Nothing warms body and soul in January more than a simmering pot of soup. No wonder it has been dubbed National Soup Month.

Making a pot of soup involves more than haphazardly throwing a bunch of ingredients into a pot of water and hoping for the best. I carefully choose each ingredient. Texture and color matter. Taste and smell matter. Everything matters. My soup is art.

The Stock

Soup begins with a quality stock—never out of a jar, can, or box; and certainly not water with bouillon cubes added. To get healthy stock, you must simmer bones, with a little apple cider vinegar added, for several hours. The vinegar extracts precious minerals from the bones. I suggest you make your stock in big batches and freeze or can for future use.

The Meat

Most Americans eat soup with a chicken or beef base. I have made soup with venison and pork with great success. Whatever meat you choose, make certain you have a stock on hand that will complement the flavor. You wouldn’t want to put venison in turkey broth, for example. Start with meat from organically raised, grass-fed animals. Cut into bite-sized pieces and brown in a little butter or olive oil. Once seared on the outside, add your onions and garlic and continue until the onion turns clear. Then add your stock and vegetables.

The Veggies

The choice of vegetables for your soup depends on several factors: what you have on hand, what you are in the mood for, and what sounds good together. Soup is intuitive. Trust your feelings on this. But here are a few pointers to get the most health value out of your soup:

• Don’t put in more than one brassica plant (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower). It makes it too gassy.
• Don’t mix beans with brassicas. Again, too much gas.
• Add greens or cabbage just before taking the soup off the stove so they don’t turn to mush.
• Mix the colors—eat the rainbow.
• Add grains sparingly. They will swell and take over the pot.

Creamed Soups

If you are making creamed soups, like my favorite potato soup recipe below, do not boil after adding the milk. You could curdle it or risk scorching. Add the milk, heat to hot, and serve. If you want a thick base, rather than a watery soup, I used to add potato flakes. A healthier alternative is to scoop out some of the soup, blend in the blender, and return to the pot. Do this until your soup is the right consistency.

Fixing Mistakes

One last point—no one is perfect and mistakes with soup can happen.

• If you add too much salt, peel and quarter a potato and add to the pot. The potato will absorb some of the salt. When the potato softens, remove and taste. If it is still too salty, add another potato.
• If your tomato base is too acidic, add a whole carrot. The carrot will cut the acid. As with the potato, cook until the carrot is soft, remove and taste. If needed, add another carrot.

Now, for my favorite and famous (at least with my family)

Creamy Cheesy Potato Soup:

 Ingredients:

• 5 pounds of potatoes, peeled and diced (This will feed a large family.)
• 1-2 onions, diced
• 1-2 carrots, diced (Sometimes I use broccoli, too.)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Lots of grated cheddar cheese (If you use Extra Sharp Cheddar, less will be required to get the same flavor and therefore reduce the fat content of your soup.)

Directions:

1. Prepare vegetables and put into stock pot with a thick bottom. Add enough water (or ham broth is good) to just cover the vegetables. Bring to a boil and simmer until potatoes are soft.
2. In batches, remove a few cups of the soup and carefully blend in blender until smooth. Return to pot. Continue doing this until soup is desired consistency. We like a few potato chunks left.
3. After blending, add enough milk to give soup a creamy look and taste. Return to heat until hot.
4. Once hot, add cheese and stir until melted.
5. Serve immediately with a fresh loaf of homemade bread.

Photo by 3liz4

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If your schedule looks anything like mine, you are in for a dieter’s nightmare in the next coming weeks. Even those that do not necessarily try to watch their weight, but strive to just eat healthy, need to keep their eyes peeled for dietary traps this time of year. But if you enter the season with an awareness of what lurks ahead, you can arm yourself with strategy to withstand the temptation to eat things you would otherwise pass up.

Stock your pantry

The first strategy to eating right during the holidays is to keep healthy food in your house. Prepare nutritious meals at home and eat before going to a function where you know snacks will be served. This is especially true for your children who struggle to make wise food choices. Keeping a pot of vegetable soup simmering (or at least in the fridge, handy for dipping) will provide a quick and easy meal when someone has to dash out the door.

