In The News

Mindfulness in Everyday Life: A Walk in the Woods and Return to Essential Nature

6 Things You Don't Know About Kale

10 Things You Don't Know About Sugar (And What You Don't Know Could Hurt You) 

What Does Biotech Have to Say About the GMO Debate?

More Red Meat = More Diabetes

Lawns, Pesticides, and Us

A very moving blog from the Children and Nature Network:

CHILD-FRIENDLY LAWNS AND GARDENS: Ten Things You Can Do to Reduce Hidden Chemical Risks

I especially appreciated the following quote, since I am currently reading Silent Spring:

"People in the children and nature movement often cite Rachel Carson because she eloquently advocated introducing children to nature in her book A Sense of Wonder.  We must not forget that she also wrote Silent Spring, courageously researching and speaking out against the dangers of pesticides. For the sake of our children and all other living things on our planet, we need to spread both parts of her message."

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Swollen Creek

Skaneateles

It finally stopped raining enough to give us a beautiful day for road trip!  We decided to visit Skaneateles (skinny altas), a small town on the northern tip of Skaneateles Lake, one of the Finger Lakes (about 50 minutes west of Syracuse).  Skaneateles Lake is one of the cleanest in the world.  It is the source of water for Syracuse and it's so clean that it is used unfiltered!

We stopped at Skaneateles Bakery to grab a snack before heading to Clift Park to wait for our sight seeing tour of the lake.  What a delightful afternoon!  If you ever have a chance to spend some time in the Finger Lakes Region of Central New York, I highly recommend it.  It is a beautiful area with many wonderful things to do. 

Clift Park

Judge Ben Wiles

Skaneateles Lake

Clear Water

Video of the Week

The Toxic Tangle of Food, Government, and Culture

Wow!  What a powerful testimony!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Tulip Time!

Video of the Week

From Sand to Sea and Back - Solomon Islands Sea Turtles 

We have seen many turtle nests on the NC coast.  If you vacation on the coast and see a nest, please only look with your eyes and then let it be.  These little fellas have enough challenges getting to the water after they hatch.  Better yet, see if the local preservation society needs any help around hatching time.  We have family who regularly "turtle sit" and help protect these beautiful creatures as they make their way to the ocean.  It's magical!

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Sunset on the Trees

Video of the Week

Michael Pollan on the Colbert Report

This is a hilarious interview, but what else would you expect from The Colbert Report?  I'm looking forward to reading Michael Pollan's new book:  Cooked.  If you get to it before I do (and you might, I'm working on several books right now), I'd love to hear your thoughts.  Please feel free to comment.

A Case for Lentils

Lentils have become one of my favorite go-to foods.  They come in too many varieties to count, are good in many types of food, are packed with great nutritional benefits, and are extremely economical!  They are used world-wide and in many different ways, although I do believe that they are under-utilized here in the US (the fact that I have to go to a specialty grocery to find a variety other than green supports this).  Lentils are great in soups, sauces, dahl (one of my favorite Indian dishes), veggie burgers, and more.

To see a selection of recipes using lentils, just click on "Lentils" on the "Topics" list on the right. 

More and more we are using lentils to replace ground meat in recipes.  We've used green lentils, French lentils and black lentils.  Any will work just fine, although our favorite is black lentils.  If you have a Whole Foods nearby, you should be able to find all three of these varieties, and more.  If you are in the CNY area, Wegman's has green lentils and Natur-Tyme and Green Planet Grocery have green and French lentils.  We have yet to find black lentils locally, but we haven't checked the Asian groceries.

Lentils are extremely economical!  For environmental reasons (as well as health and nutrition), I try to buy organic when I can.  Legumes are one area where I can justify the expense.  At one of our local grocery stores, I can get organic green lentils for $1.89/lb, organic brown lentils for $2.29/lb, and organic french lentils for $2.81/lb.  These prices are for DRY lentils.  Once I cook these, one pound of dry lentils turns into 3 (yes, THREE) pounds of cooked lentils.  I use cooked lentils as a 1 to 1 substitute for ground meat in many of my recipes.  That works out to be $0.63/lb of cooked green lentils, $0.76/lb of cooked brown lentils, and $0.94/lb of cooked French lentils.  When was the last time you saw ANY ground meat for those prices?!  This is one of the ways that I am able to feed our household a healthy diet on what the USDA considers a "trifty" to "low-cost plan".

