Musings
Nutrition Security and Home Gardening
There are so many good reasons to garden. You might be gardening because it brings you peace, it’s meditative, because it reduces your food bills and allows you to know where your food comes from, or it might be a fun way to connect with like minded people at a community garden. Here’s another good reason: home gardening is a great opportunity to grow nutrient dense food and contribute to your nutrition security. Nutrient dense plant foods are plants that produce high-quality food in a small space, which is what home gardening (backyard, balcony or community gardening) is all about. And growing nutrient dense foods opens the door to nutrition security.
What is Nutrition Security? Nutrition security builds on the concept of food security—a term usually referenced in the context of averting hunger or counting calories—by recognizing that not all calories are the same–some calories are more nutritious than others. “Nutrition security encompasses food security, which encompasses nutrient content,” writes John Ingram (2020) in the prestigious journal Nature Food. Mozaffarian and colleagues (2021) describe nutrition security as having access to affordable, nutrient dense food which promotes well-being, and can prevent, and, if needed, treat disease. This is an important statement by heavy hitters in the field of medicine directly linking the consumption of good food to positive health outcomes.
At first glance, gaining access to nutrient dense food sounds like a big, expensive hurdle. But if you are a gardener, you know you can sow nutrient dense food in your garden. You can use your summer harvest to replenish your body’s vitamins and nutrients, and then build up your body’s nutrient reserves for winter. Seed by seed we can gain our nutrition security.
As a home gardener, your biggest challenges are probably not having enough space to grow all of the food you want and not having enough time. But even with those challenges, you can still grow good food to scale. What we mean by that is, you can make a big contribution to your nutrition security (e.g. growing vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytonutrients) by growing nutrient-dense foods. It’s all about using your space (and time) wisely. We have found that many nutrient dense plants don’t take up a lot of room (saving space) and are easy to grow (saving time). You just have to know which ones they are.
In our garden, and in our seed collection, we mainly focus on four nutrient dense plant foods (Tomatoes, Physalis, Leafy Greens & Herbs). Although, we will point out, that doesn’t stop us from growing some of our other favourite veggies that aren’t on this list–we love our home-grown cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, radishes and peas, which also contribute important phytonutrients to our diet, but we do make sure to make space for these four nutrient dense foods.
1-Tomatoes
It brings us great joy that tomatoes are described as a “wonder fruit” in a peer-reviewed, scientific paper (Chandhary et al 2018). Even impartial, dispassionate scientists can’t contain their enthusiasm. Here is a short list of the benefits of tomatoes: they have cardioprotective effects; are protective against neurodegenerative diseases; are protective against diabetes; have anticancer properties; and boost the immune system. There have been many excellent scientific papers published on how good tomatoes are for us. Please see our Musing, ‘Common Sense Reasons to Grow Your Own Food,’ for our discussion about the health benefits of tomatoes. Above and beyond their health benefits, there are so many other reasons to grow home-grown tomatoes. For instance, they taste so much better than store-bought tomatoes and homegrown tomatoes are much better for the environment than store-bought tomatoes that have usually been trucked in from far-away places and have likely been grown in energy-expensive greenhouses. For some ideas on how to extend the tomato growing season in short season areas, and reduce your reliance on tomatoes from far away places into the fall, consider growing longkeepers. See this link for more details.
In case you are new to growing tomatoes from seed, let us reassure you that tomatoes are easy to grow in your garden or balcony pot. We usually start our tomatoes from seed in early to late April. For early tomatoes and micro/compact tomatoes, we even start our seeds in May. If you are short on space, some of our micro and compact tomatoes might work well for you (e.g. Tiny Tim, Linda) or our 2ft determinants (e.g. Klondike, Porter’s Early Brookpact). When you grow your tomatoes from seed you have a much wider selection than what is offered at the big box stores or garden centres as seedlings. And once your tomato seeds are up, all you need to do is keep your seedling in a sunny place until mid/late May and then transplant outside. They are not much more work than taking care of a houseplant.
2-Physalis, aka the Joy of Growing Fruit from Seed
If you want to fall in love with Physalis like we have (the group that includes Cape Gooseberry, Ground Cherry & Tomatillo), start with Cape Gooseberries. They are little gems of tropical sweetness. You will be amazed that you can grow tropical tasting fruit from seed in your home garden or balcony. Cape Gooseberry is a ‘functional food’ meaning it is high in nutritional properties and biologically active components (Munoz et al 2021). It is also easy to grow (and container friendly), and easy to tell when it is ready, as its papery husks will fall to the ground. Inside is the sweet, ripe orange berry. After you get hooked on Cape Gooseberry, you will likely want to branch out to Ground Cherry and Tomatillo. And then to the amazing other varieties we have in our collection. We will be adding more Physalis varieties, as well as the other nutrient dense, but relatively unknown, members of the Solanum family, such as wild eggplants and black nightshade berries (of course, the edible and safe ones). Physalis and Solanum varieties provide so much bang for your buck, they are the new must-haves in the garden.
