Many people working in the field of nutrition must have been puzzled recently by apparently conflicting press reports of an important study in Aylesbury Young Offenders Institution which showed significant reductions in anti-social behaviour, following provision of dietary supplements of vitamins and minerals. Violent offences fell by almost 40% among those who took nutritional supplements, but there was no significant change among those who took a carefully matched placebo.Yet within a week or so wide press publicity was given to an apparently contradictory study of anti-oxidants on coronary heart disease, cancer, and other chronic disorders. It was stated inbanner headlines that 'Vitamin pills are a waste of time and money'. Most nutritionalists will be familiar with such views from the conventionally minded So, what is the truth?
In fact, both views may be correct, but they are simply not comparable. (Actually, the conclusions drawn by the authors of the negative anti-oxidant study are at variance with many more positive reports in the medical literature).
In the anti-oxidant study, a connection was sought between dietary levels of three anti-oxidant vitamins (E, C, and รข-carotene) and the incidence ofcoronary heart disease etc. No connections were found. And, what is more to the point, no behavioural studies were reported.
On the other hand, the Aylesbury study was concerned exclusively with the effects of diet on behaviour in a prison environment. Moreover, only the three anti-oxidants noted above were studied, whereas over fifteen micro nutrients were used at Aylesbury. It is clear that the negative results from the anti-oxidant project were irrelevant to the strongly positive findings at Aylesbury.
The key findings from the Aylesbury study were that young criminals in jail behave better and commit significantly fewer offences, includingviolence, when their diet is moderately supplemented with essential vitamins, minerals and fatty acids. The effects were found in prisoners who showed no signs or symptoms of malnutrition.
A major aspect of the Aylesbury study is the meticulous attention paid to statistical analysis of the results.Professor Copas, the Home Office's statistical reviewer, stated as follows: ‘This is the only trial I have ever been involved with from the social sciences which is designed properly and witha good analysis'
Follow-up studies are being planned, but it is already evident that the authors of the Aylesbury work may have identified one of the most important yet neglected factors inhuman affairs.
Thus the findings at Aylesbury would appear to have far-reaching implications. Behaviour covers a wide range of human activities beyond crime. This includes education, mental health, economics, politics and the administration of public affairs: and even the perennial philosophical problems of good and evil, right and wrong. You can't get much more fundamental than that!
Nothing in this review should be taken to suggest that faulty nutrition acts on its own. Social and genetic factors would have to be considered in any broader review of behavioural phenomena. It is the past neglect of these to which the Aylesbury findings so compellingly draw attention.
Professor. D. Bryce-Smith
(GGA Honorary advisor)
For further information see C.B. Gesch et al, Br. J. Psychiatry, 2002, 181, 22-28:
New Scientist, 2002, 16th November, PP. 3, 38-41
I can't wait to get started this year for not only a new growing season awaits but also new opportunities are emerging and this is exciting.March and April are the great planting months - especially for those, like me, who plant straight into the garden rather than bring on lots of seedlings in the greenhouse (I’m always going to but never quite get round to it in time). Unless the ground has warmed up nicely I find that the effort of early planting is almost always wasted, unless you have cloches or use fleece. There are very few seedlings that enjoy cold wet conditions and, although we are always longing for the new seasons vegetables, as long as it’s not left too late, most plants are not far behind their early, carefully nursed counterparts. Having said that, don’t leave it much later to plant onion sets. I always cover the onion bed (best in an open, sunny position and just wide enough to be able to reach the middle from either side without treading on it) with fleece as soon as it’s planted to avoid the problem of birds pulling them out as soon as my back’s turned and leave it in place until the shoots are well through. It doesn’t matter if the green shoots get a bit crinkled - they straighten up as soon as the fleece comes off. Or you can clip the tips off the sets before planting so they don’t show. Just be gentle with the sets when you plant them - make sure the soil is soft so the root end doesn’t get damaged when you put them into the ground. Unless you want show sized onions, plant them fairly close together - 3" each way apart, with their tips just showing, in a double row with 12" between each pair of rows is plenty - and once they start to swell put your hoe away and hand weed - the roots are very near the surface and hoeing will almost certainly break some of them off - Bob Flowerdew says a few weeds later in the season will help to take up spare moisture and nutrients, particularly nitrogen and the onions will keep better. If the odd one or two start to flower pull up and use straight away. I used to think that onions had to be ripe before they could be used until I used my common sense and thought about spring onions.
There is new thinking on whether the tops should be turned down when the onions have finished growing - mid August or early September depending on where you are and what sort of summer you’ve had - and it’s time to encourage them to ripen. Since the tops will fall over anyway I like to tidy up the bed and have nice orderly rows. When the tops have wilted well just pull the bulbs up so that air can circulate underneath them for a few days and on a nice dry day bring them in to finish drying. I used to make strings which look very nice but now I keep them on a sunny bench in the greenhouse (since not much else is occupying the space in mine during the winter) and I find they keep much better. If that isn’t an option then keep them in nets or strings in the garage or potting shed.
