VFH Project 2 | 2020 | Spring by Henk_Lamers

VFH project | 2

2020 Spring

Jeanne de Bont Henk Lamers

Table of contents

Spring

Weight

Price

Origin

Transport

Organic

Environmental score

Global costs

Supermarkets and markets purchases

Quality labels

Blockbrush

Waste

Green spring salad

Resources

Kitchen gardens of Mien Ruys Photography by Henk Lamers

Spring 2020

According to the astronomical seasons, spring usually starts on March 21 and lasts until June 20. On March 21, in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun is perpendicular to the equator. At that moment there is no shadow at the equator. This only happens twice a year, around March 21 and September 23. As a result, day and night are of equal length everywhere on Earth. During that period, we very slowly began to understand that we had entered a remarkable period in our lifetime. At the end of 2019, a SARS kind of virus had been noticed in Wuhan. A city of eleven million inhabitants in the Chinese province of Hubei. In three months, the Corona virus spread to other parts of the world. As of March 11, according to WHO standards, there was officially a pandemic. On Thursday March12, 2020, Minister Bruins announced measures during a press conference for the whole of the Netherlands. These measures would be valid for the time being until Tuesday March 31, 2020. Even with minor complaints, such as a cold or cough, in combination with a fever, you had to stay home. No gatherings involving more than hundred people were allowed. And we had to work from home as much as possible. But we’ve been doing that KNMI, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute

since 2017. So let’s see what our fruit, vegetables and herbs data that we collected during this remarkable spring in 2020 looks like.

Weight

To start with, we introduced ten groups within our fruit, vegetable and herb purchases. We cover the following parts: weight, price, origin, transport, organic, environmental score, global costs, supermarkets and markets, quality labels and finally waste. In total, that’s twenty nine charts per season. The weight is determined by the total amount of products we bought during spring 2020. We listed all the products we bought and visualised their weight via horizontal white bars as you can see on the right. The total amount of products is shown in kilograms at the bottom of the chart. We have only been eating soybeans since 2019. But that does have some negative consequences. Until 1995, the United States was the main producer and exporter of soybean. Since 1995, soybean cultivation in South America has been expanding rapidly. This poses serious social and environmental problems, such as unemployment, reduced food security, land expropriation, degradation of nature reserves, deforestation, erosion and water pollution caused by agrochemicals.

The soybean Originally from Asia. The species has been an important part of the diet there for thousands of years. The earliest dating dates back to the year —2838. According to the book of ‘Ben cao gang mu’, written in 1578 based on Shennong’s book Shennong ben cao jing. During the Chinese Empire, the soybean was considered one of the five ‘sacred crops’, along with rice, wheat, barley and millet.

Nutritional value soybean Per 100 grams General Energy Energy Protein Carbohydrates Sugar Vitamins Vitamin A Vitamin B1 Vitamin B2 Vitamin B6 Vitamin C Minerals Sodium Calcium Phosphorus Magnesium Iron

1796.00 428.00 37.00 29.50 6.50 0.08 1.00 0.52 1.20 30.00

kilojoules kilocalories grams grams grams milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams

4.00 milligrams 260.00 milligrams 600.00 milligrams 250.00 milligrams 8.60 milligrams

What immediately struck us was that we use quite a lot of potatoes. Four and a half pounds in three months. No idea if this is excessive. But it surprised us, we had no idea. Also striking are the amount of vine tomatoes, about four kilos. Spring is of course the best time to eat asparagus. So that’s not surprising. We also eat a lot of cucumbers. It’s just very tasty on a slice of bread combined with cheese. The use of leeks and onions is probably linked to the fact that we make soup once a week. San Marzano tomatoes are ideal for cooking tomato sauce to be used on pizza and as spaghetti sauce.

It is very clear that we use a lot of oranges. Almost thirty kilos in three months. To a lesser extent this also applies to grapefruit and lemons.

