Food revolution

Two videos have come to me today and inspired me. They are both about food.

The first one it by Britta Riley "Garden in my Appartment".  Britta Riley wanted to grow her own food (in her tiny apartment). So she and her friends developed a system for growing plants in discarded plastic bottles -- researching, testing and tweaking the system using social media, trying many variations at once and quickly arriving at the optimal system. The method follows open source development and the network now connects 18,000 people around the world.
 
The second one is by Jamie Oliver, who won the TED prize 2012. His lecture is titled: Teach every child about food.  My daughter has been cooking from a Jamie Oliver cookbook for some time now and she could get the meal together (with a little bit of help) in less than 1 hour. Tasty food and easy to make.

I admireJamie Oliver's drive for advancing the food revolution and find it inspiring. Just have my doubts whether Americans can be inspired with the word revolution at all right now.

A lot of things came together and motivated my own household to eat less in general but especially less sugar, fat and wheat; and  a lot more veggies and lettuce from the garden that self seeded from last years's crop.

The ad on toxic fats that rocked our state recently has been quite useful too. It makes you think and helped shift habits and priorities. It's not hard to change your eating habits and there is no excuse. I am writing this while my barley is cooking on the stove.

Wheat creates toxidity in the body and  toxins are an issue as the body has dofficulties to deal with them. I will make more effort at avoiding eating it. A recent study in China has confirmed: The most important food toxins are cereal grains (especially wheat), omega-6-rich vegetable oils, and fructose from sugar and corn syrup. Rice is actually the only non-toxic cereal grain and one of our “safe starches.”

Here is a chart of the percentage obese people (by countries), defined as having an average body mass index (BMI) above 30:

The BMI estimates fat in your body by comparing your weight and height. It is calculated by dividing your weight  (in kilos) by the square of your height (in metres). It's easy to calculate your BMI online, just use one of the many websites available free of charge. Being myself at the upper limit of a healthy weight towards overweight, I vow to change that before the rich Christmas period comes up. 

I also vow to protect my lettuce patch from the tree lobbers who are coming tomorrow to make more space in our garden for food production and  especially more fruit trees. Only the big ficus in the middle of the garden is allowed to stay, but the top will be lobbed off too. Make sure the tree lobbers leave the mulch in place.

There is hope and a lot of motivation too. Better check on my barley now!