Fast Fitness - High Nutrition Garden, Free
Friday, May 08, 2009
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
- Find dandelions. You can tell them by their jagged leaves. The leaves gave them their name, from the French for 'dents de lion' (tooth of the lion).
- Use good bending, with squat or lunge, to pull free nutritious food. Many people will let you have theirs free.
- You can eat the green, the flowers, even the roots. USDA Bulletin #8, "Composition of Foods" (Haytowitz & Matthews 1984) ranks dandelions in the top 4 green vegetables in overall nutritional value.
Dandelion has long been known as a top nutritional food and even medicine. The official name, Taraxacum officinal, comes from the Greek, 'taraxos' meaning 'disorder' and 'akos' meaning 'remedy.'
Eat the greens as salad, sautéed like other green vegetables, or make juice. Greens are best fresh and young, just before the plant flowers. Greens have bitter taste (like coffee and beer) that is said to aid digestion. People who are accustomed to junk sweets may not like them at first, then they taste better over time, and mixed with nuts, spices, and vinegar.
Dandelion flowers are pretty in salads and on vegetables, or use them to make wine (to be covered in posts to come). Dandelion root contains inulin, a soluble fiber which does not raise blood sugar or triglycerides, making it helpful to people with diabetes. Dig roots in early spring or fall. You can eat them as is, or soak them in a jar of brandy or vodka for four weeks (or more) to make a tincture.
Now you can stop using poisonous and expensive chemicals on your lawn too. Better not to add these substances to the water system, or to yours.
The good news? Even when you pull them to eat, they come back to make more free nutritious garden without work.
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Read success stories of these methods and send your own.
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, or in the Fitness Fixer Index.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail" (under trumpet) upper right.
See Dr. Bookspan's Books. Get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
Questions come in by the hundreds. I make posts from fun ones. Before asking more, see if your answers are already here by clicking labels under posts, links in posts, archives at right, or in the Fitness Fixer Index.
Subscribe to The Fitness Fixer, free. Click "updates via e-mail" (under trumpet) upper right.
See Dr. Bookspan's Books. Get certified - DrBookspan.com/Academy.
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Labels: diabetes, fast fitness, gardening, green fitness, nutrition
4 Comments:
At Saturday, May 09, 2009 3:18:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
Dear Dr. Jodie,
I hope you have a good weekend.
I have a quick question to ask if I may.
I used to circle my neck, waist, knees, and ankles. I learned those when I was younger. You might know it from some of Yoga and Tai-Chi exercises.
I recently found that we should not circle our neck. I stopped it.
I am still puzzling with circling waist, knees and ankles.
When doing waist circles, I am trying to keep my waist moving horizontal. When doing knee circles, I am doing it in a small circles i.e., not extend my knees over my toes.
Could you please give some of your thoughts when possible?
Thank you,
VP
At Sunday, May 10, 2009 8:22:00 AM,
Nurse Line said…
Wow that was so beautiful to know.thanks for the lovely update...
At Monday, May 11, 2009 5:16:00 PM,
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM said…
Hello VP, nice to hear from you again. Different joints have different shapes. Some are made for circumduction motion, like the finger at the knuckle. Other joints are not. It is not usually a disaster to do circles, but there are far better ways to limber or warm the joints, and there are people who manage to find ways to grind their spine, and especially knees (when circling knees standing). Light range of motion, horizontally at the waist, not with weighted angulation, if I understand your image correctly, may probably make only minimal force, but I would tell better to see it. Come for a class sometime and we can see.
Joints need motion for health. So many of us learned those conventional motions in some class, that they stick in mind, and we don't know what else to do. If you tell me what you want to achieve, then we can figure the direct healthiest route to it. That is usually more constructive than doing ritual motions. If you want an effective quick warm up, try Fast Fitness - Quick Warm Up.
To "Nurse Line" - thank you.
At Thursday, May 14, 2009 5:00:00 PM,
EMR said…
never knew that Dandelians could be a part of our health charts?Good discovery ...
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