How to eat well and reduce your exposure to pesticides

 

An apple a day…just might increase your pesticide exposure, according to this year’s Dirty Dozen/Clean Fifteen analysis by the U.S.-based environmental research group, Environmental Working Group (EWG).

The organization does an annual analysis of pesticide residue on produce based on data gathered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration. EWG uses this data to compile of list of the 12 fruits and vegetable which carry the highest pesticide load when they reach your plate.

It’s not all doom and gloom - EWG also publishes a list of the 15 fruits and vegetables that contain the least amount of pesticide residue.

How to give your diet an eco makeover this Earth Day

Six ways to give your diet an eco makeover this Earth Day

 

The new “eating well”; being deliberate about what food you buy, where your buy it, and then ensuring that you eat it all.

I consider Earth Day a celebration, a launch party for a new way of doing things. The annual event challenges Canadians to make changes to our day-to-day lives in ways that benefit the planet and if we want to take up that challenge, April 22 is the kickoff day.  

One of this year’s challenges is to give our kitchen tables an eco-makeover by making more sustainable food choices and wasting less. It’s a very green thing to do since where we buy our food, what we buy and what we do with our leftovers has such a big impact on the environment. Regional food security comes into play as well since we’re so dependent on food from faraway places.

So where to begin? Earth Day Canada presents six suggestions for what we can all start doing today to make a meaningful impact through our daily meals.

Why teaching kids to cook is so important

Over the March Break my husband and I met a woman who told us that when her kids were growing up each was responsible for preparing one evening meal a week for the whole family. They learned to cook by cooking and were completely capable in the kitchen even at the age of 12. She said it taught them an important kind of independence and a sense of responsibility.

As someone who happens to believe that cooking wholesome food from scratch is one of the most important things that you can do for your family, it’s probably no surprise that I’m particular about what I feed my kids. But it occurred to me that I’m putting a lot of effort into teaching my kids about good food, but I’m not teaching them how to prepare it.

Learning to cook is a life skill, and as parents our job is to teach kids to become independent. You can’t very well go out into the world if you don’t know how to feed yourself. Teaching our kids how to feed themselves well should be our goal. We want our kids to succeed in life, why should we lower our standards when it comes to food?

Why GMO labeling is good for consumers

There have been no clinical studies to determine if GMOs are even safe for human consumption. GMO labeling let's consumers decide if they want to take that risk.

Do you find yourself reading food labels more often, curious to see what is, or isn’t, in some of the packaged food in your cupboard? There’s a general trend towards label reading because people want to know what’s in their food, and why wouldn’t we?

This food trend is at the heart of a battle being waged south of the border about GMO labeling of foods, the results of which have the potential to impact our grocery stores too. Although GMO labelling is non-existent in Canada, momentum in the U.S. could influence legislation here.

In the meantime Health Canada considers GMO foods safe for human consumption.

Never mind that 64 other countries around the world restrict or ban GMOs. It begs the question: What do they know that we don’t?

Is beef fed growth hormones safe to eat? Likely not.

Did you know Canadian beef cattle are fed growth hormones? Six growth hormones approved by Health Canada are used by the beef industry to help beef cattle grow bigger faster. Administering hormones (three natural and three synthetic) allows the beef industry to raise beef more cheaply and helps to keep beef prices low for consumers.

But is cheap beef worth it?

How to avoide pesticides on produce - the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15

We’re lucky that a greater variety of organic produce is getting easier to find in our local stores and markets. But in a way it makes our grocery shopping harder. Having more choice creates a bit of a dilemma: should we buy only organic produce – a more expensive option – or pick and choose what we do and don’t buy organic?

Nobody wants to hem and haw over whether to buy the organic kiwi, which is why I’m hooked on Environmental Working Group’s annual Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides. The guide lists the produce that has the highest pesticide load when it reaches your table along with the produce with the lowest pesticide load.

 

To make their research easy to use the have created the Dirty Dozen (produce with the highest pesticide load) and the Clean 15 (produce with the lowest pesticide load).

Avoiding processed foods: My four favourite (healthy) 30-minute meals

This is the closest I'll let my kids get to Kraft dinner and its questionable food dyes.