Take food along

Because of the time spent shopping, grabbing a burger on the go is a real pitfall this time of year. If you are heading to the mall for your holiday shopping, pack a little bag of healthy snacks to tide you over until you can make it back home. Apples, oranges, cheese sticks, and trail mix all travel well and will not spoil if left in the car. If you just cannot help eating out, choose a healthy, but inexpensive alternative to fast food like soup and salad or pizza.

Drink plenty of water

We often confuse thirst for hunger. And when the temperatures hover around freezing, we don’t desire cold drinks like in the hot summertime. Keep a water bottle with you all year round and drink freely to eschew the munchies. A well-hydrated person will not be tempted by all the break room goodies at the office. Also, keep in mind that your beverage choices are just as important as your food choices. A regular 12 ounce beer contains around 145 calories, a soda 145-165. And that little glass of wine? From 110-130 calories. Since I cannot recommend consuming artificial sweeteners, I’d just stick with the water.

Watch your choices

Sometimes we just have to be our own mommies. You know what I mean—telling ourselves to eat our veggies first, or no dessert until we clean our plate. If you find yourself at the office party or the fellowship time after the church Christmas program, go for the veggie platter first. After you’ve had your fill of carrot and celery sticks (without big globs of dip balancing off the ends), then go for the non-sugary snacks like pretzels or crackers. Next choose from the protein snacks—meat and cheese or nuts. I put those third because they tend to be the high-fat offerings on the table and we don’t want to fill up on fat when we are trying to avoid gaining that extra 10 pounds. Finally, you may partake of the sweet, sugary choices; but hopefully you will be too full to consider them.

Use your freezer

When friends and family bless you with tins of cookies or homemade banana bread for the season, don’t leave them on the counter to tempt you. Pop them in the freezer. Then in March when you want a little sweet treat, take a few out to thaw. Also, you might consider cutting back on your own holiday baking. Just because Mom and Grandma baked dozens of sugar cookies, made pans of fudge, and dipped bags of pretzels in chocolate each Christmas season, doesn’t mean you need to carry on the tradition. Rather than give family and friends tins of cookies, opt for fruit baskets or cheese balls and crackers.

If you combine these tips for eating right during the holidays with last week’s tips for getting exercise in winter, there is no reason to have to work off extra pounds in the New Year. Have any other secrets for a healthy holiday season? We’d love to hear them in the comments.

Photo by pshab

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The day before Thanksgiving I harvested the last of the broccoli I planted this year. It was beautiful. The heads were so tight and green and there was not a single worm. I love fall gardening much better than the hot summertime. But you’re probably wondering what I can grow in the cooler temperatures.

Well, right now I still have cabbages, beets, and Swiss chard in the garden. And I aim to plant a few more things this week—even though a cold front is moving in as I type. Let me explain.

Several years ago, my boys made me some wire hoops to put over the garden rows. They are cut and shaped from the thick, high-tensile fencing that you use to brace corner posts in the field. In the summer I use them to suspend my floating row covers that provide shade and insect protection. When we were hit with a snow storm in early October, I used them to cover my rows with plastic sheeting. I kept this make-shift tunnel up for a few weeks because the clear plastic allowed the sun to shine through, warming the plants; and it protected them at night from frost. And that leads me to the first way to extend your growing season.

Tunnels

Cathy Heidenreich, Berry Extension Support Specialist of Cornell University’s Department of Horticulture, says that tunnels lengthen your growing season more economically than using greenhouses. Andy McAllister of Fortiter Farms in Pennsylvania produces vegetables 11 months out of the year by using low tunnels. At the Mother Earth News Fair this summer, McAllister shared his economical design for creating low tunnels.

Cut 10-12 inch lengths of 1 ½ inch PVC pipe. Drive them in the ground on either side of your row about 3 feet apart. How many you will need depends on how long your row is. Then insert full lengths of 1-inch PVC into the pieces in the ground to form an arch. Once you have your ribs erected, cover them with 3-6 mil plastic sheeting. You can purchase this from the concrete department of your local home-improvement superstore.

