Kitchen Sink Farming Table of Contents

Hi all, reformatting my book for hopefully the last time, and I thought some people might like to see the table of contents and get a little taste of what's in store in the (hopefully) not-so-distant future. Spacing is a little weird, sorry.  Enjoy!

Kitchen Sink Farming

Easily and Cheaply Grow and Ferment Your Own Food for a Healthier Now and Greener Future

Table of Contents

Preface

Part One: The “Why?”

            Why Mess with a Perfectly Good Seed?

                        Increasing Nutrients

                        Enzyme Inhibitors and Digestibility

            Truly Empty Calories

                        A History of Agri-Tech

Burger and a Side of Flies: Genetically Modified Food

When Organic Isn’t (It’s Too Easy Being Green)

            Collapse: The Future of Food

                        Cuba and the Mini Peak Oil Experiment

                        Easter Island’s Last Lumberjack

Everyone But the Kitchen Sink: Modernization, McDonald’s, and Hyper-Maturation

Mind over Matter: Changing Food Habits Is Easier When You Think

Using the Brain for a Change

Transitioning to a Living Diet

Part Two: The “How”

Sprouting

Hit the Ground Sprouting

Sprouting in a Nutshell

Your Sprouting Toolkit

The Wide World of Sprouts

Seeds

Herbs and Spices

                        Nuts

Too Busy Not To

The Grid-Iron Chef, The Travelling Farm and Superfoods for Superpets

Growing

                        Grass and Micro-Greens

                                    Benefits of Grass Juice

Why Cleanse?

How to Grow and Enjoy Grasses

            Dirt, New and Used

                        Containers

                        Light

                        Fertilization: Feed Your Soil, Not Your Plants

                        Water and the Big “O”: Hydrogen Peroxide

                        Grass Growing

                        Grass Seed Specifics

                                    Shoots and Leaves

                                    Micro-Lettuce and Baby Greens

Container Gardening

Light

Choosing Crops

                        Self-Watering Containers

Simple Self-Watering Devices: “The Spike” and “The Holy Bottle”

The Self-Watering Bucket

                        The Self-Watering Garden

                                    Fertilizing in Containers

Hooked on ‘Ponics: Hydroponic and Aeroponic Gardening

                        The Plans: Hydroponics

                        Small-Scale Set-Up

                        Large Scale Set-Up

                        Growing Wall

                        Growing Barrel

            The Plans: Aeroponics - The Aero-Tote

Composting and Worm-iculture

                        DIY Tumbling Composter

            Vermiculture (Worm Farming)

Fermenting

                        A Brief History of Slime

DNA Sluts and Your Guts: Bacterial Genetic Promiscuity and Its Effect on Human Evolution and Happiness

                        Public Enemy #1: The War on Bugs

The Five-Minute Fermentation: Probiotic Water

Local ‘Crobes

 Veggies and Krauts

Seed Cheese and Yogurt

Simple Seed Cheese

Coconut Cream Cheese

“Advanced” Cheese Making: A 2-Day Degree

Vinegar

Mead

Ginger Beer

Sourdough and Naturally Yeasted Breads

Cultivated Flora

                                    Kombucha

                                                On Water, Tea, and Sugar

Gimme the ‘Booch, Baby!

Benefits of Kombucha

                                    Dairy Kefirs: Milk, Cloak, and Dagger

                                    Water Kefirs / Tibicos

Fermenting Fats: Butter Ghee-fir, and Oil

Part Three: The “Now What?”: Recipes for Your Sprouts,  Krauts, and Everything Else

            Why Living Foods?

On Measuring

            The Blessing of Bad Food

Helpful Tools for Preparing These Recipes

The Recipes:

                        Drinks and Smoothies

                        Mains, Sides, Apps

                        Salads and Dressings:

                        Sandwiches, Rolls, and Wraps

                        Soups and Stews

                        Snacks and Condiments

                        Cheeses, Dips, and Spreads

                        Breads

                        Breakfast

                        Desserts

                        Putting It All Together

Index

Thought Bubbles

Essential Fatty Acids

Alkalinity       

Vinegar Friends

Why Salt?

