Notes From the Farm
(With New Potato Cooking Instructions!)

The potatoes in your box are very special. These are "new" potatoes harvested from plants that are still rather young and immature. The skin of new potatoes is thinner than the skin on older potatoes so you don't need to peel them before you cook them. We are picking them the day before delivering them in your box, so they will be tender and fresh when you receive them. We think of them like fresh veggies -- we keep them in the refrigerator and for sure you should store them somewhere dark. We grow several varieties. The red ones that are pink inside are called Huckleberry. The yellow ones that we are harvesting now are called Bintje.

Because we are "robbing the cradle," so-to-speak, we get a lower yield from each plant when we harvest them "new" than when we harvest them later in the summer when the plants are mature and the weather is hot. In this sense, they are quite a different vegetable, harvested carefully, handled gently so as not to scuff them up, and eaten fresh. The crew talks about the yield in terms of the number of buckets that they are harvesting per row, rather than the number of buckets that they are harvesting per plant. This explains why new potatoes are quite a bit more expensive than storage potatoes.

One of the best (and easiest) ways to cook these little treasures is roasted in the oven with a little olive oil, garlic and rosemary (or oregano). It's simple. You simply preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place the potatoes in a mixing bowl. Sprinkle on salt and pepper. Add olive oil, rosemary and garlic and toss the potatoes. Then you spread the potatoes on a single layer of a baking pan or baking dish and roast them for 40 minutes, or until they are cooked through and starting to turn crispy.

Often we have debates about what to put in our CSA boxes. Should we start delivering potatoes yet? Or are they too slow to harvest and we should wait until they get bigger. We also hemmed and hawed over the carrots in this week's box. They are a little bit small, but they are yummy that way! The clincher was that Bonifacio, one of our crew leaders told us that we were in a race to use up all of the carrots before they simply started bolting (going to flower). This is a problem we have at this time of year. A lot of our spring crops respond to the longer day-length and warmer temperatures by sending up flower stalks. When they go to flower they are no longer edible and we have to think of them as food for the pollinators -- not food for all of our CSA members as we had hoped. Let's all hope for a long, mild spring, rather than the sudden onset of scorching temperatures as often happens here in the Capay Valley.

These last few weeks have featured what the Capay Valley has to offer as the exciting spring crops: asparagus (the season will end soon!), fava beans, strawberries and sugar snap peas. We hope you are enjoying them.

What do all of you talk about over dinner? We debate the new expansion of this Valley's Cache Creek Casino, the potential offered by organic and sustainable agriculture to address world hunger, food safety legislation proposed in Washington, the burden of foolish regulations faced by businesses, and of course, election politics. But to have those debates while munching on a sweet sugar snap pea or a sweet strawberry -- we hope that your conversation will be that much more grounded and civilized!

Open Farm Day

Our annual open farm day is on Saturday June 7. You are invited to come with your families to take a tour of the farm and enjoy a potluck with other CSA members. After the potluck, you can go down and wade in Cache Creek. The farm tour is at 11:00 sharp -- tractors ready to roll! Note that it is difficult for us to provide additional tours for latecomers, but all are welcome to enjoy self-guided walking tours throughout the day. Please bring your own utensils and plates for the potluck! We are looking forward to seeing you.

New Pick-Up Site

There is a new pick-up site in Emeryville, this one at the Cooperative Grocery (www.thecog.org) on Fridays between 11 am and 7 pm. Cooperative Grocery is at the intersection of 67th and Hollis, just south of Ashby (near 7th Street).

Market Helper Wanted

From May through December Full Belly makes a long trip to sell our produce at the Palo Alto farmers market. This is our busiest market, with many great farms and a wonderful community. If you would like a fun Saturday job, let us know. We need help unloading the truck bright and early starting at 6:30 am and working until 1:00 pm. Call and talk to Dru: 530-796-2214.

CSA Cooking Diary

One of our members pointed us to a wonderful webpage: the Rockridge Green at www.rockridgeresidents.org/thegreen. One of the sections is the CSA Cooking Diaries where recipes and pictures are posted of meals made with the weekly Full Belly Farm CSA box. Others can participate by posting additional recipes.

