An interesting piece on absorption of nutrients from food on NPR this morning. Among the things they discussed:

• you need oil to absorb nutrients from foods. Not necessarily a lot, but some. (So, out with that horrible no-fat dressing!)(You also need oil to carry flavours across the tastebuds, so it’s an all-round good idea.)
• cooking vegetables with caratenoids – carrots, in particular – is actually better than eating them raw as it makes the caratenoids easier to absorb
• microwaving might help to preserve antioxidants better than other cooking methods because of short cooking times

If you found Home, the movie difficult to view on Vidoosh, you might like to know it’s miraculously reappeared on Youtube. Check it out if you haven’t already. 2,189,173 viewers are with you so far.

Madrona Farm, an organic family-owned farm in Saanich, is looking for money in all shapes and sizes to meet its second cash instalment at the end of July. The farm was owned by the family but not all of them wanted to go on farming. For the past year Farmer Dave, the son of one of the owners, has been trying to raise enough money for The Land Conservancy to buy it and conserve it permanently for farming. He managed the first deadline but the second is higher and fast approaching. It’s in an area that is both too expensive to buy land in and under hot demand by developers (check out the density of their neighborhood). They’ll take anything from $1 up, or if you’re in the area you can join a bicycle tour of local farms this weekend. Let’s help ’em out, eh?