3-Leafy Greens, with an Emphasis on ‘Eat-All Greens’
Leafy greens are some of the most powerhouse foods you can grow. We aren’t using the term powerhouse lightly. In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a study titled, “Defining Powerhouse Fruits and Vegetables: A Nutrient Density Approach”. The study sought to quantitatively define what a “Powerhouse” food was. In a nutshell, the study looked at the % of 17 nutrients (per 100/kcal) found in foods (i.e. potassium, fiber, protein, calcium, iron, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folate, zinc, and vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, and K). Foods providing 10% or more of the daily value of the 17 nutrients were defined as “Powerhouse”. So, which foods made the list? The Top 10 “Powerhouse” foods were all cruciferous and leafy greens. From the study: “Nutrient density scores ranged from 10.47% to 122.68%… Items in cruciferous (watercress, Chinese cabbage, collard green, kale, arugula) and green leafy (chard, beet green, spinach, chicory, leaf lettuce, romaine) groups were concentrated in the top half of the distribution of scores.” In other words, cruciferous and leafy greens are some of the most ‘Powerhouse’ foods you can eat.
We also want to give special mention to a type of leafy greens called ‘eat-all greens’. This is a term coined by the seed breeder and author Carol Deppe to describe a fast growing, nutritious, and productive leafy green (such as, Dwarf Essex kale & Groninger Blue kale). In her book, “The Tao of Vegetable Gardening,” Carol describes the benefits of growing “eat-all greens”:
“I believe the eat-all style of growing greens and the eat-all varieties will be a game-changer for all gardeners, but especially for those with small gardens. In addition, the high nutrient content of the eat-all greens crops as well as the very high yield makes them an ideal choice for growing in community or public gardens or in “food deserts” where greens are especially needed and are unavailable. And because of the very low amounts of labor for harvesting big batches at once and the minimal labor in the kitchen, the eat-all greens are also ideal for freezing. And it turns out that most also make good dried greens for use either in soups and stews or as herbal teas. Many who have very tiny gardens or short growing seasons may now be able to produce a year-round supply of greens for their families when they have never before been able to even imagine doing so.”
If you are new to gardening, ‘eat-all greens’ are a great way to get started. And for experienced gardeners, it’s good to be reminded that the humble (and often overlooked) leafy greens are a nutritional powerhouse.
4-Herbs, with an Emphasis on Edible Flowers, Fresh Herbs ‘That Money Can’t Buy’, & Carrots!
For their small size, herbs and edible flowers are nutritional heavy weights. Let’s start with edible flowers – we want to put edible flowers on everyone’s radar. Many ornamental flowers grown in pots on our patios are edible and high in anthocyanins and antioxidants. A fascinating scientific paper on this topic, titled ‘Ornamental Flowers Grown in Human Surroundings as a Source of Anthocyanins with High Anti-Inflammatory Properties’ had us looking at flowers in a whole new light. Many flowers are rich in phytonutrients, such as Anthocyanins, a powerful flavonoid and antioxidant. Anthocyanins are the blue, red, or purple pigments found in plants, especially flowers, fruits, and tubers. And because some flowers, like viola or chamomile, are quite high in certain antioxidants, a little goes a long way. Consider putting a few fresh viola flowers/leaves in a salad or a teaspoon of fresh or dried chamomile in tea as a way to benefit from these antioxidants.
When you grow herbs and flowers in your backyard or balcony, you benefit from their freshness. Some herbs, like the nutrient dense wild food Stinging Nettle, which is umami x 1000 in a cup of tea, you will not be able to buy fresh; nor can you usually find the amazing antiviral Lemon Balm, which is best fresh. But both of these herbs are easy to grow in your home garden. And you might be surprised to learn that several herbs used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, such as Korean Mint (Huo Xiang), Codonopsis (Dang shen), Andrographis (Chuan Xin Lian) and Mugwort (Ai Ye) are easy to grow. You can create your own medicinal garden in your home garden or on your balcony.
Now to explain why we have put carrots in the (Medicinal) ‘Herb’ category. We know it’s unconventional, but new research suggests carrots are like medicine for the body. Carrots are immunomodulators, which means carrots help regulate the body’s immune system. A ground-breaking paper, with the long title, “Critical review on the immunomodulatory activities of carrot’s β-carotene and other bioactive compounds”, makes the case that carrots are a ‘functional food’ with nutraceutical effects (e.g. pharmaceutical effects). You can read more about the medicinal-like properties of carrots using this link.
We hope you found this information useful and it gives you confidence that you can easily grow nutrient dense foods in your home garden and contribute to your nutrition security. Happy, Healthy Gardening!
