Exploring a beautiful, 23 year old food forest in New Zealand (Video)

I've asked this before—but having toured many permaculture gardens and food forests in my time, I've often had one big question: Can you really establish a satisfying, nutritious diet from the hodge-podge mixture of herbs, fruits, nuts and perennial vegetables that seem to make up the mainstay of such plantings?

So this latest offering from the ever fabulous Happen Films is particularly welcome. Exploring the beautiful-looking, 23-year-old, 2-acre food forest created by Robert and Robyn Guyton on the South Island of New Zealand, the video is worth watching just for the sheer beauty of what a mature food forest can look like. But I'm also struck by Robert and Robyn's insights on how to approach forest gardening—namely by letting go, letting the system evolve of its own accord, and applying a light touch in terms of management and "editing".

Robert also touches on the very topic that has always had me skeptical: to eat primarily from a forest garden, you have to learn to adapt to what nature offers you. You're not going to find six heads of perfect lettuce on any one day—but you might rustle up a unique salad of wild and unusual vegetables. According to Robyn, the couple get about 70% of their food from the land. Which is pretty damn good.

Read more here.

Vegetarian and vegan diets good for kids and adults, nutritionists say

(Reuters Health) - - Plant-based diets are tied to a lower risk of health problems like heart disease, diabetes, obesity and certain cancers - and pretty much anyone can eat this way, according to a leading group of nutritionists.

Vegetarian and vegan diets are appropriate for all stages of life, including during infancy, pregnancy, childhood, adolescence and old age, the authors write in a position statement from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

That's because people who adopt a plant-based diet tend to consume more fruits and vegetables, fewer sweets and salty snacks, and smaller amounts of total and saturated fats, the statement, published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, asserts.

The trick is to make sure these diets are well planned out and well balanced, said Vandana Sheth, a registered dietitian nutritionist and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

"Any diet that is not well planned and balanced can have negative side effects," Sheth said by email.

"Just because foods are plant based doesn't automatically make them healthy," Sheth added. "For instance, pastries, cookies, fried and salty foods may be vegan but don't really provide much in terms of nutritional value."

For younger vegetarians and vegans in particular, it's important to plan meals that include enough iron, zinc, vitamin B-12, and for some, calcium and vitamin D, Sheth said.

Read more here.

Re-discovering Perennial Vegetables

As the days lengthen and the sun grows stronger, many of us are champing at the bit to get our gardens started. Seed catalogues are being pored over, dog-eared, and circled, and some folks may have even begun to order vegetable seeds in preparation for early starts indoors. Although annual edibles like tomatoes and lettuce are favored by many, you might like to look into some perennial vegetables as well: they only require one season’s worth of time and effort to establish them, and you’ll be rewarded with delightful edibles forever.

Benefits of Perennial Vegetable Gardening

If you’ve done any sort of gardening in the past, you’re probably well familiar with the process of starting seeds indoors, prepping soil, moving seedlings outside to harden them, planting them in the soil itself, and then the eventual harvest of both the mature vegetable/fruit and any seeds that have formed. When it comes to perennial gardens, you only have to do all of that once, and the plants will just keep coming back year after year. Doesn’t that sound splendid?

Perennial crops can also help to build, or at the very least improve the quality of your soil: they don’t need to be tilled, so they keep the mycelial culture and soil structure intact, they increase aeration and water absorption, and their natural decomposition cycles as they drop leaves and die back every year creates a natural compost and topsoil.

Below are a few perennial vegetables that you might be interested in. It’s not a complete list, as there are many different permanent edible plants growing all over the world, but these are probably familiar to most people, and can be found/purchased fairly easily.

Read more here.

Study links diet soda to weight gain

Researchers want people to stop obsessing over calorie counts and start considering the effects certain foods have on our bodies.

Forget diet soda. If you’re going to drink a soda, then you should drink a regular one. A new study from the National Institute on Aging and the National Institutes of Health in Baltimore, Maryland, has found that, contrary to what many people think, diet sodas are not conducive to weight loss. In fact, they make it more likely for a person to gain weight than if they were to drink ordinary soda.