Lentils are packed with great nutrition!  They are a great source of fiber, iron, calcium, folate, potassium and many other vitamins and minerals. There is only one nutritional concern I've heard from others regarding lentils:  carbs.  Due to the successful marketing of some diet plans, the idea is out there that carbs are bad.  What these diet plans don't always tell you is that not all carbs are created equal.  You should limit your refined carbs (bleached flour, sugary cereals, regular pasta, white rice, etc.).  Complex carbs (such as lentils) are perfectly fine and are actually great for you.  You need the fiber that comes from eating complex carbs to help keep your digestive system flowing.  Plus, there are many vitamins and minerals that your body needs from those complex carbs that you will not find in animal products.   

Following is a list of the nutritional benefits of one serving (1 cup) of cooked lentils compared to one serving (4 oz) of grass-fed beef. 

	lentils	beef
amount	1.00 cup cooked	4 oz
total weight	198.00 g	113.4
calories	229.68	175
calories from fat	6.77	27.45
calories from saturated fat	0.94	10.53
protein	17.86 g	26 g
carbohydrates	39.86 g	-- g
dietary fiber	15.64 g	-- g
soluble fiber	2.57 g	-- g
insoluble fiber	13.07 g	-- g
sugar - total	3.56 g	-- g
monosaccharides	-- g	-- g
disaccharides	-- g	-- g
other carbs	20.65 g	-- g
fat - total	0.75 g	8.1g
saturated fat	0.10 g	1.17g
mono fat	0.13 g	2.8g
poly fat	0.35 g	2.5g
trans fatty acids	0.00 g	0.13g
cholesterol	0.00 mg	74 mg
water	137.89 g	83.26 g
ash	-- g	1.92 g
vitamin A IU	15.84 IU	0.00 IU
vitamin A RAE	0.79 RAE	0.00 RAE
A - carotenoid	1.58 RE	0.00 RE
A - retinol	0.00 RE	0.00 RE
A - beta carotene	9.90 mcg	51.00 mcg
thiamin - B1	0.33 mg	0.06 mg
riboflavin - B2	0.14 mg	0.14 mg
niacin - B3	2.10 mg	7.60 mg
niacin equiv	4.77 mg	7.60 mg
vitamin B6	-- mg	-- mg
vitamin B12	0.00 mcg	1.44 mcg
biotin	-- mcg	-- mcg
vitamin C	2.97 mg	0.00 mg
vitamin D IU	0.00 IU	0.00 IU
vitamin D mcg	0.00 mcg	0.00 mcg
vitamin E alpha equiv	0.22 mg	0.25 mg
vitamin E IU	-- IU	0.37 IU
vitamin E mg	-- mg	0.25 mg
folate	358.38 mcg	14.74 mcg
vitamin K	3.37 mcg	1.02 mcg
calcium	37.62 mg	10.21 mg
copper	0.50 mg	0.08 mg
iron	6.59 mg	2.04 mg
magnesium	71.28 mg	26.08 mg
manganese	0.98 mg	0.01 mg
molybdenum	148.50 mcg	-- mcg
phosphorus	356.40 mg	240.40
potassium	730.62 mg	387.82 mg
selenium	5.54 mcg	23.93 mcg
sodium	3.96 mg	62.37 mg
zinc	2.51 mg	4.09 mg

Videos of the Week

As we enter into planting season, I thought you'd all appreciate this series of "how-to" videos from the National Gardening Association.

How-To Videos

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Peaceful

In The News

The Benefits of Exercising Outdoors

Looking forward to getting back outside again - once the "wintery mix" stops.

Cooking Beans

One of my favorite ways to save money and be environmentally friendly is to cook my own beans from dried.  It's really very simple and I know what went into cooking them (did you know that canned beans have a lot of salt and some even have corn syrup?).  One pound of beans costs less than 4 cans of beans, and I usually get at least that much, if not more, once I cook the beans.  When I do cook beans, I usually do 2 pounds at a time and freeze them in 1.5 cup jars (I'll do an entry on the freezing process later).  That's the same size as a can of beans, they're ready when I need them, and I know how they were prepared. 