Cooking by Freezing

Raw Fats and Unrefined Oils for Weight-Loss and Well-Being

Raw Honey

Time to Make the Coconuts

Foodology – Living Molecular Gastronomy

Index C: Alphabetical List of Recipes

Index D: Specific Health Concerns

Appendices

            Appendix A: Sprouting Table

Appendix B: Plant Nutritional Deficiencies and Their Cures

Recommended Reading

Resources

"Easy Advanced Sprouting and Fermenting" talk at People's Coop in Portland, Sunday 3/26

Raw Aztec Popsicles: Living Banana Ice Cream w/ Chia-Berry Swirl, Cacao-Coconut Shell and Spiced Pumpkin Seeds Sprouts

Here's the recipe for these easy but kind of spectacular pops.  

3 Components: banana ice cream, shell, and seeds.  First sprout, season, and dry pumpkin seeds, then prep and freeze banana ice cream pops, last prep shell and assemble.

1 – Spiced Sprouted Pumpkin Seeds

Sprout a handful of pumpkin seeds (pepitas) but soaking in clean water overnight, then draining and allowing to sprout for another 8-16 hours.  Add any other nuts, seeds you like (I always add sunflower as they’re nutritious, easily digestible and cheap – walnuts or hazelnuts would also be good)

Toss seeds with some salt, cayenne, and raw honey to taste.  There are no amounts because we all have different preferences, needs, and constitutions.  Taste as you go and have fun.

Optional: Sprouting takes some the beautiful green away from pumpkin seeds.  Add a pinch of green tea powder to bring it back (as I did in pics).

Dry at less than 110º for a day.

2 - Ice Cream

Ingredients:

a few Bananas

handful of Strawberries

a few Tablespoons of sprouted Chia (see below)

Peel bananas

Blend and pour into a bowl

[bananas can also be frozen and blended into raw ice cream: blend on high, tamping down continuously (a high speed blender like a vita-mix works best, but go fast so they don't thaw) until they resemble soft-serve ice cream.  The 'nana-cules will be frozen but separated, allowing them to slide over each other creamily.]

banana

strawberry-chia

Too much strawberry in the banana and it will blend too consistently, as each time you swipe

 through with the ladle you're stirring it up.  We want swirls, asymmetrical and organic.  

Clean blender and blend berries and chia

Pour little bits of the berry mixture into the banana goop, swirling and ladling into small cups (I used little plastic dixie cups someone gave me - if you aren't sure about the non-stick nature of your vessels they can be lined with plastic wrap, though I personally wouldn't risk the potential toxicity.)

Mixture should be thick enough to hold up a popsicle handle, I used plastic spoons though popsicle sticks, clean and de-barked twigs, chopsticks, etc will work fine.

Freeze

3 - Shell

Ingredients:

equal parts Coconut Oil (liquified) and raw Cacao Powder

Sweetner of your choice (or not) in the amount of your choice (I rock raw honey always)

Coconut oil can be liquefied by putting jar in a warm place, like on the fridge or dehydrator, or running under warm water until it melts.

Blend all ingredients until shiny and consistent.

can also be ready for the afternoon if you freeze
whole bananas and soak seeds in the morning

Assemble

[If you’re not eating them right away, prepare a baking sheet or something flat to re-freeze pops, covered with wax paper.]

Remove pops from cups.

Dip in cacao-coconut mixture and quickly roll in seeds.

Put back in fridge for an hour, then transfer to gallon –sized zip-loc freezer bags.

In the picture at the very top of this post, you can see one pop dipped completely, while the others have an open bottom.  I think the first looks cleaner, and the others have a window into wabi-sabi.  As always, your choice!

Nerd Corner:

the lab

Coconut oil is a liquid above 76º, and a solid below (everything has its own melting and boiling temperatures: candle wax, steel, the sun.)  When liquid coco oil touches frozen banana, it turns back into a solid.  Roll the pops in the pepitas quick before this happens.

Chia

Chia is a super-easy sprouter.  Just soak it in 4 times as much water for a day, then stick it in the fridge.  Because of its slippery soluble fiber coating, it will germinate and sprout under water, just like flax and mustard.  I always keep little jars of these three sprouted in the fridge.

Chia is a small mucilage seeds from a desert plant closely related to mint, and are both black and white in color.  In pre-Columbian times, chia was an important staple in both the Aztec and Mayan diets, and was the basic survival ration of Aztec warriors.  It’s been said that one tablespoon of the seeds could sustain an ancient scout for a full 24 hours.  Banned by the Spanish government in the 16th century after a millennium of cultivation because of its close ties to the Aztec religion, chia is currently experiencing a cultural renaissance, which I hope is due in some small part to their incredible nutrition and not entirely the result of chia-pets and -presidents.