We use a modest amount of herbs. But not with mint, that we use each day to make a cup of fresh mint tea. It is a pity that there is no organic mint for sale. Hopefully we can grow our own special variety in Almere Oosterwold soon. Another item we use each day is garlic. We always buy a bag of fresh bay leaves and keep them in the freezer, they last for a year.

A strange phenomenon. We buy two bunches of mint a week at the local market. That costs us three euros. We make at least fourteen cups of mint tea a week from those two bunches. That’s twenty-two cents a cup. Excluding the cost of water and energy for boiling the water. If I visit a restaurant around the corner and order a cup of mint tea, it will cost me at least two euro fifty. So two euro twenty-eight is charged for the delivery? Or what?

Price

The price is formed by the costs of all products together. The grey bars on the left show all the products we have purchased. The white numbers on the right show the amounts of money we have spent per product. The total amount is stated in Euros at the bottom of the chart. The world doesn’t run solely on economic ‘laws’. A nice invention of man, but completely devoid of any relationship with the physical world around us. It’s a mind fuck that just creates guilt. It ignores the physical system by definition, because that’s what makes money. So the economy isn’t going to help clean up the mess either. Gebroken kringlopen, 2018, By Ronald Rovers

The apple Has been collected in the wild in Europe as early as –10,000. Growing apples started in Southwest Asia in –4000. The apple’s gene center probably spread through the Silk Road. The edible apple is the end result of a centuries-long process of crossing in Central Asia. There are more than twenty-five wild apple varieties. The selected apple varieties were later maintained by the Chinese technique of grafting. Because there are thousands of apple varieties, we have taken an average apple as the starting point for the nutritional value.

Nutritional value apple Per 100 grams General Energy Energy Protein Carbohydrates Sugar Vitamins Vitamin E Vitamin B1 Vitamin B2 Vitamin B6 Vitamin C Minerals Sodium Calcium Phosphorus Magnesium Iron

254.00 kilojoules 60.00 kilocalories 0.30 grams 13.00 grams 10.40 grams 0.30 0.01 0.01 0.03 5.00

milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams

1.00 milligrams 4.00 milligrams 11.00 milligrams 5.00 milligrams 0.10 milligrams

We spent just under two hundred Euros on vegetables during spring of 2020. Most of that money was spent on white asparagus. Followed by vine and cherry tomatoes. We also spent quite a lot of money on arugula (rocket). A nice herb to use for making sandwiches and in salads because it gives more flavour to a plain iceberg salad. A note about the beetroot, they were bought pre-cooked. If you have to do that yourself, it takes a lot of time and becomes such a mess. And it doesn’t taste any better either. Something new for us is the use of parsnip. We ate that for the first time this year and recommend it. 11

Fruits are the most expensive items we buy. We spend more money on fruit than on vegetables. According to the CBS (Central Bureau of Statistics), the price of fruit has risen about twenty percent in recent years. In addition, the price of fruit is also rising faster than the price of vegetables. In contrast to vegetables that often simply come from the Netherlands, there are more transport costs involved to get the fruit to the shops and markets. It seems almost impossible to buy cheap fruit. The cheapest option is to choose local and seasonal fruits.

This involves less transport costs. Think of strawberries, raspberries or peaches. But those are only available in June, July and August. That would also mean that we are no longer allowed to buy any of the fruits listed in the chart. We think that is going to far at the moment. We don’t want to miss our daily kiwi and fruit juice.

Mint is one of the most used herbs by us. We buy them in all kinds of packaging. A bunch of mint, organic mint as a plant. The downside is that you don’t know what kind of mint you’re buying. There are twenty-five kinds of mint that have hundreds of varieties. We still have to find out which one we think is the best. The price of mint has remained quite stable in recent years. We pay one euro fifty per bunch. The quality changes with the seasons. But among the herbs, mint remains a winner. We also often use basil, coriander, garlic, parsley and chili peppers. In general, herbs are not really a big cost item. 13