You may have to register to view some of the content on the page. After registering with your name and email you can then view and contribute content to any part of the website.

Schedule of Events

Open Farm Day, Saturday June 7th
Hoes Down Harvest Festival, October 4 and 5
Wreath-making Class, Tuesday November 11

Strawberries

Maybe they seem like dessert, but strawberries' unique make-up and abundance of phytonutrient phenols make them protective against inflammation, heart-disease and cancer. The phenols in strawberries lessen the activity of the enzyme COX. Overactivity of COX contributes to unwanted inflammation such as in conditions like osteoarthritis, asthma, and atherosclerosis. Ibuprofen and aspirin also treat pain and inflammation by blocking COX, but unlike the drugs, strawberries don't cause intestinal bleeding as a side effect. Unfortunately, one group of strawberries' key phenols are only present in fresh and frozen berries because the compounds break down during processing. Therefore, to give babies the health benefits of berries, buy fresh or frozen and puree them yourself, rather than relying on canned baby food. In addition to all their exciting phytonutrients, strawberries provide vitamin C and manganese in high amounts (136% and 21% Daily Value per cup respectively) as well as dietary fiber, potassium, folate, B vitamins, and omega 3 fatty acids. Strawberries are among the foods on which pesticide residues are most often found, so it is often recommended to buy organic strawberries.

Dilla

Used traditionally to sooth stomachs and relieve insomnia, dill takes its name from the old Norse word dilla, meaning "to lull." Like garlic, dill's volatile oils can help curb bacterial overgrowth. They also can help neutralize certain carcinogens, like the benzopyrenes present in cigarette and charcoal grill smoke. So think of how good dill tastes with salmon the next time you grill some -- it has more benefits than just flavor. Dill also contains other compounds that activate our own enzymes that work as anti-oxidants to protect our cells from damage and provides us with calcium, iron, manganese, and dietary fiber.

Turnip Greens

When I say I love Tokyo Turnips, I'm usually referring to the fact that I eat the roots like apples. But I always cook up the greens also. Turnip greens are "supercharged" with many nutrients including Vitamins A, E, C, B6, K, folate, copper, calcium, and dietary fiber. If you're worried about your joints, vitamin A helps our bodies produce and maintain healthy membranes, like the ones that line our joints. Vitamins C and E work together as antioxidants, removing free radicals that can exacerbate joint damage. Copper kicks in as a necessary element for the production of connective tissue in our joints. As well as taking care of our joints, vitamins A, C, and E work together as antioxidants to minimize blood platelet clumping and LDL cholesterol oxidation. Vitamin E is also being heralded for its involvement in preventing cognitive decline. Several studies are pointing to the regular consumption of green, leafy vegetables as having the strongest association with decreased rates of cognitive decline with aging. Researchers hypothesize that the high levels of vitamin E in leafy greens are key to this finding. Try eating your greens with a drizzle of olive oil, because the addition of a little fat can help our bodies absorb vitamin E.

Salvia officinalis

Native to the Mediterranean, sage has one of the longest medicinal histories of any herb. It is so regarded, in fact, that it's scientific name is derived from the Latin word for "to be saved." Research presented at the 2003 British Pharmaceutical Conference backed up sage's 1000 year old use in treating cerebrovascular disease. Four compounds in the root of Chinese sage were found to be AChE inhibitors, similar to the compounds developed in modern Alzheimer's drugs. Memory loss during Alzheimers is associated with increasing AChE activity in the brain. But sage's reputation as a memory enhancer is for the young, too. In a 2003 study published in Pharmacological Biochemical Behavior, young adults given various doses of essential oil extract of sage showed significantly improved immediate recall during cognitive tests than subjects receiving a placebo. As for the rest of your body, sage contains a particularly good mixture of volatile oils, flavonoids, and phenolic acids to stabilize oxygen-related metabolism. It's so good a preventing oxidative damage, that sage was used as a meat preservative for centuries, and today some companies are experimenting with sage extract to increase the shelf life of cooking oil. One of sage's phenolic acids, rosmarinic acid (named for its high concentrations in rosemary), is easily absorbed from the GI tract and is known to act as an anti-inflammatory by altering concentrations of inflammatory messaging molecules. Because of this, seasoning food with sage is recommended for people with inflammatory conditions. (For more information, see www.whfoods.com.)

