A Reader Encouraged More Posts on Nutrition

 

I just left the online Old Testament class, so I opened a favorite passage in Hebrews. I cannot find the ideal soccer camp, popcorn munching, soda slurping, rock band cacophony of the missional church in Hebrews 12.

There is a junk form of everything, whether spiritual nutrition or bodily nutrition. My parents looked at vegetables as delicacies. They went through the Great Depression (and it was great because they never stopped talking about it) eating vegetables to fill their stomachs. They had animals on the farm, but FDR (Democrat) closed down both farms. They learned that they would never be full on the meat available and fast foods were raw veggies. Oh, did they love them, raw or cooked. 

We tended to screw up our faces about eating anything not on TV or served as dessert. Fortunately, Mom and Dad were soft on desserts themselves and we exploited that. I was always willing to make the whipped cream. I added my own secret ingredient, rum flavoring which made the whipped cream even creamier tasting. Mom admitted to making her own whipped cream on the farm, hiding somewhere and enjoying it herself. She knew how to rescue spoiled dairy too. 

However, we often heard at full volume, "You know what's wrong with you kids?" Pause. "What Dad?" He thundered, "You are all spoiled rotten."

I thought of vegetables as something to get past for dessert or meat. They remembered how delicious vegetables were when nothing else was there for food, because they worked hard on the farm. 

Getting into gardening changed my attitudes because there is no comparison between 

1. fresh  picked sweet corn and grocery corn on the cob, or
2. peas off the vine and peas in a can, 
3. green peppers in the garden and from the store, 
4. green beans from the vine (for some), and beans from a can
5. lettuce and spinach in the garden, the same from the store - even when sprayed.
6. tomatoes warm from the sun, dipped in dill seed, and wretched sour or watery tomatoes in the store.
7. Sweet tender carrots with crunch, and orange dried up tree roots marketed as carrots.

I enjoyed all those until we moved to Rabbit Corners, where the squirrels show off, the possums waddle around, and the bunnies eat more than their share. Five thousand carrot seeds produced no carrots at all, but the rabbits looked happy. They love carrot greens.

Shock into looking up food to suppress blood pressure came from seeing how the often neglected vegetables are loaded with nutrition and are not culprits in boosting blood sugar. They are doubly valuable, so I am aiming at using frozen vegetables and maybe farmer's market in the warm weather for that change in diet.

I will get into those in the coming weeks or years. Ideas are welcome. I get a lot of great suggestions and tips.

Dandelions were brought over as herbs, not weeds, but Scott Lawn and Garden thought otherwise. The greens are remarkably good for salads, usually without herbicide on them. The flowers are sweet enough to make wine. The roots can be used as a coffee substitute if washed carefully.