100 foot challenge

Who can resist....

I have been setting up my garden for a while now, and we have some produce ripening up. While my resolution for the year is to decrease my reliance on the supermarket, this challenge fits in with this nicely :) I completely agree with the notion that growing your own food is a revolution in itself. The challenge, set by the folks over at pathtofreedom.com, is to eat just one meal a week grown from your own garden. We do try to eat from our own garden everyday at the moment, sometimes a whole meal, mostly just the veges. But we can all do it. Take power, feed yourselves...it's not that hard and even the smallest garden can provide food.

What we eat is killing us...

Big report out by the World Cancer Research Fund claiming what many an old wife has said for hundreds of years...we are what we eat...or as Hippocrates so eloquently stated "Let food be thy medicine ...". What the report actually says is that 95 % of cancers are caused by lifestyle. It highlights that people should not increase their weight after 21, meaning we should be lean, we should exercise more, drink less, eat less meat and eat NO processed meats (ie bacon, ham etc). We should also breastfeed for as long as possible, avoid sugary drinks and eat a plant based diet. This is a reasonable article on the topic...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/31/wcancer231.xml
Interestingly in NZ the tv news had this story as its lead, reported this information, yet somehow in summing up only really highlighted the body fat issue as being a major finding in this study! And they are not the only ones. Going through some of the headlines when I googled this report you would think that they had only said we need to look at this problem. Obviously obesity is a major issue, but the fact that we are being told to eat a plant based diet, limit our meat intake and eat no processed meat ( note that is THREE ways of saying try going veg) is being played down by many media outlets... In the end reports like these can only highlight the issues and people have their own right to choose how they respond to such findings. Just wondering how all those sausage and bacon makers might fare after today...
For me and my family I hear this information and I am glad my girls have never eaten meat. I am also glad I now have some weight to my arguement when faced with those...'are you sure they are getting all the right food...surely growing children need to eat meat...where will they get their iron from?' type questions.

Dolly is ready

I have finally finished my dolly, well mostly finished her apart from sewing her hat on. I do love their little faces, so cute and squidgey.

I have also been knitting a cardigan for my friends (yet to arrive) baby. So I have been busy but just haven't posted about it :)

The apples on our tree are finally coming to an end, so I have been stewing them up and freezing them (I hate wasted fruit). As we now have a freezer full of excess garden produce I think I had better make chutney from the last batch of good apples. It has been freezing cold in our little part of the world, with frost even! All the veges looked like they had been too llong at the back of the fridge when I got up this morning. The sun is shining now, which makes it more bearable, but winter is almost here . I am kind of looking forward to the chill, just not the getting out of bed on cold mornings! Oh well...