Blackberries - Three Interesting Tidbits

Blackberries on a Bokchoy leaf. Photo courtesy of PDPhoto.org

When I was a farm kid I looked forward to the 4th of July, not just because of the fireworks, but because I knew that the succulent, tangy, wild blackberries were ready to be liberated from their thorny fortresses. We had huge patches of towering, leafy green blackberry shrubs scattered in the nether regions of the farm. Sweltering in the late afternoon sun, enduring scratches and bug bites, I would triumphantly emerge hours later with a large purple stained bucket full of juicy goodness and a belly satiated with berries. The next day I would make lattice topped blackberry pies for the family to enjoy. I miss the taste of those wild blackberry pies and the freedom of eating the berries by the handfuls.

To celebrate the 4th, here are three interesting tidbits about this tasty berry:

1. Oregon is the top producer of blackberries in the U.S.
2. According to English folklore, you should never pick or eat a blackberry after Oct 10th (St. Michaelmas eve) because the devil either curses, spits, or urinates on them (depending on the version). The idea comes from the story that when the devil was cast out of heaven he landed in a bramble bush and cursed it as he was trying to get out. Every year on the anniversary he spoils the crop. Some speculate that the date has to do with the first frost affecting the taste of the berries.
3. What to attend a blackberry festival (or another favorite berry)? Check out this website: pickyourown.org Right now they have nine blackberry festivals listed, with one in McCloud, OK going on right now.

Have a safe & happy 4th of July, everyone!

X-treme Country Girl

Vegetarians Have Lower Risk of Developing Certain Types of Cancer

A study published in the British Journal of Cancer found that individuals following a vegetarian diet had fewer cancers of the blood, bladder and stomach but not bowel cancer. Over 60,000 British men and women were involved. The participants included meat eaters, pesco-vegetarians and vegetarians.

According to a June 30, 2009 article in the BBC News, "Overall, their results suggested that while in the general population about 33 people in 100 will develop cancer during their lifetime, for those who do not eat meat that risk is reduced to about 29 in 100."

Professor Tim Key, the lead author, cautioned against drawing strong conclusions from this one study, citing that more research is needed. A spokesperson for Cancer Research UK which funded the study echoed the professor's words, stating that the links between diet and cancer risk are complex and need more study.

X-treme Country Girl

Sweet News from Overseas

Dear Dr. Laura,

I am a Family Medicine physician in the US Navy, and I am currently stationed in Iraq with the Marines as part of a Shock Trauma Platoon. This is my first deployment. We have been here for about 4 months and have about 3 months to go.

I recently received a care package from one of my friends that contained your Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Bite-lettes. I had never had them before and they are such a welcome treat! Our base is very small and our food options are very limited. The choices served at our chow hall are all pre-cooked and reheated by either frying or boiling. The limited produce that we have is canned. The few food items sold in our exchange are similar -- reheatable entrees, chips, canned meats, and squirtable cheeses. Also, since I am 1 of 3 females on a base of nearly 500 young men, there is not much clamoring for healthier options.

These bites not only arrived safely in their plastic container after 3 weeks of bouncing around in the mail, they were also still soft and chewy despite 130 degree heat. They are the closest things we've had to home-baking for over 4 months. And I love that you use all natural ingredients without any extra junk-- they taste so wonderful because they're made with wonderful, good things. I feel healthier by eating just 1! Not only are they good for my body, as a fellow doctor, they're good for my conscience. Hopefully a store in the Palm Springs area will start to sell them, so that I can recommend them to my patients, as well as stock up myself.

Thank you so much for enriching my deployment in such a tasty, delightful way!

Your lifelong fan,
Julianne LoMacchio Palumbo, DO
LT MC USN

***********

And thanks to you and your platoon as well for your great service!

Your Friends at Laura's Wholesome Junk Food

Bora Bora- Vanilla beans

Recently Dr. Laura Trice, our Head Cookie Cutter, got the opportunity to visit a vanilla plantation in Bora Bora. Here is a photo of her checking out the vanilla beans. Our Head Cookie Cutter takes a great deal of care when making her all natural cookies, so it was a real treat for her to be able to see the origin of one of the ingredients.

