Mama’s Home Remedies

 Summer just started, and hurricane season, too, here in Florida. It’s still sunny, quiet and brightly green. Flowers are in a tender bloom. Fresh breeze from the ocean is still coming very early, at 7:00 AM when I take a walk. A delicate scent of white gardenias perfumes the air. It is so peaceful out here far away from the noise and traffic of a big city. When I come back home from my morning promenade, I go to my backyard to see how my new tomato bushes are doing, I can hear insects buzzing around, and red parrots observing the world from the branches of my 100 years old, huge banyan tree.

Fennel, parsley, basil, arugula and sunflowers are growing happily in my small garden. They do great without any chemical pesticides or fertilizers. I do the same as my grandmother did in our family garden. We had “tons” of fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables that she ‘farmed’ without chemicals, but she never called them organic. The produce just expected to be pure and natural. Otherwise, why to poison yourself voluntarily?

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There are thousands of mothers, wifes, lovers and children that remember today and always their sons, husbands, Dads and friends killed in combat during any war. People always have the desperate desire for peace at any price…

Click on the link below and listen to the Ode to Joy by Ludwig van Beethoven with the orhestra conducted by Andre Rieu.

For all who gave it all.

We all take for granted the natural splendor. From the lowest valley to the highest mountain, from the deepest ocean to the smallest stream, the natural world reminds us of nature’s beauty that influences our current physical, spiritual, or emotional wellbeing. Listen to this amazing Nocturne, a masterpiece created by Frederic Chopin. It fits perfectly with us and our beautiful, natural surroundings. Relax and enjoy it. It’ll give you new energy for a working week ahead.

Do you remember what your Mama told you? “Eat, eat your breakfast!” She was right, as always. Never miss your breakfast. Low-calories, nutrient-dense  breakfast is the most important meal of any day. It fuels you with energy and good nutrition for the whole day ahead, and keeps you healthy. It doesn’t matter it’s a working day or a weekend day. Healthy breakfast should be No.1 in your diet.

Need any healthy breakfast ideas? Of course you need, especially this Memorial Holiday weekend. You’ll be invited to the parties, and definitely will indulge into many fabulous foods prepared for the occasion and fun.

Now watch and listen Natalie’s five great ideas for your healthy breakfast and see what kind of ingredients are used in these easy-to-make nutritional meals.

 If professor Dmitri Mendeleev (1834-1907), Russian chemist, was alive today, he’ll be astonished with the fact how modern chemistry progressed with so many new and harmful chemical compounds that are used today in our food industry.  He became world-famous for his formulation of the periodic law and the invention of the Periodic Table, including a classification of the elements. In 1869 he published the first Periodic Table of the atomic elements and  laid out the elements from lightest to heaviest.

The term ‘elements’ (stoicheia) was first used by Greek philosopher Plato in about 360 BCE. At this time, he started Timaeus, a long monologue  about the composition of inorganic and organic bodies which became a rudimentary treatise on chemistry. Many centuries ago, the ancients started exploring a puprose of the universe and nature of physical world. They tried to define a distinction between the physical world and the eternal world. As they said, the physical is one world that changes and perishes: therefore it is the object of opinion and unreasoned sensation. The eternal world is the one that never changes: therefore it is apprehended by reason.

When Dmitri Mendeleev came up with the Periodic Table, he predicted that as-of-yet unknown elements existed with properties appropriate to fill gaps in the table. Elements are pure chemical substances composed of atoms with the same number of protons. Common examples of elements are iron, copper, silver, gold, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. As of March 2010, 118 elements in total have been observed, of which 94 occur naturally on Earth.

I always wonder, why modern chemists are working so aggressively on creation of new and proven to be harmful, manmade chemicals that are enthusiastically applied to our food products instead of 100% natural elements? Is it because the physical world changes and can perish one day or there are other reasons that big food corporations pursue in a hunt for an unlimited enrichment?

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 If you are sure that organic produce doesn’t have any pesticides, think again. Many of us believe that organic produce farmers do not use pesticides, so we pay several times higher prices for organic fruits and vegetables. This is true that organic production regulations do not allow the use of synthetic chemicals in growing organic produce.

“Despite the prohibition, organic fruits and vegetables are not guaranteed to be free of synthetic residues,” say the authors of A Field Guide to Buying Organic, Luddene Perry and Dan Schultz.

In August 2002, a study about that was published in the Journal of Food Additives and Contaminants. Researchers concluded that 73% of conventionally grown produce contains at least one pesticide residue, while only 23% of organic produce does. The data  from the USDA Pesticide Data Program (1993-2002) stated that conventionally grown crops are six times as likely as organic ones to contain residues of more that one pesticide.

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Is organic food really worth the extra money you pay for it? Farmers, growing organic fruits and vegetables, say that the point is– to work with Nature. How they do it and what consumers will have in return? Watch this video and decide for yourself what is best for you.

Read my next post about most frequently detected pesticides on produce.

Lately I had a discussion with several friends. We all buy organic foods as much as we can afford. But there is a timeless Hamlet’s question, “To be or not be?” in this newest health trend. If you are serious about knowing for sure, read the book A Field Guide to Buying Organic by Luddene Perry and Dan Schultz that will help you navigating the aisles in the supermarkets and farmers markets.

Is organic food worth it? The authors did a great research, and started their book with this simple question that only seems to be simple. “Although there’s always an emphasis on worth, the it is the lithmus test, say the authors. “The believer in organic foods uses it as an eye-narrowing challenge. The skeptic tosses it away. And the simply curious hold it up, for examination–like an apple–in the light. Our answer is always the same: It depends.”

On what it depends? Any articles we read today usually take two strong positions–either they enthusiastically support organic or sarcastically criticize it. I consider myself lucky because my family had our own fresh produce that was grown by my grandparents without any chemicals on several acres around our house in southeastern Europe. Organic fruits, vegetables and herbs were crispy-fresh with a special delicate scent and delicious taste that you’ll never find on the supermarkets shelves.

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Delicious superfruits are the bell peppers. I love all kinds of Capsicum annuum, as bell peppers are called in Latin. These wonderful fruits of Nature are sweet and tangy in taste, and crunchy in texture. They come in dark and light green, red, yellow, orange, and in white rainbow colors when they are almost ready to ripe.

What is the difference between them? There are simple facts to know. Dark green peppers are thicker in texture, less sweet and a little bit more bitter than red, orange or yellow peppers. If farmers are not in a hurry to deliver new harvest to the supermarkets , they usually allow the peppers to ripen fully on the plant in full sunshine. These peppers are the sweetest you can find and the tastiest to use in your homemade salads or other meals.

In comparisson with green peppers, red peppers contain more vitamins and nutritional properties, including the antioxidant lypocene. The level of carotene, another antioxidant is nine times higher in red peppers, and twice the vitamin C content than green peppers. Orange bell peppers or paprikas, as they called in many countries in Europe, are sweet, juicy and refreshing, and have 50 % less calories than an orange. They also contain significant amount of vitamins A and C, and can be included in many different dishes or can be eaten raw.

These colorful and sweet fruits are colorful and pleasant ingredients in all my salads, soups and garnish. I love to make my Grandma’s famous brand–stuffed peppers, whic is relatively a low-calorie, healthy meal. Now watch how Laura Calder cooks these delicious superfruits. If you like her recipe, just follow up… with French Food at Home.

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