Video by: NPR

From NPR:

The pawpaw is a tropical-type fruit native to North America with a long and almost forgotten history. Thomas Jefferson once prized it, and now scientists are looking at whether the pawpaw can claim some health benefits, along with cachet. NPR’s Tiny Desk Kitchen goes on the hunt for this tasty treat.

Video by: Medill News Service

Chilton – Affordable Fruit & Veggie Bars from preventionspeaks on Vimeo.

Short video about an affordable fruit and veggie bar in Wisconsin grade school

Video by: preventionspeaks

The Blueberry Years won the Best Nonfiction Book of the Year Award from the Southern Independent Booksellers Association.

We interviewed the author and in honor of this great news we happily re-post that interview here:

The Blueberry Years podcast: Blueberry11-8-2010-1-1

Happy July 4th!

Easy to prepare Peach Cobbler, this will be your “go-to” dessert for the summer! It’s simple, sweet and satisfies your dessert craving without all the guilt!

For one thing it is against the law in France to feed any animal to be eaten chemicals or hormones of any kind. Their cattle eat grass and whole grains with no additives. The result—the meat tastes better, not to mention, it is healthier. Chicken, beef, lamb, pork, all of it simply tastes better, and it isn’t wholly because of those delicious French sauces, though delicious they are. I know, because when I first came here I didn’t know how to make any of those sauces, and the meat I cooked tasted better.

The vegetables and fruits taste better too. Why? Because they are fresher. Every district (called arrondissements) in Paris has several public markets. So do other cites in France. It is almost impossible to live anywhere that doesn’t have a public market nearby. Fruits and vegetables are brought in by farmers’ employees the night before. Since there are many farms within a half hour’s drive of Paris and countless farms within a few hours, that can be and is done. So when you buy them, they are fresh. The French also have a custom of shopping more frequently than Americans generally do. They don’t buy a week’s supply of groceries. Many shop every day for the evening meal. That means they are dining on fruits and vegetables that have been picked less than 48 hours before. Who knows how long ago vegetables in an American supermarket were picked—not the consumer.

The public markets in Paris (and all over France) also sell fresh meat, and fish that came off the boats yesterday. And conveniently, for the shopper, they sell cheese and olives and wine and clothing and jewelry—just about anything that an American supermarket sells and more (like snails and intestines, but never mind). At the end of each day, the booths are taken down and put up again for the next market. Different markets are open on different days.

A Produce Booth in a Typical Paris Public Market.
Photo: Boyd Lemon

Americans who live here are enamored with the public markets. “I love the public markets,” I hear over and over again from Americans who live here, as well as tourists.

The other custom in France, as anyone who has been here knows, is to have small shops that specialize in a specific food: butcher shops, fish shops, produce shops, cheese shops etc. I don’t know why, but the food in these shops seems to be better than what you find in an American supermarket. I suspect that it is fresher.

Alas, though, starting in the 1960’s supermarkets started appearing in Paris and other big French cities, and now they are common. Many people still shop in the public markets and the small shops, but I fear that the trend is toward the American way of shopping. Many French deplore this trend and deplore that France is becoming more like America every year. It all started, says one French writer, when in the 1920’s Parisians adopted the American term, “weekend” to refer to Saturdays and Sundays, and I hear it frequently now. I don’t know about that, but the trend now certainly is toward the American way of life. I doubt, though, that France will ever allow chemicals or hormones to be fed to animals they eat.

In my view, the best thing to happen to food in America in the past few decades is the growing popularity of farmers’ markets. Most cities now have them, but there must be more in order to get fresh food to the American public. I had the pleasure of living near the city that claims to have established the first farmers’ market in America, San Luis Obispo, California. I don’t know if their claim is accurate, but they certainly have had a hugely popular farmers’ market for many years.

The farmers’ market not only provides fresh produce, but many of them sell other items, offer cooked food for customers to dine on, places to sit and eat when the weather permits and even live music. It becomes a fun family event, which attracts more people. I hope this trend continues. For Americans to be able to eat healthy, tasty food, the growth of farmers’ markets will have to be accompanied by a grass roots campaign to convince Congress and state legislatures to prohibit feeding animals we eat chemicals, hormones and anything that is not natural, as France and a number of other countries have done.

Finally, we need to change our food distribution system so that food is distributed and eaten closer to where it grows. We probably won’t, and maybe we shouldn’t, go back to the days I remember as a child, when we didn’t import fruits and vegetables from the southern hemisphere during our winter, so that we only had peaches and plums, for example, in the summer. It made summer a more exciting time to look forward to. But each individual does have the choice not to eat peaches and plums sold in January.

In the end, it is up to us, as the consumers of food, to demand better, fresher natural food. That is what will cause changes in the food distribution system. And enjoy your local farmers’ markets.

Boyd Lemon is an American writer living in Paris. His writing website is www.BoydLemon-Writer.com. His travel blog is www.boomertravelblog.com.

