Vegetable Boxes For Better Sex
Never mind the fact that this video was banned from something called a “Super Bowl”, (whatever kind of vegetable container that might be), what about the claims that vegetarians have better sex then?
'Veggie Love': PETA's Banned Super Bowl Ad
And what about Vegan sex – is that even legal?
So many more questions are thrown up such as how would these claims apply to those vegetarians who eat the occasional bacon roll and what are the ramifications of consuming dairy produce – could double whipped cream be a dampener after all?
Opening This Week’s Organic Box
Here’s Linda opening this week’s organic box as sson as it arrives and putting the lovely organic vegetables away in the fridge or vegetable rack.
The controversy has been raised: is it better to keep the bunched carrots with the green feathery top foliage intact or cut them off?
I think the greens help to transpose moisture away from the carrot roots so they dry out more quickly but Linda thinks keeping the greens on will mean they last longer. Probably we’ll eat them with a couple of days anyway but it’s important to know what is really the best way to keep these special vegetables in tip top condition for even a short time.
What do you think is best and what do you do with bunched carrots from your organic vegetable boxes?
My Organic Box Gets Too Hot
My Organic Box Sits in The Sun All Day
My organic box comes full of lovely, fresh organic vegetables but often I’m out when it arrives.
The front of my house gets the afternoon sun and this is bad news for my veggies! Even if I had a fairly shady spot on those sultry hot London days we sometimes get I could still have a problem.
Riverford have done some interesting work on the problem and spent a considerable amount of time last year experimenting with solutions. They even got Exeter Uni involved to see what percentage of the year temperatures might be a problem for the shelf life of the various vegetables.
How Do You Keep Your Organic Box Cool?
Riverford have come up with a couple of interesting solutions. They tried all sorts of methods but the two best (short of having a hole in the ground to pop the box in!) were using an ‘eco-cool blanket’ or building a rather charming cold store cupboard/planter.
The Eco Cool Blanket
This is a wonderfully hitech solution. You buy a purpose made cover which keeps your organic boxes up to 5°C cooler and keeps the box dry if the problem is summer rain rather than blazing sunshine.
You pop the blanket inside your previous week’s box which you are returning and your delivery driver covers your new box with it.
The eco-cool blanket is elasticated,fits even the largest box, looks very much like the sort of thing people wrap themselves in at the end of the marathon and costs £4.25
Eco-Cool Food Safe
This is a much more attractive solution but costs quite a lot more. Riverford says:
a wooden safe that encases your veg box in a layer of compost and soil, ensuring that any produce put inside stays up to 10 degrees cooler than if just left on a doorstep.
Not only that but it looks really attractive once it’s filled with plants:
How does it work?
1. The safe has a high thermal capacity and captures the cool of the night to preserve your veg through the day
2. Water evaporating from it gives an extra cooling effect, like putting a damp towel over a barrel of beer
3. When filled with soil and compost and locked, it’s so heavy that no-one can make off with your veg box while you’re out
The Eco-Cool Food Safe comes in 3 sizes, is delivered in a flat pack and costs between £69 and £74.
Low Tech Solutions to Hot Organic Boxes
Much though I like the Eco-Cool Food Safe I’m an old hippy at heart and that food safe looks pretty easy to copy. What I’m thinking is two wine crates for the sides and a wooden shelf for the top. Pop a window box planter (wooden) on top, fill with soil and plants. An old cupboard door could be added and the whole lot painted with a chalky mix of emulsion and water to give a shabby chic white or maybe a chippy pale blue. (This might just be my Shabby Chic obsession talking!) Stand it against a wall, ideally somewhere that gets a bit of shade and your organic boxes are going to stay nice and cool on the hottest day (or dry when it does the other thing!)
It would be a little taller than the smallest bought one but that should make it easier to get your organic boxes out again.
Swine Flu Pandemic – Regulate Factory Pig Farming
Readers of the Organic Boxes blog may well know about the horrific conditions industrial factory farms keep their animals in. It’s not just a problem for the animals and meat consumers though. There’s increasing suspicion that the current triple hybrid H1N1 virus swine flu pandemic may well have originated in large scale pig farms in Mexico owned by an American multinational corporation in Veracruz.