I started growing autumn sets a couple of years ago and am pleased with those. They mature in June, though I use a few straight from the ground when the previous years’ main crop has come to an end, and now almost never have to buy an onion. This gives me a great deal of pleasure when I see onions in the supermarket that have been flown in from South America though I also feel dismayed. I can’t remember us being onionless years ago before we started jetting in vegetables from all round the world and I’m sure we could be self sufficient again.
Shallots can be treated in the same way, though of course more space needs to be left for them to spread - about 9" between plants. I find it quite curious that although I grow good onions I never manage to start them off from seed, and find spring onions very difficult. They just don’t want to germinate in my ground at any time of the year. Leeks are no problem though. I usually leave some to flower and find by now that I have a nice little patch of seedlings, often in a gravel path, waiting to be transplanted for a summer crop, harvested when they are still quite thin and the flavour gentle. Just cook whole in butter. Next winters crop will be started off in a pot, (a 4" square one will give enough seedlings for most needs) and be ready to be planted out in June.
Though I really think autumn planting is best it’s not too late to plant garlic. The bulbs will be smaller but still worth having. If you are short of space, or even if you’re not, tuck them in near the roses where they will help to ward off aphids. And finally chives, which no garden should be without. Clumps can be divided now and make an attractive edge for a border, especially if they are allowed to flower. They also grow very happily in pots. By the way, don’t try growing anything in the onion family near beans and peas. They hate each other but they’ll be fine with brassicas, beetroot, tomatoes and lettuce and may help to protect these against slugs and snails.
by Barbara Adams
GGA Member
I listen to the news less and less these days but when I do I hear article after article talking about or related to nutrition and sustainable development. The latest and most recent concerns the second generation of GM crops which are to be nutritionally enhanced - The GM community is trying to grow food for nutrition!The method described here is a permaculture inspired 'sheet mulch' technique, which has worked very effectively on my heavy Cheltenham clay. This method of 'breaking in' weedy or grassed areas, actually creates good soil above the original level, rather like nature does on the forest floor, without any disturbance to the soil. Worms and micro-organisms are left to do their job, to create healthy living soil, and the electro-magnetic fields of the earth are left undisturbed by metal tools. What's more, this is the perfect time to start planning your no-dig beds since you will need time to gather the following unused resources (otherwise considered 'waste' to the system) before you start planting about April.
What you will need is:
1) Thick sheets of cardboard eg. large brown cardboard boxes
2) Enough manure and home grown compost to cover your bed 6"- 8" (Even half rotted manure or really rough compost will do as you're not digging in. Whatever's free or cheap and local!)
3) Enough straw, garden shreddings or lawn mowings to give at least 6" layer.
4) Seed potatoes
5) Long sharp serrated knife (old bread carvers are perfect)
6) Bucket of good compost
Now before you turn the page, this is a lot easier to gather than you think. The amount of large brown cardboard boxes destined for landfill is criminal. Ask at any retailer, especially appliance shops, look out on dustbin day, put the word out to friends and neighbours, and in a few weeks you'll be inundated!
Manure is cheap and plentiful. Riding stables usually let you have it free if you bag it yourself. You'll need about a large bag or barrow load per metre square, so work out your beds first and guesstimate. If you can get compost, so much the better but that is usually in short supply and expensive. I have emptied my half decomposed heaps to make a sheet mulch bed to good end.
Straw is often for sale cheaply - I think the most I've paid is £5.00 for a large bale, but in the spring we're coming to the end of the season. Alternatives are shredding's and grass mowing's, or I even cut the spring couch for hay (don't let it seed though).
Method
Right, so you find all this stuff and select a suitable warm spring day (not too much wind is helpful when manhandling large sheets of cardboard!) and you make a start. First slash or squash down the weeds a bit if very high, and damp down if very dry. Cover the area of your beds (any shape you like, just cut the cardboard to fit with your serrated knife) with a double thickness of card (ie, boxes folded flat) and at least eight inches overlap to stop the light. If starting on lawn, don't remove the turf just lay cardboard on top. Cover this with compost or manure or mixture thereof to about six inches, eight if you have enough.
You then cut a criss-cross through the cardboard and lay a potato on the soil/weeds underneath, surround with a handful of good compost and cover over with the manure. Place potatoes about 18" apart, there's no need for spaces between rows (or even rows) as you will not be mounding up. The closer you space, the less your yield will be but the greater the light exclusion and weed suppression, which is the primary reason for this sheet mulch technique.
After you've sown all your spuds, cover the whole lot with a good clean layer of straw etc to stop summer weeds setting in the manure and to provide another light barrier to protect the potatoes from going green and allow the worms to do their job. You may want to keep adding fresh mulch in the summer I chuck on anything - weeds, kitchen green waste, mowings to ensure no light gets in.