X-treme Country Girl

Food Inc.-Update

If you want to see if Food, Inc. is playing at a theatre near you, go to their website: foodincmovie.com. They have a link where you can check using your zip code. Unfortunately for me, it doesn't seem to be anywhere close to my neck of the woods until mid-July. If you have trouble determining when & where it's going to be playing near you, try this link I found buried at the end of the reading list: theatres. It goes to the Magnolia Pictures play date page for Food, Inc.

They also have a blog, a petition for healthy food choices in schools, a reading list, and more. Check it out!

X-Treme Country Girl

Food Inc.- Worth a Look

Food Inc. is described as a "civilized horror movie" by Director Robert Kenner. He gives us a look behind the giant food companies controlling our food supply.

"NOW" host David Brancaccio filmed a 24 min interview with Robert Kenner (complete with movie excerpts) that is definitely worth watching. Click here to view: NOW on PBS.

This interview is an eye opener. It covers several topics in the movie. For instance, how the food industry is subsidizing food that makes lower income people sick. If you think it's just about fast food, think again. The film points out how mis-information about cheap unhealthy foods (candy, soda, etc.) at grocery stores encourage consumption over more expensive, healthy food (vegetables, etc.). It talks about the debate over labeling, disclosure, & what can even be discussed during interviews. Are you aware that there are "veggie libel laws" designed to keep people from disparaging a food product? According to Kenner, "It's illegal to damage the profits of a corporation by talking about food." Kenner also discusses how we are "denied the right to know what's in our food & we are being discouraged from talking about it."

Food Inc. is set to come out in select theatres June 12, 2009.

X-treme Country Girl

Gingerbread- 7 Things You Probably Didn't Know You Could Do With Gingerbread

June 5th is National Gingerbread Day, and to celebrate I've pulled together some quirky tidbits for your enjoyment. So here, in no specific order, are Seven Things You Probably Didn't Know You Could Do With Gingerbread (and will now be stuck forever in your head, thanks to me).

1. Make Gingerbread playdoh I found this little gem on http://www.mrsmcgowan.com/CC/gingerbread.htm The recipe is about halfway down the page.
2. Buy yoga-shaped Gingerbread cookies Yep, choose from 10 different yoga positions. They're actually very cute!
3. Dunk Gingerbread cookies in port wine According to Wikipedia, this is a tradition. Anybody know where??
4. Expel the Plague OK- technically it was ginger that was used as a plague medicine, but a few gingerbread cookies count, too, right?
5. Honor your guests with Gingerbread portraits Follow the trend started by Queen Elizabeth I in the 16th century and have fancy gingerbreads created in the likenesses of your guests. Oh, and don't forget to decorate them with cloves dipped in gold.
6. Buy a "Gingerbread Man" term paper Hey, for only $33.95 you can download a term paper on "An analysis of how "The Gingerbread Man" offers an important insight into human development from childhood to adulthood." Don't know about you, but that sounds like an F to me.
7.Start a Gingerbread museum Europe’s only Gingerbread Museum, Muzeum Piernika, in Torun, Poland, boasts a "fully functional 16th century gingerbread factory", where you can participate in the process of making the gingerbread using their 500 year old recipes. Yum!

X-treme Country Girl

Yesterday was Chocolate Chip cookie day, but I've decided I'm going to celebrate it today-I have more time to really enjoy my cookies, and chewy chocolate chip cookies are my favorite cookie of all time. I love the LWJF Oatmeal Chocolate Chip, because it's made with REAL chocolate in the chips-- they are rich, gooey and have NO dairy or white sugar. I don't know about you, but I can taste the difference. Have you ever had chocolate chips that tasted like waxy plastic? I have, & let me tell you, I was not happy. Life is just too short for bad chocolate! Right?

