pouches with a small vent at the top.

Cook on the grill or in the oven. On the grill, place the packets over low heat for only a few minutes; you’re not really cooking these, merely heating them and melting the cheeses. Overcook them, and you’ll have tomato sauce. In the oven, 350 for no more than 10 minutes.

I purchased the plants from a small local grower. I bought 12 plants, which were about 8 inches tall when I bought them. They reminded me strongly of J.R.R. Tolkien’s descriptions of the Ents in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Leafy, with delicate branches that looked like long, graceful dancer’s arms which end in lacy fingers. The leaves on each plant made me think of dryads hiding in forest trees. I imagined them pulling their leggy roots out of the pots they came in from the garden center, walking around, and finding a nice spot in which to grow tall and strong. Unfortunately, they didn’t, so I’ve had to do the work of planting and watering without the help of any magic.

The varietal is called Pink Girl, and according to the owner of my local garden center, they are a lower-acid tomato, which shouldn’t bother acid reflux sufferers.

I bought them in the middle of May, and where I live in Ohio usually has seen its last frost at the end of April. Not this year!! We had an extremely unseasonably cold night where the low dipped down to 27˚ F. My tomato plants were fine, but I was lucky.

I was determined to wait until after Memorial Day to put the plants into their final home for the summer. By the time that they did get planted, they were almost a foot tall. I have been watering them daily, and fertilizing the plants on the right with Miracle-Gro powder, mixed according to the package directions, which is one tablespoon per 1 and 1/2 gallons of water.

We’ve had a bit of a dry spell, but we’ve also had some torrential thunderstorms. After a long night of storms, tomato plants looked OK, so I left them where they were and headed off to work. During the day, however, another massive thunderstorm system moved through with very hard and heavy rain. The tomato plants have suffered a few broken leaves, but nothing major.

The plants are tall and strong, and beginning to need to be staked, as they get heavier the taller they are. Thus far, I’ve only spent about $25 total, for all 12 plants. The plants themselves were $14. Soil from the garden center was $3.95 for a 20 pound bag, and I bought 3 of them. The pots that the tomatoes are planted in were from past year’s plantings, so no expense for those.

I’m not up to $64, but I don’t have any tomatoes, either. I would have thought that by the end of June there would be beautiful tiny fruit, and I don’t have so much as a blossom yet. I have some small buds that may turn out to be flowers, but only on the plants that I’ve been fertilizing. And I’m not even sure if they will turn out to be flowers and not more tiny branches. That worries me a bit, and disappoints me more. Am I living up to my track record of killing helpless plants? Not so far, as you can see they are green and healthy. But what is the fun of tomato plants if you don’t get any TOMATOES?

I’ve been using Miracle Gro to fertilize one set of the plants. It isn’t easy to see in the first picture, but the fertilized plants are a bit more robust than the ones that I haven’t fertilized. Not a huge difference in size, but the fertilized plants do look healthier to me. I’ve only used it about 4 times since I don’t want to repeat my past mistake of burning the plants with too much fertilizer.

After reading a lot of research about Miracle-Gro, however, I don’t want to continue to use it. Miracle-Gro will cause a rash if it comes in direct contact with skin. It also will eventually make soil useless, according to an article in Organic Gardening Magazine (July/August 2000), by killing important soil organisms. Both of those things alone are enough to make me want to stop, but together are a complete deal-killer. There is a lot of pro-MiracleGro information on the web. Scott’s, the company that owns Miracle-Gro is a huge multinational chemical company, so that does not surprise me.

Eating fruits and vegetables produced with Miracle-Gro will probably not kill you. And as I said in the last article, the great thing about growing your own food is that you can control how much and what type of fertilizers and insecticides are used. But the fact that Miracle-Gro is designed to be very water soluble means that it will easily contaminate water sources. For you, that could mean local lakes and streams, or your groundwater if you have a well. And the amounts of zinc and copper contained in it can be harmful too.

But the organic-fertilizer camp is full of chats about “green” and “brown” organics, which is very confusing to the novice gardener. Then there’s also a lot of information about how important it is to set up your own compost container! And that just isn’t possible for me in my planned suburban community with a homeowner’s association. I understand now that many weekend or casual gardeners don’t use organic methods because frankly, it is too much work. I am intrigued by the information available for organic “pesticides” and will continue to look into that, because I know that even though I don’t have any pests yet, they will probably come.

While there aren’t any insect pests, there is a very fat groundhog that waddles around our development and I am worried about him eating my ‘maters if and when I get any. I am a pacifist and don’t like violence of any kind, but so help me if that groundhog eats my tomatoes, I’m going to shoot him. I’ll have to find something to shoot him with, as I do not own any guns or a bow and arrow, but the plan is to shoot him. Or to train him to not touch my plants; I got this cool idea off of a gardening forum. They suggested placing tablets of Ex-Lax around the plants. The squirrels, chipmunks, and groundhogs will eat the pills and do apparently have enough intelligence to remember what gave them the stomach trouble and avoid those plants in the future.

The next article about my tomato growin’ will run at the end of July, and I am hopeful that by that date there will be some pretty little tomatoes to show you. I will in the meantime be researching organic fertilizers that are easy to use and not too difficult to find in the Midwest. Keep your fingers crossed for me.