The highest plant source of Omega-3 EFAs (higher than even flax, but not quite as yummy), chia is rich in fiber (over 25%, in fact), has 3 times the antioxidants of blueberries, more calcium than milk, and more iron than spinach.  Chia also contains high quantities of phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, copper, molybdenum, niacin, and zinc.  The Aztecs used chia medicinally to relieve joint pain and sore skin, and I expect both of our cultures can respect the fact that it’s so high in anti-oxidants that it will stay fresh for years longer than most seeds, especially as ours deals with a peak oil crisis.  As a mucilage, the gel that forms when put in water helps slow down the breakdown and metabolization of carbohydrates and sugar, so it’s the perfect thing to add to dessert to keep blood sugar from spiking.  Now that modern society is noticing this mighty little seed again, it’s being fed to laying hens to increase the omega-3 in their eggs, and chickens and cattle to increase the nutritive value of their meat.  If I had to pick an “Official Seed of Societal Collapse” this would be it.

…And then it hit me - Aloe Vera is the answer

I was speaking with someone the other day about ways to increase their digestive fire so they’d be able to enjoy raw food more and get more out the all the food they eat.  It would also help them “burn” off accumulations of undigested waste (ama) and not create more every mealtime.  I mentioned the common solutions:  

• ginger root and spicy foods
• getting the proper amount of exercise (not too much or too little)
• eating raw foods closest to noon when digestion is at its peak
• more sour and fermented foods like sauerkraut and apple cider vinegar
• heating pranyamas such as breath of fire and ujjayi, and anything emphasizing the inhale
• a little sugar is good, too much sugar puts out fire
• no water 1 hour before food
• and reduce stress.

But it wasn’t until I was making my own near-daily conconction that the answer came in the form of aloe vera.  This succulent that grows wild in many warmer-climate areas is an oft-mentioned sunburn remedy, but its benefits go far deeper.  Literally: the skin-soothing qualities of aloe are nothing compared to its gut-lubricating and pacifying nature.  It’s often recommended for its soothing benefits alone in the treatment of colitis, inflammation of the intestinal wall.  Quite bitter, it’s right up there with black pepper, cardamom, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, fennel seeds and ginger in the ayurvedic list of herbs for increasing digestive metabolism.

This person also suffered from constipation and the resultant occasionally rectal tearing from passing hard, dry stools, so these benefits are just what the doctor ordered (if the doctor is Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine who said “Let they food be they medicine” used aloe generously in his practice.)

It also boosts the production of white blood cells and stimulates immunity, and it even improves joint flexibility.  Aloe contains compounds called mucopolysaccharides which are the amino sugars needed for the regeneration of joint fluids and capsules. Not only does it regenerate and strengthen joints, because of its anti-inflammatory nature it also reduces joint swelling and pain.

And not a minor detail: if you can find a plant (I brought a couple home from a trip to Southern California, $3 for 2 five-gallon plants on craigslist) to snip a few inches from daily, it quickly becomes free.  Otherwise, the gel-filled leaves are available at natural and asian markets.

My favorite way to enjoy aloe is blended with orange juice.  Just peel a feel oranges and drop them in the blender with a few-inch piece of aloe.  Blend it up and enjoy.  Including the white pith makes full use of the ample soluble fiber in citrus and adds a lovely foam to the drink.  Including the seeds adds another digestive-fire benefiting aspect which becomes obvious if you let it sit for half an hour or so.  Citrus seeds are anti-microbial, anti-fungal, and anti-viral; great for giving parasites and candida the boot.  They're are available as expensive extracts to treat these and other issues.  They're also extremely bitter, simultaneously increasing digestive potency while affording the above-mentioned benefits. 

But when we blend peeled oranges or other citrus with the seeds, the bitter qualities of the seed don’t start to leech into the juice for 30 minutes or so.  This means that you can enjoy a sweet and delicious drink and the bitter won’t come out until it’s already past your taste buds, offering full access to the benefits without any of the less-than-enjoyable taste.

Take your aloe from the lower leaves, and slice of the spiny edges.  Fillet the skin away from the gel inside with a long, sharp knife, making sure to rub the medicinal insides on your face, scalp, body, and pets.  Aloe gel has been used to treat all manner of skin issues like hives, cuts, rashes, boils, acne, eczema, and psoriasis (showing a 75% reduction in clinical trials).  There will be a straight peel and a curved peel, the first is much easier to skin off and personally, I don’t even bother cutting off the second.