Tunnels made this way will be about waist high—depending on how wide your row is and how long your ribs are. Of course using tunnels requires you to monitor the temperature and moisture in the tunnel and to vent and water accordingly.

Cold Frames

Historically, cold frames were small, unheated additions to greenhouses. Currently, any serious gardener will have at least one cold frame on their place to serve a variety of needs—from growing greens in the cold weather to hardening off seedlings that were started indoors. But building a cold frame need not be a huge expense. Here are a few ideas to get you going on the cheap.

Save old windows—If you have a source, save any old window that you can use for the top of the frame. If not, you can use heavy plastic temporarily; although you will lose more heat at night with the plastic.

Scrap lumber—You do not need to go purchase expensive lumber to build your cold frame. Since any size frame will do, you can use scrap lumber from a local construction site or that acquired from your friend the building contractor.

Straw bales—If you cannot locate any scrap lumber, you can use straw bales. Place your straw bales in a square or rectangle, lay your discarded window sash on top, and you have a cold frame for less. At the change of seasons, remove the glass and use the straw bale bin for your compost.

Be creative—My son salvaged a couple sets of shower doors from a remodeling job. Using the height and slant dimensions from The 12-Month Gardener by Jeff Ashton, I asked my husband and another son to build a cold frame using the shower door as the glass top. When trying to save money in the garden, it is always a good idea to ask yourself, “What do I have in my hand?”

Cloches

Another way to protect your plants from frost is to cover them individually, rather than as a row. Operating like a tiny greenhouse, the cloche is a bell shaped cover that sits over each plant to keep it warm. According to Ashton, the first glass cloches were used in Italy in 1623. You can spend a lot of money on some handsome-looking cloches for your garden. Or you can use an overturned gallon milk jug, a lamp shade frame or tomato cage covered in plastic, or for tiny plants, an overturned glass bowl.

This is December and we are still having very mild temperatures in the mid-east coast region of the country. If you implement one of these methods, there is still time to get out there and start a patch of greens.

Photo by JanneM

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I haven’t always eaten a healthy, organic, fanatically local diet. In fact, I don’t now. I do what I can, when I can; and I try not to feel guilty about the rest. But the one obstacle I hear regularly when I counsel someone to make dietary changes is that they cannot afford it. I empathize; really I do. But I disagree.

Last week I reviewed the movie Food, Inc. It was a great movie and I believe everyone should watch it. However, I have issue with the portrayal of the family that does not have time to cook because they leave their house at 6 a.m. and do not return until 9-10 p.m. They also said that they could not afford fresh vegetables, so opt for drive-through dollar menu food at Burger King. Sure, on the surface, junk food looks cheap. But they also shared their struggle with diabetes (a disease directly related to diet) and having to afford medications to treat it. This is what I would advise them to do.

Change Your Lifestyle

Why are you gone from home for 14 hours a day? That is not healthy. Families need rest and play time together. Please don’t tell me you’re running your kids to sports, drama, debate, etc. Please don’t tell me you work 14 hours a day and still cannot afford to eat properly. Something has to give, and at this point, it is your health.

Eating healthy is a lifestyle choice. To make whole wheat bread from freshly ground flour, one must be home to grind the wheat and make the bread. Healthy food requires preparation time. If eating healthy and changing your diet is important to you, you will change your habits to include the time.

Change Your Vision

The mistake a lot of folks make is to compare the price of “bad” manufactured foods with that of organic manufactured foods. You need to get past that. Become a shopper of ingredients and learn to cook. Purchasing raw ingredients (like grains, salt, sugar, and oil) in bulk and making your food from scratch is much cheaper than buying manufactured food. Give up the factory foods—even the organic ones.