Gary Nabhan, Phd., Awardee of the Vavilov Medal

As an Ethnobiologist and conservationist, US Ecologist Gary Paul Nabhan, PhD is best known for his work in biodiversity and has received numerous notable awards over the years, among them:

The MacArthur Fellowship

The Pew Scholarship for Conservation and the Environment

The John Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing

Saveur Magazine Best 100 Food Initiatives

As a lecturer, food and farming advocate Nabhan believes in getting seeds into the hands of traditional farmers in their specific areas of origin. In his conversation with About Harvest he discussed the current International furor over the possible loss of the Pavlosk Russia collection of 5500 sample plants of fruits, berries and ornamentals:

AH: In your highly acclaimed 2008 book titled: Where our Food Comes From – Retracing Nikolay Vavilov’s Quest to End Famine, you tell the story of Vavilov’s lifework in safeguarding agricultural biodiversity. In brief, how did he accomplish this?

GN: Vavilov is best known for creating the world’s largest seed bank, but the story is much richer than that. As a young man, this visionary set out to discern the regions of the world richest in food biodiversity, to collect not only seed samples, tubers and tree cuttings, but also farmer’s knowledge about their adaptations, and then to evaluate these plant resources in hundreds of agricultural field stations placed in different landscapes. In short, he had a vision: to increase regional food security by increasing the diversity of climatically adapted stocks available to farmers.

L to R, Yuri Vavilov, Gary Nabhan. Yuri Vavilov is Nikolai Vavilov's only living son.

AH: How important are the remaining seed, fruit and root varieties still remaining in farmers fields and government collections?

GN: They are more important than ever but will not necessarily be able to be grown in the future in the very same places that they thrived in the past. Because conventional plant breeding and even biotech can not possibly keep up with the rate of climate change, we need to have as many varieties in farmers’ fields and orchards adapting to change, rather than merely being frozen away in a gene bank.

AH: Recently, there has been international furor over the possible loss of the Pavlosk Russia collection of 5500 sample plants of fruits, berries and ornamentals that may be plowed under on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg by the Russian Housing Development Authority to build more suburban houses. On August 11th, the Russian courts ruled that this so-called development project may move forward, despite the impending loss of Vavilov’s own plant materials and that of others. What is the current situation, as you know it?

GN: The court decision is being appealed, and now under global pressure, Russia’s highest leaders have been quoted in the press as saying they would look into the matter.

All of our readers should go online at www.croptrust.org or at www.change.org to sign electronic petitions being sent to the Russian government, in order to stop the largest avoidable loss of genetic resources that may happen in our lifetimes. But we need not chastise the Russians for their wobbly commitment to conserving genetic resources once Vavilov died; the United States once had an enormous collection of apples on the grounds of what has become the Pentagon, and it is largely gone. We need all governments across the planet to recognize such collections are irreplaceable treasures of our common world heritage that should be too important for any single bureaucracy to let destroy.

AH: From your perspective, what can people do now to keep/save/maintain agricultural biodiversity in the world?

GN: We need to make all children aware of how much they depend on plant and animal diversity to live, to be nourished. Otherwise, they too may grow into bureaucrats who don’t care to save what they don’t understand or love. Then we need to support farmers’ own efforts to grow a diversity of foods in their fields and orchards by buying their diverse produce and by supporting policies that favor such diversity. Finally we need to support back-up seed banks and botanical gardens for long-term maintenance of these treasures in case climatic catastrophes such as floods or droughts hit farms and gardens. Vote with your fork and in the polling booth for truly sustainable food and agricultural practices and policies.

Farm Stand

With the increase in home and community gardens it’s understandable that with many people there has been an increase in interest in Raw Foodism. But like an over abundant crop of zucchinis in the garden, there seem to be countless theories, recipes, and books floating around the Internet about Raw Foodism, and it is clearly very easy to become overwhelmed by it all.

If you have ever wondered what the Raw Foodism movement is all about, or if you are interested in pursing and learning more about how to become a Raw Foodist yourself, you will want to give this podcast a listen as we speak with Laura Bruno.

A raw food coach since 2005, in many circles Laura is known simply as the Successful Lazy Raw Foodist. Through our interview with Laura, these are a few of the tidbits you will learn about living the Raw Foodist lifestyle:

• The 3 most important aspects of a Raw Foodist Diet.

• How uncomplicated and easy it is to switch to a Raw Food Diet.

• The 10 ingredients that will likely be found in the pantry of a Raw Foodist.

• The equipment needed to effectively embark on a Raw Food Diet.

• The positive affects attributed to being a Raw Foodist.

Raw Foodist - Laura Bruno

Laura Brunno is the creator of “The Lazy Raw Foodist’s Guide” an e-book available for purchase at www.lazyrawfoodist.com.

Listen here: LAURA RAW FOODIST