I have a friend who told me one day she looked in her grocery cart and realised that almost everything was in a box. It was a bit of a shock for her to see it all piled together, even though she was the one who put it there.

The environmental impact of processed foods goes beyond all of the packaging. Food additives used in the packaged foods industry come with their own list of concerns. From preserving agents to artificial colours and other additives, the general consensus is that processed foods are contributing to the explosion in chronic diseases.

The additives that concern environmental groups aren’t often on the government’s radar so it’s up to the average Joe to figure it out.

Take Kraft Dinner, for example.

How to avoid genetically modified organisms (GMO's)

How do you tell if your food has been genetically modified? Would you want to know? Should you care?

Since there are no labeling laws in Canada that require a producer to state whether or not food ingredients are genetically modified, we’re on our own to figure out whether or not there are GMOs in our food. 

GMOs are “genetically modified organisms,” plants or animals with DNA that has been fiddled with too (theoretically) make it better in different ways. Genes from different species are spliced to create combinations that could never occur in nature or through traditional cross breeding.  

My gut tells me that GMO’s are not a good thing for us or the planet.  But it wasn’t until I dug into the issue that I really understood the significance of GMOs being let loose in our food system. 

Food waste - how not to throw money in the garbage



Storing food in clear containers helps you keep track of leftovers in your fridge 

I have an obsession with leftovers. I hate to see good food go to waste so over the years have honed my skill at using them up in all sorts of creative ways. That’s why a recent article about food waste caught my eye.  Titled “Don’t toss your cookies”, the article suggests that food waste is one of the greatest challenges facing our food system today; more worrisome than spiralling food costs and extreme weather.

Why? It’s estimated that 40% of all food goes uneaten.

Choosing sustainable seafood, these helpful tools make it easier

Use this helpful guide to find healthy seafood


We eat a lot of seafood in our house and let me tell you, it isn’t easy being green. Finding sustainable seafood is my greatest eco food challenge, week after week.

Thankfully there are some helpful pocket guides and apps available that provide direction on the best fish and seafood to buy. Seachoice.org created a great tool for choosing ocean-friendly seafood that categorizes fish choices by colour (green, yellow, red) making it easy to identify seafood that is best to eat, and that which is fished or farmed in environmentally damaging ways. It also lists the fish that you should be wary of due to concerns about mercury or other contaminants.  Seafood Watch offers a similar guide. 

Marinated tomatoes - more reasons to buy local

Locally grown produce tastes better. Just ask a tomato...

This is a great time of year to get out of the grocery stores and into local markets. We’re well into the growing season now so there is a delicious variety and abundance of fresh local produce.

Just last weekend I came home from the Kingston Market with carrots, zucchini, garlic scapes, beets, beet greens, Swiss chard,cauliflower, strawberries and sugar snap peas. But I could also have bought broccoli, kale, numerous other greens, turnip, string beans, potatoes and fresh herbs. This weekend there will be tomatoes. There is fresh bread to be had,eggs, free range chicken, pork and beef, honey and jams.

And so it goes, week after week through our growing season. The better part of a grocery order, all grown or produced nearby.

You don`t have to go to the Kingston Peninsula to enjoy the local abundance. Local markets -- The Saint John City Market, Country Harvest, Cochran`s, Kredels and others -- buy directly from farmers this time of year. Thanks to these markets, supporting local farmers and growers is easy and convenient.

If you need more reasons to search out local produce, consider this: Locally grown food tastes better and is more nutritious than the grocery store variety because it`s picked ripe and gets to you within a couple of days. It isn`t gassed to ripen, fumigated to kill foreign pests, or coated with petroleum-based waxes to keep it from going bad. It’s fresh in the most delicious sense of the word.

Back to the taste, if you're not convinced that produce grown nearby tastes better than imported compare for yourself. Taste locally grown carrots and beans alongside those from the grocery store or Costco. Or better yet, compare a local, field-ripened tomato to a grocery store variety.