Change Your Choices

Can you not afford locally grown produce because you spend $10 a week on Mountain Dew? Do you stop on your way to the office every day for a $3 cup of coffee, or join the guys for unhealthy $10 lunches several days a week? Perhaps your 120-pound Rottweiler eats $50 worth of dog food a month? These are all things you are free to do; but are these choices helping you in your goal to change your diet?

Grow Your Food

I realize that everyone doesn’t have a couple of acres to work with. But many, many people have urban homesteads. Gardens can be grown in back yards and even on patios. Do what you can; rather than complaining and doing nothing.

Check with your city. Many municipalities now allow a couple backyard chickens. Some even allow goats.  Subscribe to a helpful magazine like Urban Farm to learn all you can. Read All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew for more helpful advice.

However, if you do live in a rural area, what are you waiting for? Find a farmer friend and learn all you can about gardening and keeping animals for eggs, milk, and meat. Do what you can.

Buy Locally

If you cannot produce enough for your family, or if you are physically unable to garden, visit your local farmers’ market. Purchase what you can from local organic farms. If you still cannot afford it, barter something. Many Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms accept work hours in exchange for food.

Start Slow and Small

Whatever you do, do it slowly. For one thing, this transition takes time. For another, you will need to adjust your budget to allow for monthly shopping of bulk products. I started 25 years ago with baking my own bread. It was several years later before I was introduced to a produce co-op that provided all the produce my family needed. Rather than cutting out boxed foods entirely, start reading labels. First, quit buying anything with MSG and replace them with what you make from scratch. Second, eliminate high fructose corn syrup. Third, axe the artificial coloring. By this time I’m betting there’s nothing in a box left that you can purchase.

One step at a time, and over 25 years, we’ve gone from eating manufactured food for every meal to eating it only on occasion. And I still spend less than $400 a month to feed a family of six. If I can do it, you can too.

 Photo by Downing Street

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I know Food, Inc. has been out for a while. However, our family is so slow at getting to movies that I just watched Food, Inc. while we were on Staycation. This movie made such an impact on our thinking that I wanted to share it with you here.

Prior to viewing, I did already know that our food supply is controlled by only a handful of major corporations. But I had no idea how that control came about, or to what extent these corporations go to keep it that way.

Narrators Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, and Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, take the viewer behind the scenes of commercial chicken farms, slaughterhouses, poultry and pork processing facilities, and Concentrated Animal Feed Operations (CAFO). A few of the chapters include:

• “Fast Food to All Food”—how the fast food industry started the industrial revolution for food.
• “A Cornucopia of Choices”—the role corn plays in most manufactured food.
• “Unintended Consequences”—highlights one mother’s battle for legislation after the death of her son due to an infection with E coli.
• “The Dollar Menu”—discusses the choices parents make between fresh vegetables and cheap, fast food.
• “Power of the Consumer”—discusses what choices consumers can make to change the system.

Manufactured Food

According to the movie, manufacturing food began to fulfill the fast food industry’s need for uniformity. McDonald’s, for instance, wants to know that a hamburger in one of their stores in Ohio looks, weighs, and tastes the same as a hamburger in Florida. This drive for uniformity not only led to manufacturing the food, but growing it as well.

In 1950, it took 70 days to grow a meat chicken. Today, a chicken twice the size grows in 48 days. Since people like to eat white meat, chickens have been redesigned to have large breasts. This disfigurement causes other issues. On my own place, I’ve seen our Cornish Rock Cross broilers get so heavy they could barely walk. We routinely lost chickens to broken legs. Feeling this unnatural and unhealthy, this year we purchased Freedom Ranger chicks and were much happier with the outcome. But in an interview for the movie, Richard Lobb of the National Chicken Council said, “We’re not producing chickens, we’re producing food.”

Conversely, Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms shares, “The industrial food is not honest food. It’s not priced honestly; it’s not produced honestly; it’s not processed honestly. There’s nothing honest about that food.”

Corn Facts

Following are a few random facts about corn that I gleaned from this movie:

• “So much of our industrial food turns out to be clever rearrangements of corn.” Michael Pollan
• A hundred years ago a farmer could grow 20 bushels of corn to the acre. Today, 200 bushels is normal.
• Thirty percent of the land in the US is planted in corn.

