No to GMO's

The Department of Trade and Industry handed down an historic ruling in September last year for mandatory labelling of genetically modified foods. The decision came after a clause removed from the draft Consumer Protection Bill last year was reinstated. Charmaine Treherne, National Co-ordinator of SAFeAGE, a consumer GMO watchdog that has been lobbying for its reinstatement for two years said, “The GMO Act does not protect consumers; it is rather a permitting system that welcomes untested, unlabelled and irresponsible genetic modification to run rife in our country.

Consumers will finally have the right to choose once this Bill is implemented”. Both the Department of Agriculture and Department of Health have opposed mandatory labelling saying it would confuse consumers. However, spokesperson for the Safe Food Coalition, Andrew Taynton said, “the Department of Trade and Industry should be congratulated for this bold move. Current GM labelling laws in South Africa are so flawed that they do not label any of the GM foods currently on the market.”

“We are very proud of the DTI”, said Treherne, “and we will closely monitor the remainder of the process until it actually gets signed Join the action group. Visit www.safeage.org

HARMFUL APPETITE?

Buying local, choosing organic and reducing packaging are probably the three most important changes you can make when shopping for food. However, what is often over-looked is the impact on the environment of the production of the food itself. Currently one third of global greenhouse emissions is linked to food production as it is done on such a large scale. To keep a check on yourself and to enable you to start making the necessary steps to reduce the carbon footprint of your menu, log on to www.eatlowcarbon.org drag and drop menu items, ingredients or sample meals into your virtual frying pan and calculate your meal’s carbon emissions to see if you can reduce your emissions by 25% as suggested. Bon Appétit!

GROW YOUR OWN VEGGIES

Assorted vegetables and herbs are easy to grow in pots or any recycled container like plastic bottles cut in half, old coffee tins or even tin cans. You don’t even need lots of space to start your own little vegetable patch either. Fill your container of choice with good quality organic compost, ensuring there are a few stones at the bottom of the container to enable sufficient drainage. Put your seeds or seedlings into the pot and in a sunny spot. Water every day and within a few weeks you can eat from your own garden. Consider spinach, watercress, basil, rosemary and tomatoes to start with.

SEEDS TO SOW NOW

Bush and climbing beans, brinjal, chilli, celery, cucumber, leaf mustard, marrows, mealies, melons, spinach, parsley, peppers, potatoes, pumpkin, soya beans, Swiss chard spinach, squash, sunflowers, sweetcorn, tomato, turnip.

YUMMY IDEAS

Try a chilled pea and mint soup or make a hot potato salad with lashings of olive oil and fresh origanum instead of mayonnaise.

Info courtesy Soil For Life. To find out more about weekend gardening workshops go to www.soilforlife.co.za

SALT OF THE EARTH

Khoisan Natural Unrefined Sea Salt is a gift of the Cape west coast region. It’s unrefined, unprocessed and alive with the elemental energies of the sand veld. It has natural trace elements and minerals in it, requiring no additives like iodine and no refining agents so it is coarse and never completely dry. I thought I’d give it a try and prepared a dish using sun-ripened, fat, juicy tomatoes picked the same day from my garden. I used a liberal amount over thickly sliced tomatoes and within seconds the salt melted into the juices. To that I added lashings of apple cider vinegar, torn basil leaves, mint and origanum with a solid splash of virgin olive oil. Listen to the sounds your guests make after tasting that!

Why is salt so vital ?

Natural unrefined sea salt possesses the power to rejuvenate the body’s bio-systems making it a powerful remedy for countless health problems. Clean, unrefined, hand-harvested, natural sea salt has complex beneficial minerals and balances alkalinity/ acidity levels, restores good digestion, relieves allergic symptoms and skin diseases. As part of your diet it gives your body higher resistance to infections and bacterial diseases. In the old days salt was a universal necessity, not only for preserving meat but also because it was an effective medicine, used either as an energiser and detoxifying agent, or in conjunction with healing plants. www.khoisantrading.co.za