13LIVINGMay 13 - 26, 2010A FRESH LOOK AT OUR CHANGING WORLD

“We cannot deny the fact that without wheatgrass and the other grasses that cover the earth, the human race could never have survived.”

I read these words from The Wheatgrass Book by Ann Wigmore some 13 years ago and began growing and juicing wheatgrass in my garage and kitchen for years afterwards in pursuit of a more healthy lifestyle.

Regarding the health ben-efits of drinking the chloro-phyll enriched “plant blood,” Wigmore explained that our cells are like “flashlight bat-teries” that hold a charge of electricity.

“In order for this charge to be strong and steady we need to have a steady supply of the proper nutrients, especially the high-quality miner-als, vitamins, enzymes, and amino acids contained in wheatgrass juice,” she wrote.

According to Wigmore, wheatgrass increases red blood-cell count and low-ers blood pressure, cleanses the blood, organs and gas-trointestinal tract of debris, stimulates metabolism and the body’s enzyme systems by enriching the blood, and stimulates the thyroid gland, among a host of other benefits.

It had been some years since I had juiced my own wheatgrass, so to find out what’s being said about it these days I went to a fresh juice and smoothie bar. I was pleasantly surprised to find when I arrived that they were offering free shots of wheatgrass to customers.

I found that serving staff were well versed on the health benefits of the green superfood.

I was told that just 30 g of the stuff is the equivalent to a kilogram of leafy green vegetables since it contains tons of vitamins and miner-als, is known to fight cancer causing agents, helps clear your skin, increases energy and, if drunk regularly, makes you feel all-round healthier.

To buy it ready-made, a shot of wheatgrass can be a little pricey, but viewed

in terms of overall health benefits, it’s worth it. How-ever, growing and making it yourself will save money and takes only a small invest-ment of time each day.

Wheatgrass, the grass of young wheat plants, is best grown indoors and needs little sunlight. Here is what you’ll need to set-up your indoor wheatgrass garden:

Electric or manual 1) juicer (with the ability

to juice wheatgrass)3-5 hard plastic plant-2) ing seed trays with lidsOrganic topsoil and 3) peat moss“Hard” or “winter” 4) wheatberriesGlass jar (for sprout-5) ing), nylon screen mesh (to cover jar and rinse berries), and elastic band (to secure nylon mesh to jar)Water and a little 6)

patience

Growing wheatgrassSprout the seeds in water 1. in the jar for 6 to 12 hours; rinseMix the top soil 50/50 2. with the peat moss and place in the seed trays. The soil mix should be 1 1/2 to 2 inches deep Drain the seeds and 3. spread them over the soil. The seeds may touch each

other but should not over-lap Cover the seeds with a 4. light sprinkling of peat moss The trays should be kept in 5. indirect sunlight for about 7 to 10 days. Continue watering as needed, being careful not to disturb the peat moss and seedsWhen the grass is about 6. 7 inches tall, harvest and juice it

Supplies and growing instructions can be found online or in person by vis-iting your local health food store. The Wheatgrass Book is an easy to read paperback book for anyone interested in nutrition, cleansing, alterna-tive health methods, and of course growing wheatgrass.

Brad Bussche is a writer living in Kelowna, British Columbia.

Wheatgrass – a nutritional powerhouse BY BRAD BUSSCHE

POWER PACK: Chlorophyll enriched wheatgrass and

wheatgrass juice are full of nutrients

BRAD BUSSCE / EPOCH TIMES

Wheatgrass lowers blood pressure, cleanses the blood, stimulates metabolism and boosts the thyroid gland

The world of cheeses Rediscover one of the oldest foods known to man

People often say “cheese” when they smile for the cam-era. But when gourmets say “cheese”, they think about the almost infinite number of cheeses there are in the world. Then they smile.

The number is so great, and the fact that many come from family farms or small co-operatives and never travel outside the village where they are made, makes it almost impossible to know how many different cheeses there are.