My own brother, a physician, told me that the number one concern that Americans face with their diet is that we are overdosing on corn. It is in practically everything we eat. If you want to avoid genetically modified corn products in your foods, look to avoid  the following ingredients on your labels:

• cellulose
• calcium stearate
• xantham gum
• saccharin
• maltodextrin
• sorbital
• sucrose
• gluten
• high fructose corn syrup
• ethel acetate
• citrus cloud emulsion
• ascorbic acid
• di-glycerides
• baking powder
• vanilla extract
• fructose
• sorbic acid
• starch
• semolina
• margarine

You probably want to avoid all commercially raised meat as well because corn is the main ingredient in all animal feeds. Even farm-raised tilapia and salmon are fed corn—something they would never eat in nature.

While on the subject of corn, the chapter “From Seed to the Supermarket” plays like a suspense thriller describing the lengths that Monsanto goes through to protect the patents that they have on corn. Yes, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of this corporation patenting what, initially, God created, and now they have genetically modified.

What We Can Do About It

Watching Food, Inc. is almost despairing. But there are things that you can do. That is where “Power of the Consumer” comes in. Grow as much of your own food as possible and what you can’t, buy from local, organic farms. Taking this transition one step at a time, you can change the way your family eats and make a difference in the food manufacturing process.

The Washington Post said of this movie, “Everyone should see Food, Inc.”

Oprah Winfrey said, “It might change your life.”

I say, “Watch Food, Inc. and it will change your life.”

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Did you know that the United States Department of Agriculture Food Pyramid recommends that adults have between 6-11 servings of grains each day? Since this is National Whole Grains Month, I’d like to look at the recommendation through new eyes; because, to be honest, 11 slices of whole wheat bread just doesn’t look appealing to me—even my homemade from freshly-ground flour bread.

Wheat is not the only grain

When someone says “grain” most people envision wheat, rice, or corn. But there are so many more choices than that. What about the wide array of ancient grains that most Americans have never heard of?

Amaranth—Cultivated for thousands of years, amaranth was a staple food of the Aztec people. After the Spanish Conquistadors invaded Mexico in the 1500s, it almost disappeared as a crop. Amaranth seeds contain from 14-16% protein. And, according to the Thomas Jefferson Agricultural Institute, “the protein is well balanced in amino acids, and is high in lysine, an amino acid most grains are deficient in.” This ancient grain is also high in fiber and contains high levels of tocotrienols (members of the vitamin E family). Some folks like to cook it as porridge. It can also be popped like popcorn, milled into flour and added to bread products, and boiled and served like rice. Amaranth is also gluten-free.

Millet—Better known as bird food in this country, millet has been cultivated in Asia for thousands of years. With a protein content similar to wheat (around 11%), this cereal grain is also high in B vitamins. Because it is gluten-free, you cannot use millet flour for making raised, yeast breads. However, you can add millet flour to your wheat for a multi-grain bread or use it to make flatbreads or pancakes. To cook millet like you would rice, first toast it in a dry pan to bring out the flavor. Then cook with three times the water as grain for 30 minutes.

Quinoa—Though technically not a true cereal grain because it does not come from the grass family, no grain article would be complete without mentioning quinoa. Domesticated by the Incas in ancient times, quinoa is one of the only plant foods to contain a balanced set of amino acids—making it a complete protein. Since quinoa is a very good source of manganese, magnesium, iron, copper and phosphorus, this food is valuable for a person’s arterial health. To cook quinoa, first thoroughly rinse the seeds. Then, combine 1 part quinoa to 2 parts water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, and cover. The quinoa should be ready in about 15 minutes. For a nuttier flavor, try dry-roasting the seeds prior to adding the water. Add fruit and nuts to make a breakfast cereal. Add the seeds to vegetable soup. Or, grind into flour and add to your multi-grain bread.