Origin

By origin we mean the country where products come from. From Belgium at the top to Zimbabwe at the bottom. Belgium sounds good but Zimbabwe is a rookie mistake. We‘ll come back to that later when we explain each chart separately. On the left side of the grey column are the countries of origin. The products are listed in the middle column. On the right you find the weight. The total amount of products is shown in kilograms at the bottom of the graph. The blueberry Is originally from North America where it is still found in the wild. In addition to the berries, the American Indian people also used the leaves and roots. According to them, this ‘star’ berry was sent out by the ‘Great Spirit’. Among other things, to alleviate famines. They also used the blueberry as a medicinal agent. They drew a strong aromatic tea from the roots. Around 1920 the first plantations started in Europe. Initially, this yielded little result. Cultivation was started on a large scale in Europe around 1950. Today, the blueberry is the most important soft fruit from North America.

Nutritional value bleuberry Per 100 grams General Energy Energy Protein Carbohydrates Sugar

219.00 52.00 0.70 11.00 10.00

kilojoules kilocalories grams grams grams

Vitamins Vitamin B1 Vitamin B2 Vitamin C Vitamin E Vitamin K

0.02 0.03 10.00 0.60 19.30

milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams micrograms

Minerals Sodium Calcium Phosphorus Magnesium Iron

1.00 milligrams 5.00 milligrams 12.00 milligrams 5.00 milligrams 0.30 milligrams

It is striking that the share of vegetables from the Netherlands is the largest. Followed by Spain and Italy. Strange that the neighbouring countries Belgium and Germany hardly make a contribution.

Countries like China, Guatemala, Kenya, Morocco and Zimbabwe are actually forbidden countries to import from. But we know that now. So we have to keep an eye on that for spring 2021.

We bought more than ninety-six kilos of fruit. The largest amount of kilos comes from the grapefruits. Grapefruit is a mix between the pomelo and an orange. A grapefruit has one and a half times more vitamin C than the recommended daily amount. We use it in the morning as a basis for a fruit drink. We usually make a mix of one grapefruit, two oranges and a lemon. That is why these three types of fruit score quite high. But in this graph we cover where the fruit comes from. Red and white grapes from Chili, Egypt, Peru and South Africa are actually not that good.

Maybe we should stop that, or partially stop buying them. We could also replace them with other fruits that grow in Europe.

Mint from Spain is actually not that bad. But we would rather have the organic version. The intention is that we will grow mint in Almere Oosterwold. Ginger from Peru and garlic from Argentine are also striking. Parsley and thyme from Israel. We think this will all be resolved once we have moved. In general, everything that is exported within Europe is not really a problem. Argentina, Brazil, Israel and Peru are countries with transport issues.

Transport

The transport category is highly debatable. When we know that a product comes from Guatemala, for example, we do not know from which location in Guatemala. It is virtually impossible to trace from which province, city or village the product comes. You also do not know what kind of transportation was used to get the product in the Netherlands. Did it come by freighter, cargo plane, truck or a combination of those means of transport? Another uncertain factor is the exact distance. We have now chosen the center of a country. And that in itself is an uncertain factor. Because the center of Spain is easy to indicate. The center of Chilli, a very elongated country of forty-three hundred kilometres long, makes the margin of error very large. So the total distance of transportation is very debatable. The total number of kilometers is again stated at the bottom of the graph. The Kiwi Originally from China, the fruit was known for many centuries. Mary Isabel Fraser was the eldest daughter of New Zealand saddlers Hugh Fraser and Mary Graham. At the age of seventeen she was trained as a teacher at Seacliff. She became an English teacher at Otago Girls High School and from 1891 she became principal of the Wanganui Girls College. Her sister, Katie, worked at a mission on the Yangtze. On July 11, 1903, Isabel Fraser left for Yichang to visit her sister. On the return journey in 1904 she took seeds of the Yang tao (peach of the sun, also called Chinese gooseberry). She grew some plants from these seeds. Six years later she retired and started New Zealand’s first university for women, the Iona College. From Mary Isabel Fraser’s plants, some New Zealand gardeners selected the first varieties. In 1959, when the kiwi became an important export product for New Zealand, it was renamed after the famous native flightless bird: the kiwi. The brown, hairy and egg-shaped appearance of the fruit also played a role. This is reminiscent of the brown and egg-shaped bird.

