Rant for today

I'm going to end up having a bit of a rant in this post more than likely. This morning, for no apparent reason I started thinking about herbs (medicinal and otherwise) and how before the NHS, margarine and McDonalds existed, using herbs as part of everyday life was just as commonplace. Seasonal fruit was actually seasonal with raspberries in June, strawberries in July, cherries in July & August and apples and blackberries in September and if a bit late October. There are many, many great things about the age we live in but I think that we have also lost a hell of a lot as well.
We shouldn't eat strawberries in December and have cherry tomatoes shipped over from where they were grown in Spain and still have them as fresh and plump looking as when they were picked because the fact that we can means that the fruit/veggies have either been frozen and stored (so you have no idea how old it is) or pumped full or coated with preservatives non of which
are on the ingredients list and actually probably both. The point is that all of these things end up being digested and processed by your body in the normal way except a lot of the time your body cannot in fact break the chemical/preservative down to it's smallest component and excrete it via the usual channels so they end up staying in your liver or being stored in your fat. All of which contributes to so many health problems which we are seeing earlier and are becoming much more common like hayfever, asthma, general allergies, food allergies, IBS, poor immune function, arthritis and I could go on but you get the point. To be fair to people though how many people do you know who know when different vegetables and fruits are in and out of season? Without looking it up that is. http://www.localfoodalliance.co.uk/8_63_Seasonal-Chart.html
By the time WWII came around we'd lost a lot of the knowledge and skills that women especially (but not only women) had with regards to herbs, food and incorporating the two together for general health and well being of their families. So what I'm going to do (and I must point out this is going to be when I have time so probably only on a semi-regular basis) is put up recipes for things of a herbal nature which can be incorporated into everyday eating. The first one is going to be rosehip syrup which can be used as a sauce with desserts or meat and can be added to porridge (instead of sugar) or put on pancakes or spread on toast. Herbs are versatile and you are simply limited by your imagination......

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