Spelt—Actually a cousin to wheat, spelt has been used in Europe from ancient times. Because this grain does not normally cause the intolerance issues that wheat causes in some people, it has made a comeback as a replacement for wheat in making yeast breads. This grain offers a whopping 62% of the Daily Value for manganese, as well as an impressive amount of protein, B vitamins, and copper.

I hope this gives you a few new grains to think about adding to your diet. I like to purchase them in little bags at the bulk food store and mill them mixed together to add to pancake or bread flour—enhancing the nutritional value of my wheat. Here is one of my favorites.

Recipe

For an incredible multi-grain pancake combine ½ the wheat you would normally use with a mixture of several other grains. A few of my favorites are millet, brown rice, and whole oats. Mill this mixture into flour. Make your batter as you normally would. Serve with generous amounts of real butter and maple syrup.

Photo by digiyesica

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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 26 million Americans have diabetes. They also predict that if current trends continue, 1 in 3 Americans will have diabetes by 2050.  In light of these staggering statistics, I’d like to share five sure-fire ways to help lower your sugar—for those who feel they’ve tried everything.

Lose weight

A friend recently went for his yearly check-up with his physician. His sugar was borderline. Concerned, he asked the doctor if he needed to go on a special diet. “No. Just lose 20 pounds and you’ll be fine,” the doctor said.

Whatever that means for you, drop any excess weight that you carry around—and I don’t mean the big purse on your shoulder. Being overweight prevents your body from making and using insulin properly. Having a body mass index (BMI) greater than 25 puts you at a much higher risk of type-2 diabetes than your lighter friends. To figure your BMI, use this National Institutes of Health calculator.

Exercise

Physical activity helps to improve your body’s use of insulin, thereby controlling your blood glucose levels. Most Americans lead a sedentary lifestyle, which puts them at risk for diabetes. If you work a sedentary job, getting moderate exercise such as walking briskly, mowing the lawn, riding a bicycle, or swimming at least 30 minutes five times per week, will greatly lower that risk. It is also important to do something physically active every day. Better 10 minutes of exercise every day, than one hour once a week. Physical activity not only helps to control your blood glucose, but also helps you to lose weight, and lower your blood pressure.

Senior citizens, or anyone with pre-existing health issues, should consult their family physician before beginning a regular exercise program. However, they should not hesitate to just move—walk around the block, park at the far end of a parking lot, or pull the weeds in the flower bed.

Stop smoking

Smoking cigarettes not only increases your risk of diabetes, the activity brings with it a tremendous boatload of issues. Stopping smoking just makes sense no matter what physical condition you are in. If you sincerely desire to stop and need help, see your doctor. He can prescribe medications to help you wean yourself off nicotine. Or, at least you can try the over-the-counter patches on the market. Just do it.

Make dietary changes

Giving up Cokes and Snickers bars is not enough to tackle something like diabetes. If you want to see some real changes, consider the following:

• Eat your food as close to the way as God made it as possible. That means rather than eating apple pie, eat apple sauce; and rather than eating apple sauce, eat an apple.
• Eat smaller meals with some form of protein throughout the day. Choose beans, peas, and nuts as your protein sources over meat and dairy.
• Eat the rainbow. That means white (sugar, flour, pasta, and rice) is out.
• Add plenty of whole grains to your diet—brown rice, old-fashioned oats, and whole wheat bread products.
• Discover a variety of fruits and vegetables and eat freely of them. Ditch the banana and potato routine. French fries do not count as a vegetable.
• Stop eating out—especially fast food. Just don’t do it.
• Give up the boxes. Cook your food from scratch. You never know, what triggers a rise in your blood sugar just might be the additives in that box of factory food you had for dinner last night.

Try a few supplements

Dr. Andrew Weil, founder of the integrative approach to medicine, recommends four different supplements for those with type-2 diabetes:

• Chromium improves a person’s glucose tolerance and works to balance blood sugar levels. Take 1000 mcg of GTF (glucose tolerance factor) chromium daily.
• Alpha-lipoic acid is an antioxidant that enhances the body’s glucose uptake. It also helps to promote and maintain eye and nerve health. Start with 100 mg a day.
• Magnesium helps to promote healthy insulin production. Four hundred milligrams daily is recommended.
• Coenzyme Q10 is an antioxidant that maintains a healthy cardiac function. Because diabetics are prone to heart disease, take 60-100 mg with a meal.