Nutricional value kiwi Per 100 grams General Energy Energy Protein Carbohydrates Sugar

286.00 kilojoules 68.00 kilocalories 0.90 grams 12.20 grams 10.30 grams

Vitamins Vitamin B1 VitaminB2 Vitamin B6 Vitamin C Vitamin E

0.01 0.02 0.07 79.00 1.40

Minerals Sodium Calcium Phosphorus Magnesium Iron

3.00 milligrams 30.00 milligrams 34.00 milligrams 14.00 milligrams 0.50 milligrams

milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams

Our vegetables traveled thirtyseven thousand kilometres before they landed on our plates. That’s a huge distance. If you would walk once around the equator of the earth you would have traveled forty thousand kilometres. And these are just the vegetables of one season. China, Guatemala, Kenya and Zimbabwe are the countries we should avoid in the future.

The fruit is even worse than the vegetables. Here we end up with almost a hundred thousand kilometres. That’s walking twice around the world. Seems a very serious issue. Brazil, Chili, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, South Africa and the United States are the countries that make the transport mileage so high. So we need to avoid them. Although this will be very difficult.

Herbs traveled nearly thirty-nine thousand kilometres before they reached us. It is mainly Argentina, Brazil and Peru that made the kilometres. So the vegetables, fruits and herbs have traveled at least four times around the equator before arriving on our table.

Organic

This category is a bit more complicated than previous ones. We listed all the products we bought during the spring in the grey column on the left. From asparagus to watercress. The following column shows the weight of the organic products. And the next column shows the weight of the non-organic products. The non-organic products are shown in light green rows. The organic products in white rows. At the bottom of the graph are two numbers. These indicate the number of kilograms of organic and non-organic products. The Orange Was first mentioned in Chinese literature dating to –314. So the orange is originally from China. From the Netherlands, the orange was spread across Northern Europe from the eighteenth century. This is why the Dutch name ‘appelsien’ has been adopted by other languages. In German: ’Apfelsine‘, Swedish ’apelsin‘, Danish and Norwegian ’appelsin‘. In Romanian, Turkish, Bulgarian, Greek, Persian and Arabic, the orange is named after Portugal. Because in the fifteenth century, Portugal was the first country to import oranges from China.

Nutritional value orange Per 100 grams General Energy Energy Protein Carbohydrates Sugar

215.00 kilojoules 51.00 kilocalories 0.80 grams 7.90 grams 7.70 grams

Vitamins Vitamin B1 Vitamin B2 Vitamin B6 Vitamin C Vitamin E

0.06 0.03 0.06 51.00 0.40

milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams

Minerals Sodium Calcium Phosphorus Magnesium Iron

1.00 23.00 24.00 10.00 0.10

milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams

Eighteen kilos organic vegetables compared to twenty-two kilos of non-organic vegetables. Roughly you could say it’s half-half or fifty-fifty. That should change in the near future. We still buy too many vegetables in the regular supermarket apparently. We’re going to work on it.

So rather buy everything at the sustainable weekly market. If that is not possible, then at the EkoPlaza. And when that is not possible, buy organic products at Albert Heijn.

Fruits are a serious problem if you want to buy organic fruits. Bananas and grapefruit are no problem. These are for sale all year round at the sustainable weekly market. At very unpredictable times kiwis are too small, unripe and expensive. So here’s a problem. You can actually only buy these at Albert

Heijn or on the regular market. Lemons and limes are available all year round on the sustainable weekly market. We eat very little mandarins and melons. But oranges are necessary every day. Luckily they are available (varies in quality) all year round at the sustainable weekly market. We

have never seen peaches, red and white grapes. So there is still a lot to improve in our purchasing policy in the field of fruit.