Our growing season is so short we should all enjoy these local flavours while we can. Here is my favourite way to eat local tomatoes:

Marinated tomatoes

6 medium tomatoes
2 Tbsp fresh herbs (oregano, basil, thyme)

Marinade:

• 2 tsp spice mix (see recipe below)
• 1 tsp molasses
• ½ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup cider vinegar
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• Salt & pepper
•  

Spice mix

• 2 ½ tsp paprika
• ½ tsp smoked paprika
• ¼ – ½ tsp dried chipotle pepper or cayenne
• 1 tsp dried thyme

Slice the tomatoes and lay them in a dish that’s deep enough to accommodate the marinade without it dribbling over the sides.
Pour over the marinade and let the flavours blend for a couple of hours.
Sprinkle with herbs before serving.
If you’d like to make this a bit more substantial nestle some slabs of feta in among the tomatoes. Or you can serve grilled feta on the side.

Avoiding pesticides and maintaining your sanity in the produce section of the grocery store

The dirty dozen and clean fifteen help you reduce your exposure to pesticides on produce.

When you’re in the produce section at the grocery store do you look at the organic-labeled fruit and vegetables and wonder if you should be buying it? Here is a bit of information that will help you decide.

Environmental Working Group, a research organization based in the U.S. has released its annual Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides, a list of produce ranked according to the amount of pesticide residue they contain by the time they reach your table. The guide is a helpful way to limit your pesticide exposure and manage your grocery budget while still eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables.

The Guide is comprised of two lists, the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15. The Dirty Dozen are the 12 fruits and vegetables that have tested the highest for pesticide residue. To rank produce EWG takes into account how the food is usually prepared, ex. bananas are peeled and apples are washed but not peeled. Produce on this list is what you want to buy organic if possible, or you can limit your consumption.

The corresponding Clean 15 are the fruits and vegetables that have low or no pesticide residue so you don’t have to stress about finding it organically grown, and you don’t have to spend extra grocery dollars on the organic version. Since organic produce is more expensive it’s good to know when you should fork out the extra money.

Topping the Dirty Dozen list again this year are apples, followed by celery, sweet bell peppers, peaches, strawberries, nectarines (imported), grapes, spinach, lettuce, cucumbers, blueberries (domestic) and potatoes. EWG has also given green beans, kale and collards an honorable mention of sorts because of a specific insecticide that commonly contaminates these green veggies. It’s a known neurotoxin so is of special concern.

But the good news is that the Clean 15 includes a great variety of choices: onions, sweet corn, pineapples, avocado, cabbage, sweet peas, asparagus, mangos, eggplant, kiwi, cantaloupe (domestic), sweet potatoes, grapefruit, watermelon and mushrooms.

A few highlights from this year’s report: at least one pesticide was found on 68 percent of the samples analyzed. 98 percent of the apple samples tested positive for pesticides and 96 percent of celery samples tested positive for pesticides, followed by potatoes at 91 percent.  As a category, grapes have more types of pesticides than any other produce (64 different types!|)

No single sample from the Clean Fifteen had more than 5 types of pesticides detected (this is a good thing) and more than 90 percent of cabbage, asparagus, sweet peas, eggplant and sweet potato samples had no more than one pesticide detected. (No samples of sweet corn and onions had more than one pesticide.)

The idea of ingesting chemicals when you`re just trying to have a healthy diet can be stressful. Just keep in mind that eating conventionally grown produce is still healthier than avoiding it for fear of pesticides and loading up on the Clean Fifteen give you the best of both worlds. Vist www.ewg.org/foodnews for the full report.

Wallet guides are helpful when it comes to choosing ocean-friendly seafood

If you’re trying to eat less meat, be it for health or environmental reasons, a common approach is to eat more fish. It’s a healthy alternative to meat that’s easy to find and simple to prepare.

Switching to fish can have environmental pit falls though and some potential health concerns, depending on what types of fish you like to buy. Figuring out what fish is healthiest for you and the environment can be very complicated so I rely on a couple of credible organizations that lay it all out for me, listing best-to-worst seafood choices in handy wallet cards and smart phone apps.

One organization is SeaChoice, a Canadian group that was formed by a number of Canadian conservation organizations to help consumers navigate the murky waters of sustainable seafood. The organization produces a comprehensive guide that clearly lists your best choices for seafood, the okay choices, and seafood that you should avoid.

