Farm to Fork in the City

Fresh food tastes the best, right? This is because its bio energy is most alive when it has just been plucked/harvested. Research shows that as more time passes, this bio energy keeps reducing, even though technically its nutritional quotient does not change as much. This is how nature intended us to eat – just pluck or harvest and consume immediately. Leafy greens, that are responsible for converting the energy of the sun into food energy actually do not survive long. They will or get spoilt anyway, even if refrigerated! This is how fast their bio energy depletes.

Living in a city, it may be impossible to have access to everything completely fresh, or live Farm to Fork, but here are few things that you can surely try.

1. Grow your own micro-greens. Micro-greens are shoots of any seed, that have just sprouted their first leaves. They are nutrition power houses, quick to grow, low on maintenance and practically take no space except the tray on which they are grown!
2. Grow your favourite herbs such as mint and basil in small potted plants, that can be accommodated even on your window sill.  If you have a balcony with a wall, you could create a vertical herb garden on it.
3. Look around your housing society. You may be surprised to find trees or shrubs that are edible that you never knew. A friend of mine had a Moringa tree growing in his backyard, and never knew till I pointed it out!
4. Get together with others in your housing society and create a little kitchen garden on ground or on the terrace of your building!
5. When planting trees in your housing society, plant edibles rather than just to beautify. You will find that this even attracts more birds and butterflies into your society as they too love flowers and fruit.

I am lucky that my parents have a superb edible garden back in a small city at the foot hills of the Himalayas. Whenever I am there, I literally overdose (well, there’s no such thing actually) on the goodies of nature, in my smoothies, salads and cooking! Below is a snap shot of my latest discovery here  – Radish seed pods, which we harvested and cooked into a yummy vegetable for lunch. The pods had a yummilicious crunchy radishy sweet and stingy flavour, that would go wonderfully well in a salad or pickle too!

(Toss your own salads at home. Head to my recipe blog here and try some salad recipes)