Aphrodite's Asparagus

For centuries, asparagus has been touted as an aphrodisiac. But it's also good for your gut. Asparagus contains inulin, a carbohydrate that we can't use directly, but is digested by friendly bacteria in our large intestine. These bacteria compete with and crowd out pathogenic bacteria, keeping us healthy. They also ferment the fiber that we can't directly digest, producing short-chain fatty-acids that our colon cells and small intestines use. The fatty-acids also help maintain healthy blood sugar and lipid levels and increase the amount of calcium absorbed in the small intestine. So make sure to eat asparagus to give these bacteria a gift in appreciation for this symbiotic relationship. Asparagus has been used as a general anti-inflammatory as well as for arthritis, rheumatism, and menstrual cramps. People with gout or other kidney disorders should do further research into asparagus, as there is disagreement whether it will alleviate or aggravate their symptoms. Asparagus supplies high levels of many vitamins and minerals including Vitamins K, C, A, folate, protein, potassium, iron, and many others. For more information and the extensive list of the many vitamins and minerals in asparagus, visit www.whfoods.com.

Are Organic Vegetables More Nutritious?

This month, the Organic Center published a comprehensive survey of 97 peer-reviewed studies addressing this question. Conclusive comparative studies of vegetables are difficult -- weather, soil type, the variety and harvesting practices all come into play. The review narrowed the studies to only those that had controlled for these features. They found that organic produce usually ranked higher in four antioxidant categories (total phenolics, total antioxidant capacity, quercetin, and kaempferol), vitamin C, Vitamin E, and Phosphorus.

Conventional produce often ranked higher for total protein and nitrates. (Note that nitrates are undesirable, so the authors considered higher nitrate levels to be a nutritional deficit.) Beta-carotine and potassium levels were about equal. The authors also found that the magnitude of the difference was generally much larger in favor of organics. When the organic sample had a higher nutrient level than its conventional counterpart, the magnitude of this difference was greater than 20% in 42% of the samples and greater than 30% in almost a quarter of the samples. For the same nutrients, when conventional produce ranked higher, the difference was greater than 20% in only 15% of the samples and over 30% in only 6% of the samples. Although the protein levels were higher in conventional samples in an overwhelming majority of cases, they were higher by more than 20% in only 17% of the cases. Condensing all of the data into ratios and finding the average, the authors found that the organic produce contained an average of 25% more of the nutrients included in the study than conventional produce.

To download a copy of the study, see www.organic-center.org/science.nutri.php?action=view&report_id=126

A quote from Are Organic Vegetables More Nutritious, published by The Organic Center:
"The nutrient density of many common foods has declined gradually over time in both the U.S. and the U.K.... Declining average nutrient levels in the U.S. food supply have been brought about by what agronomists have labeled the 'dilution effect,' first coined in an important review article published in 1981... The remarkable increases in per acre crop yields brought about over a half-century through advances in plant breeding, the intensity of fertilizer and pesticide use and irrigation are well known. However, few are aware that this achievement has come at a cost in terms of food nutritional quality."

Mountain Joy

A symbol of happiness covering European hillsides, oregano took its name from the Greek words "oros" (mountain) and "ganos" (joy). Joy to us mountain-climbers indeed. Researchers comparing oregano to tinidazol, a prescription drug commonly used to treat Giardia, found oregano to be more effective against the amoeba. Oregano contains volatile oils that have been shown to inhibit the growth of bacteria, including those causing staff infections and bacterial pneumonia. It's antioxidant capacity isn't to be ignored either. Per gram fresh weight, oregano has 42 times more antioxidant activity than apples, 30 times more than potatoes, 12 times more than oranges, and 4 times more than blueberries (of course, you may eat almost 42 times as much apple as oregano by weight in a typical meal!). Lab studies have also shown its anti-oxidant activity to be stronger than the 2 synthetic anti-oxidants commonly added to processed food (BHT and BHA). On top of all that, just 2 teaspoons of dried and ground oregano give you 23% Daily Value of vitamin K, 8% DV of manganese, 7% DV of iron, 5% DV each of dietary fiber, omega 3 fatty acids, and calcium. So remember all the great nutritional contributions (not to mention flavor, although the two are related) that your herbs and spices make! (For more information, see www.whfoods.com)

