Summer Tomatoes

The tomatoes are coming in—large, red, and healthy. There have been more that I've already eaten, plus several varieties of volunteer cherry tomatoes. The largest of these weighed in at just under one pound:

What I don't eat, along with many tomatoes from the coming CSA shares, will be dehydrated and bagged in the freezer to use later. I use an Excalibur dehydrator which works great for dehydrating fruits and veggies. These tomatoes were dried last summer and are in perfect shape a year later:

One of my favorite things to do with dried tomatoes is to crush them into small pieces and add them to hummus. They provide a wonderful flavor after the moisture of the hummus "hydrates" the tomatoes:

Attend Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's Heart/Health Classes! Free!

Okay, the headline is a stretch—but I needed you to read this:

The author of the "Happy, Healthy Long Life" blog, a medical librarian -- a certified health geek-researcher! -- recently attended one of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's orientation classes for a new group of his heart patients. In this class, Dr. Esselstyn dumps the whole truck on his plant-based protocol for "preventing and reversing heart disease." The blog author's (I don't know her name) notes are very thorough -- reading them is like getting the bullet-point evidence for why a plant-based, no/low oil diet is the only way to become heart attack proof.

This is one of the best blogs I read on health matters. The author has adopted, based on evidence, Dr. Esselstyn's plant-based lifestyle and regularly reports on medical research supporting it (and other healthy protocols). The report on Dr. Esselstyn's class is here. You can subscribe to an RSS feed of her updates which are only occasional, but ALWAYS entertaining and informative.

Obama at the Bat

The more you know of "Casey at the Bat," and the more familiar you are with the names of current players on the cultural/political stage, the more meaningful this will be. I don't know who the speaker is, but he's terrific!

Time Always Tells

When Monsanto's RoundUp herbicide was introduced in 1976 it was supposed to be the farmer's salvation. Now, three decades later, the truth is that there are many new strains of RoundUp-resistant weeds that are forcing conventional farmers to return to much stronger (and deadlier for the environment and human health) herbicides—even chopping weeds with a hoe, heaven forbid!—they gave up when RoundUp was introduced: 10 new weed species across 22 states. Read the Associated Press article here.

There are so many things in life that when introduced, seem like good ideas, but which time proves otherwise. Think about doctors promoting cigarette smoking in the 1950's, or feeding cows cheap corn instead of grass (which makes them sick, resulting in the need for powerful antibiotics which humans consume), or cell phones which may prove to be harmful to the health of a generation of young people who use them for the next 20-30 years.

I'm not against progress. But I am more and more for this biblical principle:

"'Everything is permissible'—but not everything is beneficial. 'Everything is permissible'—but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others." (1 Corinthians 10:24)

The entire, post-biblical West lives by the idea that if something is possible, we should do it, especially when there are no moral issues involved. Even when moral bumps in the road slow some movements (same-sex unions/families, human cloning, etc.), if history is an indicator it just means that possibility will take longer to realize, not that moral red flags will be heeded.

Modern man seems to be fulfilling the warning of Proverbs 29:18: "Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint." When there is no ancient path by which to establish the boundaries of modern paths, anything is possible. But not everything, we slowly discover, is profitable.

On Learning

These days I call myself a farmer, However, I was not born into the farming life. In my late teens and early twenties, I began to have the creeping suspicion that my privileged upbringing in a first-world household, my secondary education and suburban lifestyle had left me completely bereft of any useful skills with regard to the fundamental situation of being a human animal on the planet. When I came of age I had this gnawing suspicion that in the first eithteen years of my existence on earth I had learned next to nothing of the kind of skills that would allow a person to survive in the natural world. Skills that had been of vital importance to all our common ancestors for the first fifty-thousand years of our tenure on the planet had been all but lost and abandoned in our time. Of course, such skills were not valued by the majority of my peers because no monetary value accrued to them. And yet I was profoundly disturbed at my own lack of basic orientation in regards to right relationship with the living environment. I set about to begin and try to rectify this situation. I had absolutely no faith in the long-term viability of our modern civilization. I was yearning to find a path with heart that could lead me back to an essentil connection with the earth. (Stephen Leslie writing in Small Farmer's Journal, Spring 2010, p. 68)

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school,

It's a wonder I can think at all.

(Paul Simon, "Kodachrome")

Go to the ant, you sluggard;

Consider its ways and be wise!

It has no commander,

No overseer or ruler,

Yet it stores its provision in summer

And gathers its food at harvest.

(Proverbs 6:6-8, NIV)

My son, do not forget my teaching,

But keep my commands in your heart,

For they will prolong your life many years

And bring you prosperity.

(Proverbs 3:1-2)