Enjoy your aloe and let me know how it goes.

JP, the Kitchen Sink Farmer

no enzymes were harmed in the making of this blog 

(though I do feel a bit vampiric when I see my aloe's multiple slice wounds.  Any ideas about how can I make it up to these plants to whom I am so grateful?)

"Easy Advanced Sprouting and Fermenting" talk at People's Coop in Portland, Sunday 3/26

The Sunday evening talk is open to all, yummy snacks provided.  More info here

and please watch my "Sprouting Basics" lecture first.  Hope to see you there!

\

Hempin’ Around:

[Excerpted from my book: "Kitchen Sink Farming - Easily and Cheaply Grow and Ferment Your Own Food for a Healthier Now and Greener Future".
First proposal goes out tomorrow, send your prayers!]


Hemp, the male version of the cannabis plant, has none of the mind-altering chemical that has made this family of weeds so controversial, and so popular with west coast hip-hop artists.  It’s unfortunate for the nutritional field, and therefore everyone that eats, that hemp has such a bad…  rap?  It’s an inexpensive and fast-growing source of what may be the best protein found in any food, and certainly best vegetable source of EFAs like omega-3 and -6.  Expensive, “essential”, and very difficult to find in proper amounts for those that can’t or choose not to eat deep-water fish daily because of a growing concern for our ocean’s toxicity, ethics, preference, or because they’re the 1.4 billion people in the world who live on less than $1 a day.  Actually, I find it strange that anyone would want to eat an animal’s liver, the organ that is full of fat-encased toxic substances so damaging that the body shut them away instead of risk putting them into the bloodstream to get rid of.  Fish, especially the ones not from the frigid waters of the arctic (though them too to a lesser degree) live their lives in constant contact with all sorts of toxins, from heavy metals and industrial waste to agricultural run-off and just plain floating islands of garbage, one patch of which in the Pacific is the size of Texas.  Plants are the best suppliers of vital EFAs (see pg XX) and lucky for us they’re plentiful, cheap, pure, of unsurpassed quality, and quite tasty.

Graph reprinted from Gero Leson and Petra Pless’, "Hemp Foods and Oils for Health," 2002

Protein

Hemp protein is the most complete and usable protein in both the vegetable and animal kingdoms.  The reason for this is less the amount than the type of protein offered by hemp.  Hemp protein, comprising about 35% of its total mass, is a complete protein, containing all 8 essential amino acids needed by the body.  It’s also about 65% globular proteins, the highest of any food (this in relation to only about 20% usable protein in beef, and with it a host of problems, like being directly linked to cancer, heart disease, global food shortages and most or all of the top environmental problems).  There are two kinds of proteins: fibrous (or structural), and biologically active (or globular).  Fibrous protein are tissue, like muscle, organs, skin, hooves.  Globular proteins make hormones like insulin, hemoglobin and plasma, antibodies in the immune system (also called immunoglobulins – makes sense now huh?), and enzymes, and are therefore responsible for the hundreds of thousands of reactions occurring within each cell, at every moment.  Though we can make globular proteins out of any protein we eat, it’s much more efficient to take them in in a ready-to-use form.  And unlike fibrous proteins, globular proteins convert to structural tissue (like big biceps) quite easily, the body’s intelligence deciding the best use of each molecule. 
"Qualitatively, it is considered desirable to secure amino acids similar to those of human tissues, both as to kinds and relative quantities of the various kinds." (From the Textbook of Anatomy and Physiology, Kimber, Gray, Stackpole, 1943).  Plasma, the fluid portion of blood which supplies nutrients to tissue, contains three protein types: serum albumen, serum globulin, and fibrinogen, which together compose about 80% of plasma solids. {Gray's Anatomy, 1978)  Hemp protein closely resembles the globulin found in human blood plasma, which is vital to maintaining a healthy immune system.


This fact alone makes hemp one of the most important foods for overall health and world hunger, and unlike whey, dairy, soy, nut, grain, rice, and egg proteins, it’s completely devoid of allergens, making it great for anyone and everyone.  But wait, there's more...


Oil

Hemp seed oil comprises 35% of the total seed weight. This oil has the lowest amount of saturated fatty acids at 8% (those bad ones found in animal fats), no trans-fats (the worst ones), and the highest amount of polyunsaturated essential fatty acids at 80% (the good ones), total oil volume.  Flax seed oil comes in second at 72% combined total essential fatty acids (though it and chia are higher in omega-3s, the harder to find EFAs).  Hemp oil is the only whole food source of the 'super' polyunsaturated fatty acids gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) and stearidonic acid (SDA).