Cheese is an ancient food but no-one knows exactly where or when it was first made. It is known to have spread in Europe and was around at the time of the Roman Empire. The process of cheese making is thought to have been discovered acci-dently when milk was stored in a container made from the stomach of an animal and interacted with the rennet there, which turned the milk into curds and whey.

Another beginning for cheese making is likely to have been due to the need to press and salt curdled milk in order to preserve it.

Cheese, which is a complete protein, is now completely established as an important part of the human diet. It is usually made from cow’s milk, but can also be made from sheep and goat’s milk and even from buffalo milk. In Egypt it

is often made from camel milk and in Lapland from reindeer milk. The milk may be raw or pasteurised, sweet or sour, whole, skimmed, or with add-ed cream.

The chief milk protein, casein, is curdled or coagu-lated by the enzyme action of rennet or pepsin, by lactic acid produced by bacterial action, or by a combination of both.

Cheeses come in around 18 varieties. The taste of any par-ticular cheese depends on the kind and condition of the milk used, the process used to make it, and the method and extent of curing.

There are two main types: hard cheese, which usually improves with ageing, and soft cheese, which should be con-sumed soon after it is made. Hard cheeses include ched-dar, Edam and Gouda, as well as Gruyere and parmesan. There are also some semi-hard cheeses such as Roquefort and Stilton. Examples of soft cheeses are cottage cheese, cream cheese, and Brie.

Cheddar is the most well-known cheese in the English-speaking world, with varie-ties ranging from white to deep orange in colour. It is smooth and mild when young, becoming sharper in taste as it matures. Originating in the 16th century village of Ched-dar Gorge in Somerset, this cheese’s name was never pro-tected, so is now produced all over the world, particularly in North America.

It is the microorganisms introduced or permitted to develop in cheese, especially during the ripening process, that give it the distinctive tex-tures and tastes we love. Stil-ton and Gorgonzola, for exam-ple, owe their distinctive blue marbling to moulds. Varieties such as Emmental are ripened by bacteria that produce gas; this gas is trapped inside and makes that cheese’s distinc-tive holes.

There are champion chees-es that set a benchmark of

quality that all cheese makers around the world aspire to. In 2009, at the prestigious World Cheese Awards in the Canary Islands, a cheese from La Maison Alexis de Portneuf in Quebec was named the World Champion. The cheese, Le Cen-drillon, is an ash-covered soft surface ripened coat cheese with “a marble textured rind and a smooth ivory body”.

Cheeses may be as young as 45 days or aged for sev-

eral years, as is the case with some cheddars. A 10-tonne cheddar was made by farmers from Perth in Lanark County, Ontario for the 1893 World Exhibition in Chicago but it ended up over here in a Brit-ish restaurant. It is said that the milk from 10,000 cows was used to make it. This famous cheese was the single most talked about and written about item at the fair and won a bronze medal.

Processed cheese is a blend of young and ripened cheeses of different varieties. The blend is ground, heated with water and up to three per cent of emulsifying salts. It is then poured into moulds. It is usually coloured as well as homogenised and pasteur-ised.

In France and Italy there is a system in place to protect cheeses similar to the one that protects various wines.

Inspectors visit the cheese makers regularly and if they do not comply with regula-tions, the producer can be fined. Legal action may even be taken.

Susan Hallett is an award-winning writer and editor who has written for The Bea-ver, The Globe & Mail, Wine Tidings and Doctor’s Review among many others. Email: hallett_susan@hotmail.com.

BY SUSAN HALLETT

The process of cheese making was discovered accidently when milk was stored in a container made from the stomach of an animal

CHEESY: Wheels of Reggiano and Grana Padano parmesan cheese from Italy

SUSAN HALLETT /EPOCH TIMES

The great philosopher Homer Simpson once quipped that “you don’t make friends with salad”. But we live in a rap-idly changing world, and perhaps one day we will. We may have no choice if we wish to keep the planet look-ing somewhat like it does today.

Marketing has led us to believe that more is better. But often just enough is, well, enough.