According to SeaChoice, your best choices are species that are abundant, have well managed fisheries, and are fished or farmed in an environmentally sustainable way. On this list you’ll find choices like wild Alaskan salmon, farmed rainbow trout (freshwater), and Alaskan halibut.

The next best category lists fish that may be threatened in some way (mostly related to how they’re fished). SeaChoice recommends that fish in this category be eaten infrequently or only when the best choice isn’t available. You’ll find haddock, lobster and some Pacific cod in this category.

The avoid category lists fish that have a combination of problems: poorly managed fishery, farming practices that cause environmental damage, or they’re over fished. Atlantic salmon, shrimp and tilapia farmed in Asia, and Atlantic halibut are some common fish in this category.

Another guide that I find helpful is Seafood Watch, developed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California (and the basis of the SeaChoice guide above.) Seafood Watch produces a guide for the U.S. North East which applies to the seafood that we find most often in our stores. Seafood Watch also has a best-good-avoid approach but it also layers in health info, flagging fish that is a concern due to mercury or PCB contamination (like swordfish and most tuna).

In the Seafood Watch guide, you’ll notice that the “Best Choice” list includes just three with contamination concerns, while the “Avoid” list contains ten fish that you should limit your consumption of due to mercury or PCB contamination. It’s proof that environmentally-friendly seafood choices are healthier for you too.

My favourite part of this guide is the “Super Green” list, a selection of seafood that is healthy to eat (low in environmental contaminants, high in omega-3 fatty acids) and is fished or farmed in an ocean-friendly way. The best of both worlds. Rainbow trout, wild-caught Pacific salmon and farmed mussels are some of the choices on this list.

This guide is updated twice a year and is available as a smart phone app and a printable wallet guide. Visit seafoodwatch.org and seachoice.org for more information.

Have you ever considered the number of miles that your food travels from farm to table? The Canadian organization, Local Food Plus, does the calculations all the time and has figured out that families who spend just $10 worth of their weekly grocery budget on locally grown food can have a significant impact the environment and can help create jobs in the local food economy.

For simplicity sake the organization’s calculations are based on food being trucked either from Florida or California. So if a family in Halifax shifts $10 of their food budget to local food, the annual impact would be equivalent to taking a car off the road for two weeks. This particular calculation is based on food shipped from Florida, but we all know that lots of fresh produce is shipped from much farther away so the impact of making the change could be even bigger.

In terms of economic impact, 5,000 families shifting $10 per week to local products would divert $2.6 million from imported food into the pockets of local farmers.  And it would help to make our region less dependent on imported food, something that we should all be concerned about.

Shifting just $10 a week to local food is a synch this time of year. The markets are overflowing with fresh produce and even big grocery chains have some local (or regional) produce available. Much of the food being harvested this time of year has a long shelf life so it’s easy to stock up. Cabbage, winter squash, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower and apples are abundant so you can buy more than a week’s worth if you don’t often get the chance to go to a weekend farmer’s market.

Here’s a challenge for you, instead of shifting just $10 of your weekly food budget to local food, for the next few weeks you could try to buy only local vegetables. Imported carrots, corn, cucumber, greens, tomatoes, potatoes and such will be available all winter but the better tasting local versions won’t, so why not take advantage while you can (and support our local farmers while you’re at it.)

There is no shortage of markets to visit to search out local produce. Or you can search online for local producers. ACORN Organic and Buy Local NB both have searchable directories of local producers. (http://www.acornorganic.ca/, http://www.buylocalnb.ca/).  

Here’s one more reason to buy local food: freshly picked local fruit and vegetables taste better. Period. 

What’s the carbon footprint of your supper?

While we’re still in the midst of barbecue season consider this: a four-person family skipping steak once per week is, environmentally speaking, equivalent to taking your car off the road for three months. This is one of the findings of a new report on the environmental impact of meat and other foods, released last month by Environmental Working Group (EWG), a research organization based in the US. 

Weighing the environmental impact of food isn’t a common consideration when deciding what, and what not, to eat. More often it’s how healthy a food is or isn’t that helps us decide. The great thing about this new report, titled Meat Eater’s Guide to Climate Change and Health, is that it combines the two: the health and environmental impacts of common foods.