Mint is a herb that we use every day. As a result, it also scores high in weight. Dill, parsley and thyme are easy to find, but the problem is that organic herbs are often sold in very small quantities. Sometimes in packs of fifteen grams per herb. So if we can, we’ll buy a plant. But even then, depending on the

type of herb, you can barely keep them alive for one or two weeks. Coriander is a difficult guest on our windowsill, it usually collapses after a day or two.

Environmental score

The environmental score requires a bit more attention. Originally, Milieucentraal published the environmental score of fruit and vegetables on their website under the name ‘vegetable and fruit calendar’. But in May 2020 they stopped doing that. We asked the Web Editor if they could give us more insight into how the Environmental Score should be interpreted. According to them, the environmental score of fruit and vegetables indicates how environmentally friendly a product is, compared to other fruit and vegetable products. The calendar includes all products grown in the Netherlands and the most common imported products per month. The division into scores A, B, C, D, E is based on the most common cultivation method, the most common mode of transport and the most used packaging material for that product from that country in that month. The national share of geothermal energy use and energy-efficient greenhouse cultivation has also been taken into account for the Dutch greenhouse vegetables tomato, pepper, cucumber and aubergine. Environmental score explanation We have again interpreted the fruit and vegetable calendar as accurately as possible. A B C D E

Comes from the Netherlands, is in season, from a field (organic) and has a quality mark. Comes from the Netherlands or Europe, is in season, from a field or a greenhouse (organic) and has a quality mark. Comes from the Netherlands or Europe, is in season, from Dutch greenhouses (not organic) and has no quality mark. Comes from countries such as Israel, Egypt, Morocco (about three thousand kilometers), is out of season, comes from Dutch greenhouses (not organic) and has no quality mark. Comes from Africa, South America, Asia or New Zealand (about ten thousand kilometers), outside or within the season (it doesn’t matter), comes from Dutch greenhouses (not organic) and has no quality mark. Environmental score chart On the left side of the chart we listed the countries where the products come from. Products themselves are listed in the second column from the left. In addition, there are five columns with A, B, C, D and E. In those columns you find white small squares. The number of squares indicates how often we bought a product in spring with that particular classification. At the bottom of the graph, the total is again shown per column.

In general we are satisfied with the outcome. The environmental score is mostly in groups A, B and C. If we zoom in on group E, we see a number of purchases from China, Guatemala and Zimbabwe. And in group D comes a purchase of spring onions from Morocco and an avocado from Spain. But an avocado from Spain is much better than an avocado from Chili.

So much for the wrong purchases. We need to avoid that in the future. It is now important to make more purchases in groups A, B and, if necessary, from group C. It is also interesting that the largest group of purchases come from the Netherlands, Spain and Italy. So overall this isn’t really bad.

The environmental score for fruit purchases is much worse than for vegetables. There is not a single purchase that falls into group A. Group B is also sparsely occupied with two purchases of Italian kiwis and lemons. Plus another purchase of lemons from Spain. But then eighty-five purchases fall into the C, D and E groups. We really need to improve this. 28

With regard to herbs, most purchases fall into groups B and C. Kind of okay-ish. Only one purchase in group A. Group D contains garlic from Argentina, parsley and thyme from Israel, plus ginger from Peru. In the E group you find twice a piece of ginger from Brazil, and once piece of ginger from Peru. We should be able to find them closer to home. 29

Global costs

The next three graphs are about: Total number of purchases, Non-organic purchases and Organic purchases. The total number of purchases is therefore the organic and the non-organic purchases together. The first graph is the total number of purchases of non-organic products per country. On the left are the countries where the products come from. In addition, a column with the costs in Euros. And also the graphical representation of those costs. The total costs in Euros are shown at the bottom of the graph. Broccoli The cultivation of the first cabbage plants by humans took place about 4800 years ago. It is suspected that the ‘primal cabbage’ from which the numerous cultivars have been grown comes from the Mediterranean coast. Broccoli is a vegetable related to cauliflower. It was cultivated by the Etruscans who were considered horticultural geniuses. The English name, broccoli, is derived from the Italian word broccolo, meaning ‘the flowering top of a cabbage’. Broccoli has been considered a very valuable food by the Italians since the Roman Empire. But when it was first introduced to England, in the mid-18th century, broccoli was referred to as ‘Italian asparagus’.

