Growing Herbs

Being Greek means that life generally revolves around food. As a child I remember my grandmother salting the fresh eggplant in the colander preparing it for the pastitsio. We watched and learned from a young age how to use fresh herbs like mint for the spanakopita or lentils; and oregano for just about everything. When visiting the island, Chios, where our family is from, we would go pick our own oregano as it grows wild as a weed in the mountains. The first time I ever saw an artichoke was on its stalk, deep purple and beautiful, in my grandfather’s garden. Really, there is nothing quite like a horiatiko (village) salad of ripe tomatoes, cucumbers, oregano, feta and olive oil. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. My memories are so vivid, colorful and tasty!Today I grow my herbs in pots outside my front porch. I grow oregano, lemon thyme, and sage. I also enjoy hearty lavender and in early spring usually grow dill as well. I cut fresh dill everyday that I can, into fresh greens. This is another traditional Greek salad. It is dressed with olive oil, lemon, and salt. You can add green onion to taste. This salad is so fresh with a distinctive taste, I often get complimented on it. I am so addicted to it that in the winter I cheat and use dried dill.I have three different kinds of basil; large leaf Sweet Italian, large leaf purple called Red Rubin Basil, and the small leaf Greek called Minette Basil. I tend to not allow them to flower as the leaves become bitter once it goes to seed. In winter I bring them inside to a sunny spot and keep them year-round. I trim the basil plants monthly in summer and enjoy a fresh pesto on those days. In the food processor or mini chopper, I put the leaves of all three types of basil (as many leaves as can fill the processor bowl), about a half cup of olive oil, ¼ cup freshly grated parmesan or piave cheese, 2-3 cloves garlic, and sometimes pine nuts, if I have them. You have to experiment with the amount of olive oil, because the pesto can be too dry if there’s not enough. The leaves tend to absorb it. It goes superbly on fresh, hard crusted semolina bread, although in our house we just eat it by the spoon.Interestingly enough, Greeks don’t eat basil the way Italians do. (I’m half Italian, by the way). Basil has theological significance to the Greek Orthodox Christians. Holy Tradition states that when St. Helen found the True Cross of Christ, she knew it because Sweet Basil was growing around it. On September 14th in Orthodox Churches around the world, old grandmothers (Yiayias) bring their basil to church to adorn the cross that the Priest will use in a procession with around the church. Then the Priest blesses everyone with the cross and with the basil. The women then take home the now blessed basil to make bread that will be used for Holy Communion. They mix salt, flour and water and make their dough. Then they make the sign of the cross with their blessed basil over the dough and miraculously, the dough rises without yeast! This is done every year all over Greece. As you can see, herbs are very important in the Greek culture. It really is a part of life. My house is not a home with out my potted herbs on my front porch.

Vitamin E and The Whole Wheat Berry

Until I read a lecture on Vitamin E, I only guessed that in general the American diet was lacking in this vital micro nutrient. Americans eat so much bread, pasta, pizza, and desserts, like cakes and cookies. We have a habit of eating cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and pasta or pizza for dinner. Isn’t there Vitamin E in wheat? We learned that Vitamin E is contained in good quantity in wheat germ oil. Why not in wheat or wheat products? Unfortunately the wheat we eat is processed to remove the germ and the bran. Even organic whole wheat flour has no wheat germ. If it did it, it would be rancid within 24-72 hours without refrigeration. The fact is that to manufacture food for shelf life in the grocery store, the germ and the bran are removed from the wheat berry, leaving only the endosperm, which, by the way, contains the gluten. (Perhaps this contributes to gluten allergies.) The bran contains fiber, and the wheat germ contains 26 different vitamins and fatty acids. To obtain all the nutrients from the wheat berry, one must consume the entire berry, otherwise known as “whole wheat”. When the wheat berry is processed to removed the germ and the bran, 86% of the Vitamin E is lost, as well as a host of other nutrients. All we get from store bought wheat products are empty calories!So, can I venture to say that Americans are deficient in Vitamin E? We tend to be overfed yet undernourished. It seems difficult to obtain sufficient quantities of Vitamin E in an American diet unless actively pursuing it. Interestingly, Vitamin E deficiencies are linked to reproductive organ dysfunction, miscarriages, and deficient lactation. (This may be an exaggeration, but I rarely meet women who haven't miscarried.) Coupled with the fact that synthetic estrogen, and inorganic iron found in pre-natal vitamins destroy Vitamin E in the body, it seems even more difficult not to be Vitamin E deprived. For instance if the RDA for a woman over the age of 19 is 15 mg per day, and green beans, tomatoes, and eggs have less than 1mg each; it seems like a weighty task to consume the optimal levels on the typical western diet. Yet if we ground our own wheat berries and made fresh bread with the whole berry, including the germ and the bran, we would be getting sufficient amounts of Vitamin E as well as an array of other nutrients.It seems that because much of our food is processed, and refined to sit on grocery store shelves, we may be losing vital nutrients that we would normally consume if our food were fresher and in its most natural state. Even eating fresh produce may prevent proper nutrient absorption if the produce has been treated with insecticides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers. Vitamin deficiencies are so common in the United States because of the overall poor quality of food being consumed, pharmaceutical drug ingestion which inhibits absorption of many nutrients, and even poor quality of soils. For instance, “you could buy spinach in 1948 that contained 158 milligrams of iron. Today, the iron content of raw spinach is 27 milligrams.” (Medford, 2006).The human body is resilient and adaptable. We are survivors. Look at Eskimos who hardly eat any vegetables at all. They survive on fish and even seaweed, (mainly unprocessed foods); surviving in their environment. Likewise, here in America we seem to be surviving. Yet, each day, the older we get, we accept aches, pains, and ailments as a part of life; instead of listening to our bodies. It’s amazing how we survive on burgers and fries! So many women in there 30’s and 40’s are exhausted, having trouble even getting out of bed, as if they were in their 70’s! I believe our bodies are begging for proper nutrition. Perhaps we should be looking more carefully at what we put in our mouths, questioning the nutritional value of our food. I’m the first to admit, it is quite the task to be nutrient savvy especially when there’s coffee and Krispy Kreme to be had! Our health is precious and so our diet has to be carefully chosen with optimal nutrition in mind.