In the report EWG analyzed the greenhouse gas emissions, environmental footprint and health impacts of 20 types of food – mostly animal and vegetable protein - and came up with a summary of best-to-worst which they have packaged into a helpful guide for choosing food that is healthier for you and the planet.

While red meat gets the worst environmental scores, you might be surprised by the company it keeps. Here are a few of the highlights:

• Of all the food analyzed, lamb, beef, cheese, pork and farmed salmon (in that order) generate the most greenhouse gases

• About 30 per cent of the meat consumed in the US is beef and it accounts for double the emissions of pork, four times the emissions of chicken.

• Cheese has the third poorest ranking on the list, sitting just above beef. Less dense cheeses (take less milk to produce) generate fewer greenhouse gasses.

• For beef and dairy it’s the animals’ methane emissions and the pollution from growing feed that contributes to such high greenhouse gas emissions. With salmon it’s feed production that gives it a poor ranking along with the fact that up to 44 per cent gets tossed in the garbage, mostly due to spoilage at the grocery store or at home.

• Plant-based protein like lentils, beans and nuts are considered “climate friendly,” nutritious and healthy.

• Environmental toxins are stored in animal flesh so the more animal protein you consume the more toxins you ingest. 

Also highlighted in the report are studies linking high red meat consumption to obesity, type-2 diabetes, a variety of cancers and heart disease. Other studies point to increased risk of cancer among those who consume processed meat. (The American Institute for Cancer research recommends that you not eat processed meat at all, including hot dogs and luncheon meat.)

What’s a meat eater to do with all of this information? Eat better meat and less of it. On average we consume double the amount of protein and only a fraction of the fruits and vegetables recommended by government health agencies. So there are many reasons to reduce. Look for naturally raised local meat, grass-fed beef, and organic eggs and dairy products. It’s more expensive but if you eat less overall it will be more affordable. 

View the full report 

Seasonal food on the "Dirty Dozen" list

My family is crazy about local berries, so much so that by the end of blueberry season more than half of our freezer space is filled with dozens of bags of strawberries, raspberries and a good 60 pounds of blueberries. We enjoy local berries all year long in smoothies, muffins and galettes.

The challenge with local berries is that it’s nearly impossible to find organic. Farmer Brown’s in Bloomfield has a strawberry and a small raspberry u-pick and at local markets you can often find a few boxes of berries that haven’t been sprayed. Bates U-pick on Belleisle Bay sprays their strawberry plants but they don’t spray once the fruit has started to form so the pesticide residue would be lower than conventionally grown strawberries where the fruit is sprayed for pests and fungus. Organic blueberries are scarce.

Since we go through so many berries we usually buy what we can organic, or at least not sprayed and then top up with conventionally grown berries.

This season we’ll put up fewer blueberries, in favour of more raspberries and strawberries. We love blueberries but have found that domestic blueberries are now in the “Dirty Dozen”, a list of the 12 fruits and vegetables that have the highest pesticide residue. (Strawberries are on the list as well but more naturally grown strawberries are accessible locally).

The “Dirty Dozen” list is compiled annually by Environmental Working Group (EWG), a non-profit organization in the US that researches and reports on environmental issues. For this report EWG analyzes pesticide residue testing data from the US Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration and then ranks the produce accordingly.

To help consumers make sense of the data, EWG has categorized the produce by worst and best. The Dirty Dozen are the 12 fruits and vegetables with the highest pesticide residue; the Clean 15 are those fruits and vegetables with the lowest pesticide residue.

Here’s the “Dirty Dozen”, beginning with the worst: apples, celery, strawberries, peaches, spinach, nectarines – imported, grapes – imported, sweet bell peppers, potatoes, blueberries – domestic, lettuce, kale/collard greens.

On the bright side, there is a great selection of produce with low pesticide residue. The “Clean 15”, beginning with the lowest in pesticide residue, are: onions, sweet corn, pineapples, avocado, asparagus, sweet peas, mangoes, eggplant, cantaloupe – domestic, kiwi, cabbage, watermelon, sweet potatoes, grapefruit, mushrooms.

The idea is to eat organic (or naturally grown) versions of the dirty dozen and reduce your consumption of this produce when organic isn’t available (like we’ll do with blueberries). Environmental Working Group points out that the health benefits of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables outweigh the risks of pesticide exposure so you find the balance that works for your family.