Growing up in the States, a hamburger was a sight to behold. They were huge and very meaty. Steak sand-wiches were the same. We certainly didn’t give much thought to the impact of the burger on the environment or to the welfare of the cow.

I had a hamburger a few weeks back and it was so thin I reckon you could have seen the sunlight through the meat. At first I started whining about it, but then I realised that it wasn’t a bad thing. I’ve been trying to reduce my meat consump-tion for environmental and animal welfare reasons. There was tons of salad in the wafer-thin burger, and it still tasted pretty good and had

just enough meat to satisfy the craving.

I still salivate at the com-mercials on TV that show triple cheese and triple bacon burgers regardless of the visions of factory farms that tend to also pop up in my mind. The carnivorous streak still runs deep.

I wound up having one of these triple-layer mon-sters a while back from a well known fast food chain and felt shocked afterwards. It didn’t make me feel sick; it was incredibly tasty. I just felt very guilty. I chomped down three times the cow I would usually when eating a burger and three times the pig. That’s three times the environmental damage. I’ve resisted the urge since. The fact is that I simply didn’t need such a decadent burger and that none of us ever really do.

Even the environmental impact of your run-of-the-mill cheeseburger is quite shocking considering how many of these are consumed a year. The greenhouse gas footprint alone is quite stag-gering.

While the meat and dairy aspect of your average burger isn’t the only culprit, it’s by far the biggest carbon foot-print offender in the meal.

It might not seem such a huge green step, but resist-ing these double-layer, triple bypass burgers certainly helps the environment given the amount of emissions and resources that go into the production of meat and dairy products.

Next time you’re queu-ing up for a burger, think about its impact. While you may not be ready to head down the mock meat path, you might not be willing to join the ranks of the various types of vegetarians. You may have ready access to an organic burger joint. But if you can resist the extra lay-ers of meat and cheese, you’ll be striking a blow and doing the planet that sustains us a favour.

BY MICHAEL BLOCHGREEN LIVING TIPS.COM

Burgers: laying off the layers

Often, just enough is... well... just enough

BY SANDRA SHIELDS

After the rhubarb was picked from my grandfa-ther’s garden, I remember as a child smelling the fer-menting mass bubbling away in a large ceramic crock-pot by the oil stove. It was my grandfather’s rhu-barb wine. He was always anxious for the first stalks to ripen in order to start this yearly process and he was very proud of the final results.

My sister’s and my experience with rhubarb was much simpler. We would choose the thinnest stalks of the rhubarb and sit on the porch steps dip-ping the ends in a cup of sugar. We enjoyed it, but the tart, stringy texture of the rhubarb needed cooking with a sweetener to make it really palatable. In those days, most home gardens had a rhubarb patch as it was one of the first spring vegetables ready for harvesting.

Although rhubarb is

usually thought of as a fruit, it is actually a veg-etable. The first recorded origin of the plant came from Northern Asia where it was used as a medicine. Rhubarb was first used in England in the 17th century and was brought to North America in the early 1800s by European settlers.

The Pennsylvania Dutch gave rhubarb the name pie-plant. Rhubarb is used in savoury and sweet dishes but the most popular way is in pie

recipes. A rhubarb pie is hard to resist when served warm from the oven with vanilla ice cream melting on the plate as the lovely pink juices swirl into the cream.

Rhubarb—a vegetable that makes great pies Procedure:

Preheat oven to 230º C (450º F). Mix sugar, flour and 1) spices together. Sprinkle 15 ml (1 tbsp) in the bottom of each pie dish lined with pastry.

Put the rhubarb in a large bowl, sprinkle with lemon 2) juice and mix in the sugar mixture. Divide the rhubarb into the pie dishes. Cut butter into pea sized pieces and dot the top of the pie filling. Top with pastry.

Bake for 20 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 3) 180º C (350º F) and bake for another 45-50 minutes until golden brown and juices are hot and bubbling.

Tip: If using frozen rhubarb increase the length of the cook-ing time.

Materials needed: SANDRA SHIELDS/THE EPOCH TIMES