The study analyzed data from 1,454 participants in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, collected between 1984 and 2012. After correcting for various lifestyle factors, including smoking, exercise, ethnicity, gender, diet, and diabetes, researchers found a correlation between body size measurements, obesity levels, and diet soda consumption.

Read more here.

Scotland’s First Eco-Village for the Homeless Will Offer Education Too

Scotland will begin construction of its first eco-village for the homeless in 2017 with its residents moving in by the summer.

The Edinburgh village will contain 10 tiny homes that can house up to 20 people for 12 months each. Since it costs the city council about $21,200 annually to provide one person with housing and food at shelters, the village is expected to save the government $250,000 a year.

Each house will cost roughly $35,000 to build, but their design offers a safe, transportable, and energy-efficient environment for its residents to break the vicious cycle of homelessness.

Read more here.

European Union Parliament votes for a European Army

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Not so long ago when this was being muted by some of us we were being defamed as conspiracy theorists and such, and even in some of the British “mainstream” media after the BREXIT vote and once again we have been proven right, it would seem.

On Thursday, November 24, 2016, the EU Parliament approved the establishment of the so-called European Defense Union. While it may, actually, not be called an EU Army, or European Army, but a European Defense Union it is nothing but an Army and not defensive but offensive – in more words than one – in the same way as NATO was never designed to be a defensive organization but one geared for attack.

An, lo and behold, even the German left party, the one that claims to have its roots in the SED which then became the PDS, Die Linke, is backing this nefarious plan for a European Army, or so it would appear. If that is the case then the Die Linke has shown that it is no longer – if it ever was – grounded in socialism and communism but that it is, like all the others, a neoliberal outfit.

One of the proponents and advocates in that party for an EU-Army appears to be a man called Stefan Liebich who claims in his Wikipedia entry that he was approached at age thirteen by the Ministry of State Security (Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit - MfS) to work for them (later) as an official operative. He is an active Member of the Atlantik-Brücke, and he is also a member of the Bundesbeauftragter für die Stasi-Unterlagen (BstU). That all should explain a lot, not just about him but of where the supposedly socialist party, Die Linke, is actually located.

The idea for an EU Army, aka Defense Union, is not new and has been stalking the corridors of Brussels for many years. Until now, however, it would appear that Britain managed to block and stifle any advancement of this idea. Those that always voted with Britain in the European Parliament against this now, after the referendum in the UK for leaving the EU seem to have gone a different route and, it would appear, they are gleefully rubbing their hands that the country that used to be throwing spanners into the works of this has now got virtually no say anymore.

Aside from the fact that this so-called European Defense Union is, more or less, a duplication of NATO, but with a couple of fewer members, it will cost the taxpayers in the EU member states, no doubt, dearly and that on top of the costs of stationing US and other NATO country forces in the various countries.

Not that the ordinary pleb in those countries had any say in the decision for the establishment of such a standing European Army. They were kept out of the loop entirely, as is the common practice of EU democracy, where the elite decides, and not the people of the member states, now, more or less, degraded to nothing more than EU regions. The serfs are just the ones allowed to pay with money, sweat and ultimately blood.

© 2016

America’s first sustainable urban agrihood is growing in Detroit

This week, the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative (MUFI) revealed its plans for the first Sustainable Urban Agrihood in the North End.

Wait, an agrihood? It’s an alternative neighborhood growth model, positioning agriculture as the centerpiece of a mixed-use development. There are some agrihoods around the country, but in rural areas. This is the first within a city.

MUFI’s agrihood spans three acres on Brush Street, a few blocks up from East Grand Boulevard. MUFI runs a successful two-acre garden, a 200-tree fruit orchard, and a children’s sensory garden. They provide free produce to the neighborhood, churches, food pantries, and more.

Read more here.