To search organic producers in the province visit the Atlantic Canadian Organic Regional Network at http://www.acornorganic.org/. And at u-picks and farmer’s markets ask growers if they use natural growing practices. You’ll find that many don’t spray.

Eco-friendly picnics and backyard barbeques

Outdoor entertaining, everyday family dinners al fresco and picnics at the beach are some of the great pleasures of summer. There’s something about being outside, among nature, that makes a meal taste better, a gathering more enjoyable, an outing especially memorable.

So why then does all of the outdoor enjoyment often lead to a lot of unnecessary trash and generally eco-unfriendly behaviour?

Companies in the business of making disposable items seem to target summer with gusto. If you so choose, you could buy a whole party worth of items that are completely disposable and at the end of the evening roll up everything but the guests and dump it in the trash, all in the name if simple summer entertaining.

But simple entertaining and outdoor enjoyment in general don’t need to be of the single use variety. You can soak up summer and be green. Here’s how.

To begin, follow this general rule: choose reusable before compostable and compostable before recyclable and avoid anything that is single use.

Use everyday plates, cups and cutlery instead of disposable. Plastic cutlery isn’t recyclable so has to go in the trash. Instead, invest in an inexpensive set of reusable cutlery for picnics and back yard entertaining. Biodegradable cutlery is available but can’t be composted so has to go in the trash and compostable cutlery is usually single use and expensive so the better option is still reusable.

If you’re not comfortable using your regular dishes outside consider investing in few outdoor dishes that can fall off the deck without a worry. Enameled camping-style dishes are indestructible and available at hardware stores. Sturdy plastic plates are a second option. Watch the plastic content though (choose food-grade plastic numbers 1, 2, 4 or 5) and avoid plastic that isn’t graded or is stamped with the numbers four or seven.

If you go with disposable plates choose paper instead of Styrofoam or plastic since they can go in the compost. Also, choose a brand with recycled content (post-consumer recycled is best). Another reason to avoid Styrofoam and plastic: putting hot food straight from the barbeque onto plastic or Styrofoam could leach chemicals into your food.

For cups choose enameled cups, sturdy plastic reusable cups, or compostable cups. The Bio-Life brand at Shoppers Drug Mart is made of vegetable compounds and is compostable.

I concede that paper napkins are a reasonable option for outdoor entertaining but again look for brands that contain recycled content and make sure they go in the compost not the trash.

You can make your food more eco-friendly too. Instead of packaged, processed meat consider buying locally-produced meat (visit http://www.acornorganic.org/ and search farmers or visit Kuinshoeve Meat in Rothesay for naturally raised local meat) and load up on locally grown fruits and vegetables as they come into season.

Since no outdoor meal is complete without a bevy of salads, make your dressing from scratch. Click here for some recipes for my favourite homemade dressings along with a few summer salad recipes like roasted vegetable pasta salad and roasted sweet potato salad with orange vinaigrette.

Another bread recipe for busy people

This is a great bread recipe for busy people because you can let the dough sit in the fridge for a few days, punching it down every 12 hours or so. Try mixing it up at bedtime and baking it the next evening. Also, you can fiddle with the types of flour...try half whole white and half whole grain (or whole wheat)

Everyday bread:

1 t yeast

1 t sugar

1 1/3 c warm water

2 t oil

1 t salt

3 3/4 c flour (divided)

In a large bowl combine the sugar and water, stir, then sprinkle over the yeast (let bubble away for about 10 min). In a separate bowl combine the salt and 3 cups of the flour. When the yeast is ready add the flour to the yeast mixture along with the oil and mix.

Add more of the flour until you can't mix anymore and then turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead in the rest of the flour. Place in a lightly greased bowl, cover with a plate or in a grocery bag and put it in the fridge until you have time to deal with it (8-12 hours).

When you’re ready to bake:

Remove dough fridge, punch it down and shape into a loaf (think Italian loaf shape). Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and let rise for about 1-1 ½ hours. Bake at 500 for 9 minutes and then turn the heat down to 350 for another 25-30 minutes.