Here are the steps for cooking your own dried beans:

Sort beans and place in a large bowl.  Dried beans are natural and have been sorted to remove rocks, dirt clumps, etc.  However, most of this is done mechanically and some pieces make it through with the beans.  So, you'll want to go through the beans and check for anything that was missed.  I actually enjoy this step.  It makes me slow down a bit, I feel more connected to the food I'm preparing, and I know we're getting a natural, whole food - not something processed.

Rinse and cover beans with plenty of water (approx 8 cups/lb).  For this step I like to use a colander sitting inside a bowl.  This allows easy rinsing and draining of the beans by just lifting the colander, leaving the water behind in the bowl.  Let beans soak at least 6 hours.  I like to start them soaking either first thing in the morning or the last thing at night, depending on when I need the beans to be done.

Drain and rinse beans - they'll be much larger than when the started soaking.

Place beans in large pot or crockpot (my preferred method) and add water until the water is about an inch above the beans.  Turn on the heat.  The length of cooking time will vary depending on the temperature and the size of the beans.  I'd give you a chart, but there are really too many variables.  On example though is that I will let pintos cook all night and all the next day on low heat.  It's about the same for garbanzo beans.  If you want to cook your beans fast, I believe you can replace 2 hours of cooking on low heat with 1 hour of cooking on high heat, with the crockpot.  If you want to cook your beans on the stovetop, you'll want to allow at least 3 hours.

I usually season my beans with salt, about 1-1/2 tsp per pound - still much less than canned beans.  I also wait to add the salt until the end of the cooking time as salt can slow the cooking time of the beans.

Now you're ready to enjoy your beans however you usually do with canned beans.  My goal in a few weeks is to cook a big pot of one kind of bean and then do a week's worth of recipes with that batch - and then share them with you!  Until then, here are some previously posted recipes for you to try:

Taco Soup

Rice and Beans

Pinto Beans

Children and Nature

This picture is from the National Environmental Education Foundation.  The source for the image is here.  I wonder how many of these stats are true for adults as well?

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Company for breakfast

Project FeederWatch

The Connection between Food and Nature

This is an excellent article about how our diets effect the environment.  It's written by a group of college students who follow a whole-foods, plant-based diet.  They share their experiences and what they are learning.

Beyond the Health Benefits of a Plant-Strong Diet – Part 1: The Environment

In The News

We Could Be Heroes

Blessed Earth and Vegetable Barley Soup

One of the books I am currently reading is Go Green, Save Green: A Simple Guide to Saving Time, Money, and God's Green Earth.  Nancy Sleeth has written an excellent biblically-based book of tips on how to live an environmentally friendly life and save money.  In writing this book, she follows in the footsteps of Dr. J. Matthew Sleeth, her husband, and Emma Sleeth, her daughter, who have each written books about how and why we should be and can be taking better care of this place we call home.  The Sleeth family is an incredible inspiration in many ways.  Rather than repeat their story here, I encourage you to learn about them and their mission by visiting their website Blessed Earth, which I have added to the links section on the left, and/or reading any of their books.

Several years ago, Guidepost Magazine printed this recipe from Nancy Sleeth.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.  It's wonderful in that it can change with the seasons, depending on what produce is available.  We've actually replaced the barley (which can get a bit gummy) with Quinoa, to add more protein as we move to a more vegetarian diet.  We've also used about a cup of lentils instead of kidney beans.


Vegetable Barley Soup

2 quarts vegetable broth
1 cup uncooked barley
1 large onion, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 cups diced tomatoes or 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes with juice
1 (15 ounce) can dark kidney beans, rinsed and drained
3 bay leaves
3 tablespoons Italian seasonings
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups fresh or frozen vegetables (peas, corn, string beans, squash)
Salt
Pepper

1. Heat broth in a large pot. Add barley, onions, carrots, celery, tomatoes, beans, bay leaves, seasonings, garlic. Bring to boil; cover and simmer for 90 minutes.
2.  Add additional fresh or frozen veggies; cook on medium heat for 10 minutes. Remove bay leaves before serving. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Notes:

• Experiment with different vegetables.
• Double everything if you’re expecting a large crowd. 
• Add 1–2 cups cooked chicken for a non-vegetarian dish. 
• Freezes well.

In The News

Red Meat Linked to Increased Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

Combating nature-deficit disorder in kids