Whole Foods vs. Isolated Nutrients

Given that today’s American diet is linked to unprecedented amounts of disease and illness, one must consider what people were eating 100 years ago. Life had its hardships yet seemed simpler. People tended to live in the place where they were born, growing their own foods, taking care of their families. A hundred years ago, heart attacks were practically unheard of in the United States. People ate less than 12 pounds of sugar per year. Since they ate what was available and in season, there were no preservatives or additives. For instance, traveling to the next town which may have been a mere 10 miles away, was a major event. Without modern conveniences people were forced to rely on the earth for sustenance, and in turn the earth provided what was necessary while still being able to rejuvenate itself. With the advent of technology and the need to keep up with a faster paced lifestyle, our diets have changed. Our agricultural methods have changed. And, our earth has changed. Today Americans eat more than 200 pounds of sugar, per person, per year, mainly in the form of refined, processed foods. One only has to venture into any public school on any given day to see what American children are eating: processed, refined, genetically modified, nutrient deprived food. People have known for centuries the importance of fresh, unrefined foods for health and well being, even using it as medicine for the sick. Around 400 BC Hippocrates, the Father of Modern Medicine taught his students, “Let thy food be thy medicine and let thy medicine be thy food. Each of the substances of a persons diet acts upon his body and changes it in some way, and upon these changes his whole life depends.” All too often we deny the truth of these words and suffer the consequences. In 1700’s British sailors were suffering from scurvy, vitamin C deficiency, due to long months out at sea away from fresh food. In 1747, Dr. James Lind conducted the first double blind controlled study with his goal to prevent scurvy. Ships at that time only carried preserved foods, nothing fresh. Dr. Lind called for sailors to take 3 spoonfuls of fresh lime juice on a daily basis. Scurvy was soon eradicated and British sailors became known as Limeys! Interestingly enough, three spoonfuls of lime juice has about 10mg of vitamin C. Does that mean we only need 10 mg/day? Yet the RDA is 60mg vitamin C/day. So, is it isolated supplements of vitamins that we need to prevent disease, or rather whole foods? Dr. Szent Gyourgi, Nobel Prize winner for discovering ascorbic acid, realized that food compounds are locked behind cell walls in whole foods. When the compounds or vitamins are extracted and isolated, they do not perform the same tasks. In the 1920’s, Dr. Gyourgi administered ascorbic acid to his patients, believing that he isolated the component responsible for preventing scurvy. In his clinical trials the ascorbic acid failed. He became convinced that ascorbic acid within the food form is superior to ascorbic acid alone. In 1932, when he was giving his acceptance speech for receiving the Nobel Prize for his discovery of ascorbic acid, he questioned why he won since the ascorbic acid alone did not cure scurvy. He urged the scientific community to focus research on whole food compounds rather than isolating components of food. After decades of isolating vitamins and minerals and prescribing their use for well being, current research goes back to the work of Dr. Gyourgi. At the National Institutes of Health it has been found that isolated dosages of synthetic vitamins did nothing to ward off cancer. Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman states, “Supplementing with isolated nutrients instead of a natural mix of food components was not the most productive approach.” The Mayo Clinic web site states that whole foods contain hundreds to thousands of other food components that are important for good health. Most of these components are unidentified! Also, it can be seen that cultures with diets of unprocessed and unrefined foods have the least amounts of diseases, while cultures with primarily processed and refined foods produce people with disease. It is evident, based on history, that whole foods are the most beneficial for sustaining life. This means foods that are fresh; grown in clean, mineral rich soil, are ones that produce the most beneficial, medicinal nutrition for life.