Five-minute bread

This simple bread recipe comes from the book "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" by Jeff Hertzberg & Zoe Francois. The book is a great guide to fitting homemade bread into busy lives.

Basic bread
(these quantities can be cut in half for a half batch)

3 cups lukewarm water
1 ½ tablespoons regular yeast
1 to 1 ½ tablespoons coarse salt (the recipe calls for 1 ½ but I have cut it back
6 ½ cups whole white or white flour (one cup can be whole wheat or multigrain)


• Warm the water slightly (to a little warmer than body temperature). Add the yeast and salt to the water. Give it a stir and add the flour, mixing until it is completely incorporated. You’ll end up with a wet, shaggy dough.

• Scrape it into a plastic, food grade container with a lid and let it sit on the counter for a couple of hours. By this time it’s ready to use but the dough will be easier to work with once it has been refrigerated for a while.

• You can either bake the bread on a pizza stone (recommended for best results) or on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.

• Sprinkle an un-sided cookie sheet with cornmeal (so it will slide easily onto the pizza stone).

• To make your bread, sprinkle the surface of the dough with flour, and pull up and cut off a grapefruit-sized clump of dough. Shape it into to a ball by gently stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter turn as you go. (You can add a little more flour as needed during this, so the dough doesn’t stick to your hands). It should take less than a minute to shape.

• Set the ball on the cornmeal-covered cookie sheet and let it sit for 40 minutes (You can cover it at this point, but it isn’t necessary).

• Twenty minutes before baking preheat the oven to 450 with the pizza stone placed on the middle rack.

• When you’re ready to bake the dough, dust the top lightly with flour and slash it with a serrated knife (only a surface cut).

• Slide the dough onto the pizza stone (if using) or place the cookie sheet in the oven. On a lower rack place a baking pan filled with a cup of hot water. (This creates steam that helps a nice crust form).

• Bake for 30 minutes and cool on a rack.

A loaf of bread shouldn't be immortal

I have always thought that making your own bread is the kitchen equivalent of living off-grid. Not only does it feel like the ultimate in self sufficiency, there is great satisfaction in creating something so fundamental with our own hands. And few things are more delicious or comforting than a slice of still-warm bread spread with a bit of butter. If you need convincing to give it a try there are other reasons to consider making your own bread, especially if you eat it a lot.

You may have noticed that much regular grocery store bread can sit on the counter a very long time without a hint of mould. You might also have noticed that the ingredient list for bought bread is a lot longer than the traditional water, flour, yeast and salt. A variety of engineered sugars and preservatives have turned your average loaf of bread into an immortal foodstuff. Even the wholesome-looking loaves at in-store bakeries can be packed full of a dozen or more additives.

Bread should be a very nutritional food. After all, stone ground flour has a substantial protein content, B vitamins and lots of fibre. But unless your bread says 100% whole grain chances are it’s made from refined white flour that nutritionally isn’t much different, or better, than white sugar.

Independent bakeries usually have healthier bread, especially if they bake from scratch with stone ground flour (look for the Speerville Flour Mill sign or ask if they use Speerville flour, or another stone ground product).

I dislike processed foods loaded with additives and rarely get to independent bakeries so make a lot of bread. It’s one of those things that, once you’re in the habit doesn’t seem like a big deal. But I know for most the idea of making your own bread can be as daunting as it is appealing.

Making bread the traditional way, that is. Happily I recently came across a method for making homemade bread that is as simple as baking cookies. It’s from the book titled “Artisan bread in five minutes a day”, a practical, easy-to-follow guide to making traditional loaves in a non-traditional way: no proofing the yeast, no kneading, no punching down. While some if the tasks of traditional bread making are gratifying in their own way, you need time to take pleasure in the process.

This five-minute method is simple: Mix up the dough (yeast, salt, flour and water), leave it in the fridge for up to 10 days. To make your bread, clip off a grapefruit-sized clump of dough, shape it into to a ball, sit it on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 40 minutes then bake it for about half an hour. There are many variations but the principle of simplicity is always the same.

If making homemade bread is on your bucket list, or if you’d simply like to be more self sufficient, search out this book, or visit my blog for the basic recipe and method. (www.bridgetsgreenliving.blogspot.com)