The Beat on the Beet

Sure it's old news, but maybe you still wonder what happened to Michael Jackson's skin. He has a disease called Vitiligo, a loss of skin pigmentation often related to a deficiency of folate in one's diet. Folic acid (derived from folate by our digestive system) is essential for the creation of cells with short life spans, including skin cells. Problems like gingivitis, cleft palate, seborrheic dermatitis, and vitiligo are often related to folate deficiencies. Even esophagus, lung, uterus, cervix, and intestinal cancers have been repeatedly linked to folate deficiencies. Folate is well known for its importance during pregnancy to ensure the proper growth of the baby's spinal tube. But once we are born, it plays a crucial role in the creation of our nervous system's messenger molecules. Because of this, folate deficiencies can cause neurological conditions like depression, mental fatigue, or insomnia. Folate is also involved in the division of red blood cells, preventing anemia. Folate converts homocysteine, a harmful byproduct of metabolism, into useful compounds. High levels of homocysteine can build up in one's blood, causing cardiovascular disease. High levels of homocysteine also contribute to Parkinson's disease, neurological damage leading to several forms of dementia (including Alzheimer's), and osteoporosis-related bone fractures. Folate can decrease the risk of all of these things. So where do we get some of this wonder nutrient? In beets!

From just 1 cup of boiled beets, we can get 34% of our Daily Value of folate. I like to use the color of beets to make stamps, but it also turns out that the pigment that makes beets crimson, betacyanin, is a powerful cancer-fighting agent. In stomach cancer patients, beet juice inhibited cell mutations caused by compounds produced from nitrates, a commonly used preservative in processed meats. Beets are also high in manganese (28%DV), potassium (15%DV), dietary fiber (14%DV), Vitamin C (10%DV), magnesium (10%DV), and iron (7%DV). And don't forget to use the beet greens whenever you find them still attached! Cook them just like spinach or swiss chard -- they have the same great nutrients as those other leafy greens.

All nutrition articles by, -- Lizzy Koltai

Full Belly Wheat Products

Full Belly grows Sonora and Federation wheat. Sonora is a light wheat, and Federation is a light red wheat. Full Belly flour is wonderful in cookies, cakes, and pancakes. For a successful bread add a small amount (up to 8% to achieve the ideal protein content of 14-15%) vital wheat gluten flour, too. A small amount of enzyme active barley or wheat malt (0.3% of the total flour) will also improve bread. Sprouting the wheat will create the same effect as a purchased enzyme or malt. The wheat is ground on a stone mill grinder that preserves the bran and wheat germ. Sonora wheat was brought to California by Spanish missionaries and grown in and around the missions circa 1820. It was grown in Sonora, Mexico in the 1770's.

Fresh, stone-ground whole wheat flour. Only Federation is available in bags of any size at $1.00 per pound: 2-pound, 5-pound or 10-pounds.

Wheat berries for soups and cereals (or sprouting for wheat grass!), also in 2-pound, 5-pound or 10-pound bags at $1.00 per pound.

To place a special order, send payment to P.O. Box 220, Guinda, CA 95637, or call the office. Specify when and at which drop site you wish to pick up your special order.

Organic Yarn

This is the time of year when someone you love may need some homemade woolen socks, or a beanie or scarf to keep them warm. If you are interested in the Full Belly yarn, many of your neighborhood pick-up sites have yarn sample cards. The yarn comes in brown, gray and white, plus twills (brown/white, brown/gray, gray/white). It is 2-ply and the cost for a 4-oz. skein is $9.00 ($8.00 for a purchase of 3 skeins or more).

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