Several herbalists also recommend the use of cinnamon for diabetes. Studies have shown it to improve the body’s utilization of insulin. You can purchase this common kitchen spice in capsule form for this reason. However, caution must be used if combining cinnamon with other supplements that lower blood sugar, such as chromium and alpha-lipoic acid. Also, those with liver damage must use caution with large amounts of cinnamon as it can increase liver problems. Taking cinnamon with drugs that affect the liver (such as acetaminophen) can increase its risk.  If you take any medication, consult your physician before taking any alternative treatments.

 Photo by chris.peplin

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Occasionally we at NHE get the opportunity to review some natural products that small companies send us and recently we got a batch of raw honey from the folks at Queen Bee Raw Honey.

I was particularly excited to the get the batch because as we have written about before there are some great health benefits of raw honey. If that weren’t good enough the honey I got from Queen Bee was Creamed Cinnamon raw honey which tasted as good as you can imagine. We eat a lot of honey in our house and went through the jar pretty quick. I found it to be great melted on toast and waffles.

They also sent us a jar of the Orange Blossom honey that my wife said had the best flavor she had ever tasted. So I don’t know what they are feeding the bees out their way, but it is working!

Oh and if you are interested in experimenting they are rolling out a creamed chocolate flavor soon – so keep your eyes peeled!

You can find out more about Queen Bee Raw Honey at their website.

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Taking an inventory of herbs in my cupboard recently, I realized how much we use stinging nettles. In fact, I have several ½ gallon jars full of the stuff pushed to the way back. But 1 quart jar stays in my tea cupboard because my husband drinks a cup of nettles infusion every morning. If you’ve ever brushed up against the stuff growing in the wild, you probably cannot imagine ingesting it. However, stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) is quite healthy, and to some, delicious.

Nutritional Facts

Stinging nettles is rich in vitamins A and C; and the minerals calcium, potassium, iron, magnesium, and phosphorus. Also, a one-cup portion of blanched nettles will provide about 2.5 grams of protein, 6.5 grams of carbohydrates, and 6 grams of total dietary fiber.

Some folks like eating stinging nettles as a green. Blanching, steaming, or otherwise cooking the herb removes the stinging chemicals from the plant. But first, some precautions should be taken when gathering this delicious herb that, well…stings.

Description

A perennial that grows from 1-4 feet, stinging nettle is covered in stiff hairs that produce the sting. The leaves are mostly oval or heart-shaped. Its greenish flowers appear between June and September in long clusters. It is generally found in waste places with moist soil in most of North America and Europe.

Collecting Stinging Nettles

Wear long pants and sleeves when entering any brushy area that might house stinging nettles. When picking the plant, protect your hands with thick gloves. Only cut the tender new growth from the top of the plant and discard anything that looks insect chewed, brown, or otherwise unappetizing. While wearing the gloves, strip the leaves from any thick, chewy-looking stems and wash thoroughly. Discard the water.

Cooking Nettles

After washing, cook the greens as you would spinach. Drain. The water can be saved and drunk as a tea, but you will probably want to sweeten it or mix it with a mint or lemon. The nettles are perfectly ready to eat just like this, or you can use them in a myriad of recipes as you would any other green. Just don’t undercook them or they will still sting.

Medicinal Properties

Stinging nettles are also used for medicinal purposes.  According to James Dukes’ The Green Pharmacy Herbal Handbook, nettles contain natural antihistamine and anti-inflammatory properties. Also, an extract of the roots is used as an effective diuretic.