Two-wheel takeover: bikes outnumber cars for the first time in Copenhagen

Denmark’s capital has reached a milestone in its journey to become a cycling city – there are now more bikes than cars on the streets. Can other cities follow?

Bicycle sensors in Copenhagen clocked a new record this month: there are now more bikes than cars in the heart of the city. In the last year, 35,080 more bikes have joined the daily roll, bringing the total number to 265,700, compared with 252,600 cars.

Copenhagen municipality has been carrying out manual traffic counts at a number of city centre locations since 1970, when there were 351,133 cars and 100,071 bikes. In 2009, the city installed its first electric bike counter by city hall, with 20 now monitoring traffic across the city.

Copenhagen’s efforts to create a cycling city have paid off: bicycle traffic has risen by 68% in the last 20 years. “What really helped was a very strong political leadership; that was mainly Ritt Bjerregaard [the former lord mayor], who had a dedicated and authentic interest in cycling,” says Klaus Bondam, who was technical and environmental mayor from 2006 to 2009 and is now head of the Danish Cycling Federation. “Plus, a new focus on urbanism and the new sustainability agenda broke the glass roof when it came to cycling.”

Read more here.

Saving Seeds: 7 Reasons Why and Dozens of Tips for How

Saving seeds can help gardeners save money, grow better crops and become more self-reliant. Learn all about saving vegetable seeds.

When you save your own seeds, you are joining a chain of farmers, gardeners and seed savers that dates back to the Stone Age. All domestic crops were once wild plants that early humans selected to feed themselves or, later, their livestock. Today, gardeners save seeds for many reasons.

1. Money Savings. Every time you buy a seed variety, you invest in your future. For example, I just bought some expensive ‘Midori Giant’ soybean seed, and I feel better about the high price tag because I know I’ll have the variety as long as I continue saving seeds from my plants. (With soybeans, you simply let the last picking dry on the plant and you have next year’s seed.)

2. Seed Security. Hundreds of excellent plant varieties have been discontinued as big corporations have consolidated the seed industry and focused on more profitable hybrids. If you save your own seed, however, you control the supply. I save seed for ‘Miragreen’ and ‘Blizzard’ peas, ‘Lutz Green Leaf’ beets, and ‘Scarlet Keeper’ carrots because these varieties all grow well here in Maine but have become difficult to find in seed catalogs.

3. Regional Adaptation. This is where saving vegetable seeds can get exciting. Most commercially available seed has been selected because it performs fairly well across the entire country if given synthetic fertilizers. (Several companies now offer seeds selected specifically to perform well in organic conditions — but this isn’t the norm.) When you save seed from the best-performing plants grown on your own land and with your unique cultural conditions, you gradually develop varieties that are better adapted to your soil, climate and growing practices.

Read more here.

Less than 5% of UK parents can spot symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning

PRESS RELEASE

Children brought the risks of carbon monoxide to life by drawing what they thought the deadly gas would look like if it wasn’t invisible

• Shocking new research reveals the risks some UK families are taking when it comes to carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning

• More than a third of UK homes (33.9%) aren’t fitted with a CO alarm - approximately 9 million homes

• Only 6% of Brits can identify the most common symptoms of CO poisoning

• One in 10 UK parents wrongly think you can smell a CO leak

• Only half the UK (51.5%) know that a solid fuel or gas fire can be a potential cause of CO poisoning

• One in 10 private renters (9.7%) who should legally have a CO alarm, haven’t had one fitted

For this year’s Carbon Monoxide Awareness Week, which ran from November 21 to November 27, npower has released findings from its annual carbon monoxide (CO) research to highlight how at risk the UK could be from CO poisoning. The results show there is a clear disparity between the UK’s awareness of CO poisoning and the UK’s actual understanding of what the symptoms are, which appliances can be a cause and also what people should do if they suspect they are suffering from CO poisoning.

The research also sheds light on how British parents could be worryingly underprepared to spot cases of CO poisoning. Despite 95 per cent of UK parents (95.3%) saying they know CO poisoning can be fatal, less than five per cent (4.3%) are actually able to correctly identify the most common symptoms.

