Jamie Oliver has had some success transforming the way UK schools feed our children and now he wants to show the US how to feed their children. Jamie’s got his bad points but he’s pretty much a hero in my opinion. OK, so we might see him as being in the pocket of the big supermarkets but his heart is undoubtedly in the right place. If Jamie can persuade people that children can and do like vegetables then he will have done well.

I’m not at all sure how we reached this place where it’s just assumed that children don’t like veg. It seems quite strange to me, I always had more trouble getting them to eat meat! I suppose I was dealing with children who had mostly started off as vegetarian and been weaned onto vegetable solids. My bible was Rose Elliot’s Vegetarian Mother and Baby, I’d read Let’s Have Healthy Children (out of print and not that accurate) and I had a few tricks up my sleeve. Veggies make great weaning finger foods (carrots are obvious but try sticks of celariac or fennel!), mashed avacado is just about a perfect weaning food, and once they are a little bit older salad or pizza faces that they decorate themselves will usually be demolished in double quick time.

Vegetable box

Anyway, listen to what Jamie has to say and then take another look at what came in this week’s vegetable box and see what you can do to make it attractive to your kids. If you are stuck for ideas just leave a comment and I’ll try to come up with something.

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?

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.

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.

* Green chillies : Don’t put the raw green chillies straight in the fridge. To keep them fresh for a long time remove the stems and put them in a ziplock bag or in some storage box.
* Carrots: Cover the carrots with a damp cloth and put them in fridge. They can keep for a whole week like that instead of going soft and limp in a few days.
* Herbs: Bunches of coriander have to be one of the common one to go bad before you get to use it all. To keep them fresh I store them in a salad container so the leaves don’t touch the icy wall at the back and get frostbite. You can use the same tip for greens too.
* Brocoli: When you store brocoli look for dark green buds with no yellowish color. And store them in a airtight container or in a sealed bag and it will last up to a week. Don’t store more than a week.
* cucumbers: Pick the ones that have no soft spots or visible bruises. It should be dark green and firm, So it will last longer in the fridge when you store it in the air tight bag. It will stay fresh up to 5 days, but really it’s probably better to take it out of the plastic wrap and use it sooner rather than later.

When you are stocking organic vegetables in your refrigerator, make a list of them and stick it in your fridge door. That way when you are trying to make up your mind on what to cook you can quickly decide on what to use first and avoid wasting vegetables that go bad faster. I hope these tips are useful for making the best use of your precious vegetables from the organic vegetable boxes.

16 Most Contaminated Fruits

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has compiled some information about pesticides and produce.

The produce ranking was developed by analysts at the not-for-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG) based on the results of nearly 43,000 tests for pesticides on produce.

The EWG has ranked fruits and vegetables according to their pesticide load (100 represents the highest pesticide load). According to their rankings, here are the Un-Sweet Sixteen… these fruits and veggies have rankings over 50…

RANK	FRUIT OR VEGGIE	SCORE
1 (worst)	Peaches	100 (highest pesticide load)
2	Apples	96
3	Sweet Bell Peppers	86
4	Celery	85
5	Nectarines	84
6	Strawberries	83
7	Cherries	75
8	Lettuce	69
9	Grapes – Imported	68
10	Pears	65
11	Spinach	60
12	Potatoes	58
13	Carrots	57
14	Green Beans	55
15	Hot Peppers	53
16	Cucumbers	52

In case you’re wondering, there were two vegetables which scored a 1; onions and avocados. Tomatoes weren’t too shabby either at 30, so it looks like salsa is a good thing

Nearly all of the data used to create these lists already considers how people typically wash and prepare produce (for example, apples are washed before testing, bananas are peeled). While washing and rinsing fresh produce may reduce levels of some pesticides, it does not eliminate them. Peeling also reduces exposures, but valuable nutrients often go down the drain with the peel. The best option is to eat a varied diet, wash all produce, and choose organic boxes when possible to reduce exposure to potentially harmful chemicals.