Nutritional value broccoli Per 100 grams General Energy Energy Protein Carbohydrates Sugar

310.00 75.00 4.08 3.85 0.40

kilojoules kilocalories grams grams grams

Vitamins Vitamin B1 Vitamin B2 Vitamin C Vitamin D Vitamin E

0.05 0.05 32.41 0.01 2.25

milligrams milligrams milligrams micrograms milligrams

Minerals Sodium Calcium Phosphorus Magnesium Iron

7.85 37.66 92.95 17.83 0.80

milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams

The first graph visualises all purchases both organic and non-organic. In the left column are all the countries from which we have purchased products. In addition, a column with the number of euros that we have spent. And also the graphical representation of those costs. And at the bottom is the total number of Euros we spent. It is very striking that we spend more than six hundred Euros on vegetables, fruit and herbs. This graph shows that the largest number of purchases come from Spain and the Netherlands. You also see that purchases from Chili score highly. The purchases from Israel, Italy, New Zealand and South Africa also stand out.

It's mentally hard to swallow, but of those six hundred Euro purchases, almost five hundred Euro was spend on non-organic products. That is very confronting. We will have to work on that. It would also be better to buy more products from the Netherlands or at least from countries within Europe. But that’s the goal of this project.

The third graph concerns organic purchases per country. So organic purchases are very small. Fortunately, the largest part is spent on products from the Netherlands, Spain and Italy. But if we continue to eat bananas, they will often come from outside Europe. Or we should just stop eating bananas. Very instructive this project.

Supermarkets and markets purchases

This graph provides insight into where we made the purchases. At the market or supermarket. On the left you find the supermarkets and markets. The second column is formed by vegetables, fruit and herbs per purchase within that market or supermarket. In addition, there is a column with expenditure in Euros. And on the right you see the visualization of those amounts. Cucumber At least three thousand years ago, the cucumber was cultivated in Western Asia. Originally the cucumber is a crop from India. The elongated fruit originated from the breeding of the gherkin. It is very likely that the Romans took the plant further to parts of Europe. The books show that the first cultivation of cucumbers in France took place in the ninth century. The Dutch climate is not very suitable for the cultivation of cucumbers. Cucumbers have only been grown under glass in the Netherlands since the 1960s.

Nutritional value cucumber Per 100 grams General Energy Energy Protein Carbohydrates Sugar

54.00 kilojoules 13.00 kilocalories 0.70 grams 1.30 grams 0.40 grams

Vitamins Vitamin B1 Vitamin B2 Vitamin B6 Vitamin C Vitamin E

0.08 0.11 0.20 47.00 0.90

Minerals Sodium Calcium Phosphorus Magnesium Iron

5.00 milligrams 38.00 milligrams 69.00 milligrams 12.00 milligrams 0.60 milligrams

milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams

Interesting to see that we spent the most money on fruit bought at the market. That was also a bit obvious. We spend most of the money at Sligro on vegetables. In the second place, the vegetables from the sustainable weekly market are good for around fifty Euros. So this should all come to an end. It is good that we buy so much fruit on the market. But you would rather buy it on the sustainable weekly market since they sell organic products. The Sligro will disappear from the picture from March 2021. Jumbo is really only meant as a backup. If we have forgotten something to buy, the Jumbo supermarket is very close to our appartment.