Results
By end of July/August/September according to your potato variety, you can start pulling your spuds -literally. Pull the haulms and you will find the potatoes nestling in the layer of rich compost that has formed from the good nitrogen/carbon mix of the mulch. Amazingly, I have found that any surviving perennial weeds (some will come through the card eventually, try not to worry but pull off any bind weed as it emerges) will have their roots running along this nutrient-rich layer and can easily be pulled up with the spuds. In my experience best results occur if you sheet mulch areas which have been previously covered in carpet for a whole growing season, but this isn't essential.
Your yield may be smaller than normal (not always I've found) but you will have a lovely dark brown veggie bed ready for planting with winter crop seedlings such as brassicas or leeks, or sowing with autumn broad beans or an over-wintering green manure, rather than compacted lawn or weedy scrub. Potatoes are perfect for breaking in new ground in this way as they love the acidy manure and the tubers help the worms break up the soil, but I have also grown jerusalem artichokes, broad beans, and sweetcorn and courgettes in this way. (Tip - very large transplanted plants help deter slugs which prefer the young fresh growth)
by Alison Ensor
How I wonder does our current reliance on so few foods play into our human development? Wheat has been a narrowing staple, with only a few varieties supplying a huge proportion of our diet, so that a child going to school with a couple of weetabix inside them, a cheese sandwich in their lunchbox and a bowl of pasta at teatime is considered to be eating a healthy diet. What on earth the vast quantities of corn syrup and oil saturating the American fast food lifestyle, is doing to the human mind, let alone our bodies, is terrifying to think.
Food as in all aspects of human life at the moment – economics, politics, religion - is splitting into two opposing polarities. On one hand there’s ‘unconscious’ food; highly processed, refined wheat and sugar, high meat and dairy, where the consumer is unaware of the origin, oblivious to the farming methods, unconcerned with the nutritional content or even the taste.
On the other hand there’s a growing awareness about food as seen in the organic movement, but which is much more than just that. It’s a conscious choice towards food with integrity, for ‘authentic’ food. True nourishment is food, not only grown without chemicals, but food with ethical significance. The rise of small local producers, farmers markets selling seasonal quality food, even the likes of TV chefs like Rick Stein, Gary Rhodes and Jamie Oliver esteeming regional quality produce (rather than unseasonal and exotic), this is all part of the growing reaction to the unconscious consumption of the average supermarket shopper.
Food integrity has a huge number of connotations. Here’s a few I thought of but I’m sure you can think of more.
Together all these things give food a wholesome authenticity. On the other side of the food polarity is an industry growing, producing and marketing a commodity purely for profit, playing on consumer laziness, addiction and advertising vulnerability (our children!) to maximise gain, whilst calling it market choice.
But here’s the crux of the matter. We do have a choice. And people are choosing authentic food in increasing numbers and in so doing they are choosing a better world to live in because of the social, political, economic and environmental implications of all the ethical standpoints listed above.
Growing your own is often cited here as one of the most environmentally sound practices you can do. Think of the knock-on effect it can have on your own life – fresh healthy food, exercise and fresh air, less shop bought produce with all its fossil fuel additional costs (and depressing time spent in trolley wheeling!), the pleasure of giving away surplus to friends and neighbours, those satisfying taste tests, and that fulfilling feeling when you look at your plate and can say “I grew that…and that…and that!”. The world’s a better place already.
And if you can’t grow yourself, local organic box schemes are flourishing, giving the distributors and local organic farmers a living. That’s an economic and environmental bonus over and above your own family’s healthy diet. Then there’s the growth in community allotments, giving disadvantaged people access back to the land and lost skills, and there’s community supported agriculture. In CSA farms, the local community pays up front for a share in the produce and helps out the farmer on a certain number of workdays each year. Like times of old when everyone helped out with the harvest, or came together to put up a barn. Interestingly the United States is the primary CSA farming country. Suddenly true community, sharing and trust are the knock on effects of food with integrity. Earth care, people care, fair share – the three permaculture principles for sustainability.
We are what we eat is a much used adage, but one that is significant on many levels, as the best words of wisdom usually are. I suppose the conclusion to be drawn is that rather than our food sources being a guiding force behind our human development as perhaps in the past, now it is our consciousness that could be directing the food we will be eating in the future. Food will take on another dimension as more and more people wake up. ‘Not costing the earth’ and ‘part of the solution not the problem’ are inspiring phrases to help us get food with integrity firmly in our psyche.
Soul food is food that nourishes more than our bodies. It warms us with cultural identity, with ‘like granny used to make’ comfort, like ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ spiritual connection to something bigger than ourselves that gives life meaning. Soul food will be our future, our children’s future and our planet’s future. Let’s all make Vegetable Soup for the human Soul.
by Alison Ensor
Posts
All Comments