An online petition by Avaaz.org calling for investigation and regulation of factory farms received more than 200,000 signatures in just six days and the organisers are now hoping to boost this number by at least another 50,000. If you would like to add your name to the petition go to http://www.avaaz.org/en/swine_flu_pandemic/98.php?cl_taf_sign=acd1e93cafc0032a88e9144ed9a4b065
Organic Veg and Brown Bread Not for Everyone
An argument that organic veg and wholemeal stoneground bread is just a luxury for the rich.
Louise Fresco presents at a TED talk on the subject of “Feeding the Whole World” in praise of technology, science and mass produced industrial food.
“Never before has our food been made by so few of us. And never before has it been taken so much for granted.”
( Hat tip to Josien Kapma for the video )
Louise Fresco, Dutch Academic, tells the Californians that holding a preference for wholemeal organic bread and despising mass produced white bread is a luxury for the rich, and not practical for the third world’s poor workers and farmers. So does she have a point?
Remember to Cancel your Organic Boxes!
This is just a reminder to those of you who are already getting organic boxes delivered weekly to organise for your holidays in advance. There are so many other things to think about it would be easy to forget and end up with a sad box of organic vegetables sitting on your front doorstep for a week waiting for you to come home.
The opposite happened to me though. I thought I’d been efficient and cancelled my regular vegetable box for the week I was away recently, and when I got back the next week’s box of vegetables arrived exactly when it was suppose to, but the week after that I was left without. So make sure you understand the difference between a future order and a recurring order before you cancel organic boxes.
Organic Boxes are Cheaper
Riverford Organics, which delivers 40,000 boxes around England every week, compares its produce monthly against its equivalents in Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose. Riverford claim that their organic boxes turn out to be at least 20 per cent cheaper. So I did a spot check and that week the Riverford’s large organic eggs were costing £2.05 for half a dozen whereas in Tesco they were £2.13 and in up market Waitrose £2.24. Riverford’s sales overall are on the increase despise the recession.
Supermarkets now sell more than 70 per cent of organic produce in the UK — but, having done well in the organic boom, they are now bearing the brunt of the decline. According to Soil Association surveys, it is “barcode” sales of organic that are falling. Farmers’ markets, farm shops and box schemes are still all doing OK.
Peak Oil, Not Ploughing, and Permaculture
This is a video about “Peak Oil”, farming without ploughing, and the ethos of permaculture.
Best Ethical Restaurant – Observer Food Awards
Riverford Field Kitchen ‘Best Ethical Restaurant’ Observer
In their monthly food awards, the Observer newspaper gave the Riverford Field Kitchen the title “Best Ethical Restaurant. Last week Jane Baxter and Sam Miller, who run the Riverford Field Kitchen, were presented with this prestigious award, a fine achievement given some notable contenders.
Guy Watson of Riverford writes in Farm news:
I like to think that we won because, as well as serving the most fantastic and affordable food, mostly grown on the farm, we are the real thing; for 25 years we have been doing what we do, in the belief that great food and sane farming can withstand the ebb and flow of food fashions. Having spent the last few days in London I took the opportunity to look at a few markets, greengrocers and box schemes. It was disappointing to see how many were responding to the recession by trading down to selling uncertified “as good as organic” produce, often with packaging and vans still implying fully organic produce. Everything we sell is certified organic; we keep it affordable by growing ourselves and working closely with our co-op.
Congratulations to Riverford Organic Vegetables, who also happen to be our own suppliers of top quality organic boxes all through the winter spring gap.
Organic Vegetables from The Farm
Here is a video that really shows where the organic veg for the boxes is coming from. The genuine love of good quality tasty vegetables together with the organic philosophy come across loud and clear. This is the actual farm in Devon where the Riverford organic vegetables as delivered in boxes throughout the South West but also some parts of London are lovingly grown, picked and packed.