Quality labels

In fact, all those quality labels don’t say much if you don't delve into them. And even then, the message is often very broad and open to multiple interpretations. It also seems that there are comming more and more quality labels. So far we have seen five. Organic, EU Organic, Fair for Life, Nature’s Pride, and PlanetProof. But we assume that there will be more quality labels in the future. Which in itself is of course a good thing. If something is organically grown, then there is no label on it. That’s a bit inconvenient. You have to trust that it is an organically grown product. For example, there is no guarantee that the producers have received a fair price for it. EU Organic label Makes it easier for us to recognize organic products. That logo may only be used for products that contain at least ninety-five percent organic ingredients and that those ingredients meet additional strict requirements for the remaining five percent. The Fair for Life certificate Promotes an approach of Fair Trade that allows all producers and workers who are at a socio-economic disadvantage to access a wider range of social and economic benefits. Fair Trade is part of a broader context of sustainable development within a region that safeguards and supports the local social fabric, particularly in rural settings. These principles hold true equally well in the Global South as the Global North and apply throughout the whole supply chain covering producers, traders, manufacturers and brand holders. The Nature’s Pride certificate Aims for long-term relationships: with growers, customers, and partners they are proud to work with. Sustainable collaboration is a precondition for them to be more than just a supplier. Together, they want to take the chain to the next level. Nature’s Pride inspire each other to continue to develop innovations. The PlanetProof quality mark Is an independent quality mark. It proves (‘Proof’) that a product is more sustainable. With the quality mark, farmers, horticulturists and other companies are working towards a production that is in balance with the carrying capacity of our planet. It is therefore a better choice for nature, climate and animals. And a development of taking ever further steps to put less strain on our planet.

This graph is about quality labels divided over vegetables, fruits and herbs. The labels are listed in the second column: Organic, EU Organic Logo, Fair for Life, Nature’s Pride, PlanetProof and products with no label. The third column shows the number of times we bought the products. The white bars are the visualization of those numbers. You will see that in the groups of vegetables, fruit and herbs most products do not have any quality label. Those are also the largest groups. This is about to change. First of all, we really need to buy a lot more organically grown vegetables, fruits and herbs. There will be no labels on it, but it is all of organic origin. Let’s see how this will develop. 37

Blockbrush

I made this program in May 2013. It is very simple. So simple that I could cut the code at least eighty or ninety percent shorter with the same end result. In short, that would be very educational for me. The code is simple, but graphically you can make a lot of other images with it. It is an interactive program based on the idea of using the keyboard as a kind of blocky paintbrush. You can type in lines of text which you can check in the console. It is not possible to use the backspace, delete or return buttons. I have tried to make the character images a little more attractive by using a gradient for every character. In short, it means that you do not type letters and numbers with the keys on the keyboard, but gradients. You type an ‘a’ and you get a square with a gradient from red (RGB 255, 0, 0) to black (RGB 0, 0, 0). In this way, all twenty-six letters and ten numbers (0 to 9) are linked to a gradient within the RGB color spectrum. It also doesn’t matter whether you type lowercase or capitals. The lower case ‘a’ gives the same red to black gradient as the capital ‘A’. The numbers zero through nine are formed by gradients that go from white (RGB 255, 255, 255) to black (RGB 0, 0, 0). The thinnest gradient is the zero. The thickest gradient is the nine. Furthermore, the space does indeed produce a space. Pressing the ‘[’ will generate a png file. On the following pages you will see an overview of all the shopping notes we used in the spring of 2020. Just recently I discovered a similar program created by John Maeda in 1995 called: ‘Color typewriter’.

The inefficient layout of qwerty keyboards, with commonly used letters spaced far apart, was designed in the 1860s to prevent the typewriter keys from jamming. Similarly, we are now stuck with institutions designed for the problems of another era. Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor.