Medicinal Uses

The antihistamine and anti-inflammatory properties of stinging nettles makes it ideal for seasonal allergies. It opens up constricted bronchial and nasal passages. Taking freeze-dried nettles capsules is the treatment of choice for hay fever-type symptoms. Also, the anti-inflammatory action makes it a useful herb for arthritis, tendinitis, and bursitis. Because of the diuretic properties, herbalists recommend nettles for gout, bed-wetting, and benign prostate hyperplasia. In fact, studies have shown nettles to be as effective as finasteride (a medication prescribed for BPH).  To treat problems with the prostate, herbalists recommend a tincture of stinging nettles with saw palmetto. For urinary health, combine the nettles with dandelion greens and drink several cups a day.

Precautions

As always, this information is not given to diagnose or to treat. If you think you may have benign prostate hyperplasia, see your doctor to rule out prostate cancer before trying any home remedies. Taking nettles in medicinal doses may also interfere with certain medications for blood pressure, fluid retention, or blood clotting. And, because it can affect hormone levels, pregnant women should not take nettles medicinally.

Sources:

Duke, J.A. (2000). The Green Pharmacy Herbal Handbook. Rodale Books.

Gladstar, R. (2001). Family Herbal. North Adams, Mass.: Storey Books.

U.S. Department of Agriculture National Nutrient Database

The University of Maryland Medical Center

 Photo by sassyradish

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Whether you have your own herb bed in the back yard, or gather plants in the wild for your herbal medicine chest, unless you properly dry and store them, you labor in vain. Most herbalists recommend air drying herbs to preserve their volatile oils. However, living in a humid area prevents me from simply hanging the plants up to dry. Therefore, I prefer using the oven or a food dehydrator.

Aerial Parts

The aerial parts of a plant are those that grow above the ground. That would include stems, leaves, flowers, seeds, or fruit. Generally, these are gathered in the spring and summer when the plant is putting all of its energy into flowering and producing fruit. These are the most delicate parts of the plant and are more easily burned in the oven, so keep a watchful eye.

Rinse the plant material in cool water and pat dry on a thick towel. Spread in a single layer on a cookie sheet.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. When it reaches the correct temperature, turn it off and insert the cookie sheet.  The herbs will dry as the oven cools. After 20 minutes, check on them. If they are not yet dry, and if the oven has cooled, turn it on again. Make sure you turn it off once it reaches 200 degrees. If you do not turn off the oven, you will need to constantly check the herbs and turn them to keep them from burning. I have had much more success with this method.

Roots, Rhizomes, or Tubers

These underground parts to the plant are best harvested in the autumn after the aerial parts have died back and the plant’s energies are returning to the roots. Dig a deep circle about 8 inches away from the stem and pry the root from the ground. Use a stiff brush to remove any loose soil and then scrub it thoroughly in warm water. Cut away any soft, bruised, or insect eaten sections. Slice the root with a sharp knife and spread the slices in a single layer on a cookie sheet.

Like with the aerial parts, preheat the oven to 200 degrees. When it reaches the correct temperature, turn it off and insert the cookie sheet. This time, leave the roots in the oven for 2-3 hours.

Bark

The best time to harvest bark is in the fall when the sap is falling. Never cut a ring around a trunk or branch as that will prevent the nutrients to rise past that ring and the tree or branch will die. Only cut bark off in strips along the length of a branch. It is best to harvest bark from the outer branches that may be pruned later on. Or, if you require a great deal of bark, cut off an entire branch and remove all the bark from it. Remove any insects, lichen, or moss from the bark and brush with a stiff brush to remove any dirt. Cut it into small pieces and lay out on a cookie sheet. Dry as you did the roots.

Freeze-drying

Many people prefer to freeze-dry their culinary herbs as it retains the color and flavor more than heat drying. To freeze-dry simply place an entire sprig of herb in a zipper-shut bag and place in the freezer. Frozen herbs crumble well when needed for the soup pot.

Storing your dried herbs

Once dry, you will want to properly store your herbs to retain the active constituents. Always place dried herbs in a dark, glass container in a cool place. Heat and light can cause them to spoil. Plastic and metal can cause contamination. Properly dried and stored, your herbs can last up to a year.

Photo by zoyachubby

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