X-treme Country Girl

Naturally Savvy

Naturally Savvy is a great website for natural & organic living, featuring many helpful articles from food & nutrition to family life to naturally green. They also do product reviews, and guess what- we just earned the Naturally Savvy Seal of Approval! Read all about it here at: Naturally Savvy Product Reviews. Thanks, Naturally Savvy!

X-treme Country Girl

Filled Of Dreams Part 2

Like I was telling you in my previous post, this entire idea/trip of marrying our cookies, I mean bite-lettes, with the game of baseball or with the Los Angeles Dodgers was filled with doubts, but driven by dreams. Dreams that MOST young boys /men have about being a big league ballplayer with thousands cheering your every move. It starts early for most just wondering what it was their grandfather/father was listening to on that old Philco radio that was SO static-ie! What was so important about it? And then you noticed the crowd cheer noise and how granddad was nodding in approval. It was a GAME! And people were playing, watching and escaping for 3 hours from the world. It was baseball, spring, flowers, fishing season and the weather finally warming. It has been 45+ years since and STILL I get that same sense every springtime. Renewed possibilities and a sense that ANYTHING can happen.

So I set off to Arizona with my baseball hat, mitt and a whole ton of Laura's Wholesome Junk Food. I ended up sitting with a great bunch of folks from Truckee, CA (which is near my hometown Quincy, CA) and a very cute woman named Allison who worked for Kashi (she was huge fan of LWJF) and might had been a little envious that I was there promoting LWJF and NOT Kashi. Then there was Bill and Kathy from AZ who are retired, yet young enough to thoroughly enjoy their life. Bill had just been informed by his doctor to stay away from refined sugars and gluten. Low and behold, but who sits right smack in front of him with JUST the type of snacks that the doctor ordered? Here I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world and all the while I had made HIS day. He even showed me where to go to get the foulball I caught signed by Maury Wills. Thanks Bill! Watching baseball, sharing wholesome snacks with NEW friends..........how much better could it get? Better, bigger and even more exciting was going to be the order of this trip. That day I made contact with a person with the Dodger organization and told them I wanted to get Laura's Wholesome Junk Food in the clubhouse for the players to try. He told me the AZ clubhouse was a bit hectic and it would be better if I waited for team to return to LA and Dodger Stadium. As I flew back to LA, I had an idea about giving each of the 25 players a personal gift bag that included our bite-lettes.

My idea evolved into a joint venture of LWJF and Whole Foods Markets, which we are in. Tina from Valencia donated 25 reusable shopping bags, Cindy from Arroyo donated 25 notebooks w/ pencil, coupons for free large pizza, Dr. Laura our CEO donated 50 tubs of bite-lettes, an apron for their wife/significant other, and I went out and bought some old baseball cards and put 4 in each. Thank you ALL for being so generous and trusting me! As I drove up to Dodger Stadium to meet my contact and deliver the bags to the clubhouse, I dreamed of selling Laura's Wholesome Junk Food inside the ballpark. The huge Farmer John sign would be replaced by a LWJF sign. And, this stadium would become just the FIRST of many sports stadiums selling our cookies. Then I started dreaming about being a big-league ballplayer and arriving at the clubhouse to begin the work day. Then I started to get nervous. What if the players hated the gift bags, or worse, the cookies?!?!? What if the team went out and lost the same day I delivered bags?!?! I would have to go to the game and root them on to victory. For the good of the company, of course!

Well, I did, and they won! The next day my friend in the clubhouse told me that every one of the guys took their bags home with them that night. Then they went out and won 8 straight games at home. My brother said when Manny Ramirez was batting, he could see a lil cashew butter chocolate cookie crumb on the side of his mouth. I thought I saw a raisin in his dreadlocks! Well, the team is in Houston and lost 2 straight since they departed LA and LWJF. I told my friend I could be on plane with more cookies if needed.

I have a decent history of somehow making dreams come true and this is one of my biggest yet. I'd stay tuned if I were you guys. In 2009 Laura's Wholesome Junk Food is going to make some serious racket!