Hemp is also high in:

* Inositol, which promotes hair growth, reduces cholesterol levels, prevents artery hardening, and is calming to the nervous system.

* “Plant hormones”, also called phytosterols or phytoestrogens, affect cholesterol absorption, hormone regulation, and cell metabolism.

* Potassium, which supports the nervous system and regular heart rhythm and, with the help of sodium, aids in the body’s balance of water.

* Calcium, essential for a regular heartbeat, strong teeth and bones, and nerve impulses.

* Magnesium, required to store calcium, and deficient in dairy products.  In possibly related news, magnesium deficiency is the #1 mineral deficiency, especially common in athletes.  Magnesium is also needed to transmit the messages throughout the nervous and muscular systems.

* Sulfur, which helps the body resist bacterial invasion and protects it against toxic substances.

* Iron, which facilitates the production of red blood cells and energy.

* Zinc, important for a healthy reproductive system and the prostate gland. It speeds tissue regeneration and strengthens the immune system.

·         Scientists are studying the use of hemp seed extracts to boost the immune systems of people suffering from immunosuppressive disorders such as AIDS and cancer.

·         Edestin is a highly digestible and complete protein which comprises about 65% of hemp’s total protein.  This extremely vigorous globulin is so compatible with the human digestive system that in 1955 a Czechoslovakian Tuberculosis Nutrition Study found hemp seed to be the only food that successfully treated tuberculosis, a disease in which nutritive processes become impaired and the body wastes away. Edestin is such a perfect protein that Science Magazine complained in 1941 that “the passage of the Marijuana Law of 1937 has placed restrictions on trade in hemp seed that, in effect, amounts to prohibition … It seems clear that the long and important career of the protein is coming to a close in the US.” 

Again, the use of hemp seeds has absolutely no correlation with marijuana in the body, and won’t cause any adverse reactions in the body or come up on a drug test.  Its astounding nutritional profile makes it an extremely important seed that should be a part of everyone’s diet.  For those in impoverished regions where malnutrition is the norm, the fact that hemp comes from a fast-growing and tenacious plant means that one day its widespread availability could be possible.

Hemp is only legal today because in the 1930’s, when the anti-hemp insanity began in the US, bird seed companies told congress that songbirds would stop singing without this addition to their seed mixes.  The compromise was that hemp seeds would be sterilized with infrared heat, making minute cracks in the shell and rendering the seed only semi-viable, even though it’s not possible to grow hemp into wacky tobaccy.  What this means to us (in the US), is that whole hemp seeds are available and slightly sproutable.  The whole seed can be soaked and germinated, then sprouted for a day or two and many of the seeds will start to grow a tiny root.  But without the protective integrity of a whole seed, they can start to mold soon after.  Stick ‘em in the fridge when you see the first tiny tails and enjoy their crunchy benevolence in a myriad of ways.

The seed is also available with the shell removed, called hulled hemp or hemp hearts, and it’s automatically sterile.  These seeds haven’t been heated in any way and therefore all the wonderful oils are still fresh.  Though most of the enzyme inhibitors will have been removed with the shell, these seeds also benefit from a two-hour soak.  The available enzymes will be activated and in turn the vitamin and mineral content will increase.  This is evidenced by the cloudy soak water and change in taste.  Until I find a source of organic, unsterilized whole hemp seeds, I use hulled seeds, which I keep in the freezer to preserve the delicate EFAs.  Hemp seeds are absolutely delicious, and even if they weren’t ridiculously nourishing I would still eat them every day on their fresh and nutty flavor and creamy texture alone.  They’re very small, soft, off-white disks, and sprinkled on salads or easily ground into a rich nut butter, hemp’s tastiness makes it easy to enjoy this powerhouse of nutrition and vital life force.

The best source I've found is amazon, who sells Nutiva organic shelled hempseeds for around $9 a pound, in 3 pound bags with a subscription.  It's also available with the shell (sterilized) from various places, bird seed companies in Canada seem to be the best source, but I question the quality of the products I've sampled.  Plus, it only sprouts for a minute then shrivels up like a vampire in the sun because of the legally-required sterilization so I'm happy with the shelled stuff from amazon, which you can find here.  Hemp it up for health!