Dizziness, headaches, nausea and vomiting, tiredness and confusion, stomach pain, shortness of breath and difficulty breathing are the most common symptoms of CO poisoning. But, one in six people (15.7%) think a metallic taste in your mouth is a symptom and one in five (17.3%) think a fever would be a symptom. Further cause for concern is that one in eight of us (11.6%) wrongly think you can smell a CO leak, and one in 10 Brits (10.2%) admit they would have absolutely no idea how to identify a CO leak.

Each year in the UK over 200 people are admitted to hospital with suspected CO poisoning and around 50 people die unnecessarily from it. This new research suggests people in the UK are unaware of what the symptoms of CO poisoning are, so the true number of people affected could potentially be much higher.

Carbon monoxide is completely invisible, it has no smell and no taste, so the only definitive way to detect a leak is with a CO alarm, but despite this only two thirds of UK homes (59.2%) have one installed. The top three reasons people gave to justify not having a CO alarm were: ‘I’ve never had one before’ (28.3%), ‘It’s on my to-do list, I just haven’t done it yet’ (28.1%) and ‘I don’t think I need one’ (22.5%).

RAISING AWARENESS

Following the results from the research, six children brought the risks of carbon monoxide to life by drawing what they thought the deadly gas would look like if it wasn’t invisible. A group of talented designers then interpreted the children’s drawings to create a series of professionally illustrated characters to give the invisible gas an identifiable persona. npower hopes as many people as possible will share the designs to help increase the UK’s awareness of CO poisoning and reduce the number of completely preventable deaths every year. You can see a video of the children drawing their monsters here: The Invisible Carbon Monoxide Monster.

Carbon monoxide is produced when fuels such as gas, oil, coal and wood don't burn fully, so incorrectly installed, poorly maintained or poorly ventilated household appliances like boilers, cookers and fires – both gas and solid fuel, can all be causes of CO poisoning.

Between 1995 and 2015, only 35 per cent of deaths from CO poisoning were actually from mains gas appliances or heating. It was in fact appliances that burn solid fuel, portable gas bottles and, petrol and diesel that represented the majority of the remaining 65 per cent. However, when respondents were asked which household appliances could be a cause of CO poisoning, only half (51.5%) know that a solid fuel or gas fire can be a potential cause.

Matthew Cole, Head of Domestic Policy & Social Energy Action at npower commented: “It’s concerning to see these results from our research as they clearly show there’s a serious gap between awareness of CO poisoning and understanding what the symptoms are, which appliances can be a cause and also what people should do if they suspect they are suffering from CO poisoning. We think there’s a real need for the UK’s understanding to be increased to help reduce the numbers of completely preventable deaths from CO poisoning each year and we hope our budding designers will help to do this.”

The research also shows that almost six per cent (5.9%) of us have never had our boilers serviced, which could be around 1.5 million homes. And, one in 10 people who live in privately rented accommodation (9.7%) who legally should have had a CO alarm fitted by their landlord (because their rented home has an appliance that burns, or is capable of burning solid fuel), do not have one installed.

When respondents were asked what they would do if they thought they were suffering from CO poisoning, only two thirds (69.8%) said they would go to hospital. If you suspect you or someone you know is suffering from CO poisoning, you need to turn off the fuel source and get medical treatment immediately.

For more information about carbon monoxide and to find out how to protect your family, visit: www.npower.com/co-safety.

Research surveyed 2,000 people across the UK (conducted by Census Wide), aged 16 and above. Number of UK households estimated at 27,000,000 (source ONS)

npower (Npower Group plc) is one of Britain’s leading energy companies, and is part of the innogy SE group. We serve around 5.1 million residential and business accounts with electricity and gas (As published in H1 Results 2016).

innogy SE addresses the requirements of a modern, decarbonised, decentralised and digital energy world. The focus of innogy’s activities is on offering existing and potential customers innovative and sustainable products and services which enable them to use energy more efficiently and improve their quality of life.