Orchards are as vital a part of the British landscape and culture as, say, the vineyards or olive groves of Southern Europe. Orchards are a distinctive and unique feature of our landscape and we need to raise their profile and value.

Since the 1960′s Britain’s orchards have been in steady decline, it is estimated that two thirds of our apple trees have been lost, with many local varieties of apple disappearing altogether! Counties such as Kent and Herefordshire, once smothered in orchards, have little more than a tenth left. [Read more...]

This year’s Good Food show at Olympia (London) was a real treat for the senses! This was my first visit and I had a great time! The atmosphere was buzzing with visitors clearly enjoying all the delights and stall-holders & producers proudly showing off their goodies.

Here’s a small selection of the people I visited during the show… [Read more...]

Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid)

…is the focus for this weeks Vitamin Rich post (previous post on Vitamin B3 click here).

Vitamin B5, also called pantothenic acid, plays a role in the breakdown of fats and carbohydrates for energy. Vitamin B5 is critical to the manufacture of red blood cells as well as sex and stress-related hormones produced in the adrenal glands (small glands that sit atop of the kidneys). Vitamin B5 is also important in maintaining a healthy digestive tract and it helps the body use other vitamins (particularly B2 [riboflavin]) more effectively. It is sometimes referred to as the “anti-stress” vitamin because it is believed to enhance the activity of the immune system and improve the body’s ability to withstand stressful conditions. [Read more...]

I like to do a bit of surfing through the food news to see what’s going on, looking for interesting articles, new fads, weird and wonderful recipes, events etc and just last night I found an excellent article on food blogging. In The Seattle Times, Providence Cicero, a food writer and restaurant critic, wrote an article called ‘A blog smorgasbord‘, a really interesting insight into food blogging.

Blogging is a rapidly growing phenomenon. People blog about absolutely everything and anything, some blogs become very popular and even achieve a kind of celebrity status. Within the blogosphere, food is a very popular subject for discussion, so naturally bloggers blog about food too. [Read more...]