Shoppinglist 2020-03-26

Shoppinglist 2020-04-02

Shoppinglist 2020-04-16

Shoppinglist 2020-04-23

Shoppinglist 2020-04-30

Shoppinglist 2020-05-08

Shoppinglist 2020-05-14

Shoppinglist 2020-06-18

Shoppinglist 2020-05-21

Shoppinglist 2020-05-28

Shoppinglist 2020-06-04

Shoppinglist 2020-06-11

Waste

Like the ‘Transport’ category, the ‘Waste’ category is highly debatable. With almost every type of vegetables, fruit or herbs you have some amount of waste. Because the ‘waste’ chapter originated in the beginning of 2021 we had a problem. By then, the waste from spring 2020 was gone, collected by the CURE Waste Management of Eindhoven. The eggplant The plant has been known for thousands of years in China and India. But it originated in Myanmar. It was introduced to Spanish Andalusia by the Arabs in the Middle Ages. One of the earliest written evidence for the use of eggplants comes from the Charaka and Sushruta Samhitas. Ayurvedic texts written around –100 describing the health benefits of eggplant. The plant was introduced further into Europe from Spain around the middle of the sixteenth century. The plant is grown for its fruit used as a vegetable. In order to be able to obtain the waste data for the spring of 2020, we were looking for precisely those recipes that fell exactly in season and produced the right waste. This allowed us to re-weigh the waste. But that also poses some problems. Re-weighing is not that difficult for potatoes. But white asparagus are not available all year round. When calculating waste, it is also a factor ‘how’ you use the vegetables, fruit or herbs. You can peel potatoes. But you can also cook them unpeeled and then bake them. Unpeeled potatoes produce less waste than peeled ones. When you cook fresh mint tea you use all of the mint and when the tea is finished you throw everything away. Or you can use mint in a baked Greek omelette. Then you eat all the mint. So in order to be able to weigh the waste again, we had to choose an average for some vegetables, fruits and herbs. That’s what we mean by questionable data.

Nutritional value eggplant Per 100 Grams General Energy Energy Protein Carbohydrates Sugar

84.00 20.00 1.00 3.00 3.00

kilojoules kilocalories gram grams grams

Vitamins Vitamin B1 Vitamin B2 Vitamin B6 Vitamin C Vitamin K

0.04 0.05 0.07 10.00 6.10

milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams micrograms

Minerals Sodium Calcium Phosphorus Magnesium Iron

2.00 10.00 12.00 11.00 0.50

milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams milligrams

When we started the chapter about waste we thought that cauliflower produced a lot of waste due to the amount of leaves. But the opposite is ultimately true. The healing power of cauliflower itself also applies to cauliflower leaves. Experts even say that the leaves contain the vitamins and minerals in greater quantities. So don’t throw those leaves away but use your creativity by preparing recipes.

On the left side of the chart you find the products. The weight of the products is in the second column. The third column shows the weight of the waste. The fourth column shows the weight that remains for eating. The horizontal rows are the visualization of that data. A dark grey bar is the amount of waste. A white bar indicates how much edible product remains. Of the forty kilos of vegetables that we bought in the spring of 2020, five kilos is waste. But not all vegetables produce waste. Bean sprouts, pre-cooked beetroot, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, mushrooms, radishes, arugula, San Marzano tomatoes, soybeans,

sugar snaps, tomatoes and watercress have virtually no waste. So those are very efficient vegetables. Unshelled peas are very inefficient vegetables. But on the other hand, peas are (since prehistoric times) a powerful superfood. Cauliflower is another vegetable that you throw away almost half of. But... organic vegetables are not cheap so it is best to use the whole cauliflower.

Because not all cucumbers, bananas or parsley weigh equally, we looked at how much waste is created per product if you buy a kilogram of it. A kilo of cucumber, a kilo of bananas and a kilo of parsley. This way you can compare exactly which products generate a lot or very little waste. In this case, we have selected everything by amount of waste. Products with the most waste are at the top. Lowwaste products are at the bottom. The dark gray bar represents the amount of waste. The white bar represents what is left to eat.

And then you see that all the vegetables in the graph below the vine tomatoes generate virtually no waste. The peas and cauliflower are real garbage lovers. We have now found a solution for cauliflower to limit waste. But the pea pods are apparently inedible. Roughly speaking, you see that almost a quarter of our vegetables also produce a quarter of waste. From the peas to the green asparagus. Although the skin of the green asparagus is also good to eat. Goes particularly well with smoked salmon.

Lemons consist of almost half waste. And oranges consist of almost a third of waste. Just like kiwis and grapefruit. We’ll see if we can do something with that in the near future. You could dry the peels, grind them into a powder and then freeze them. This way you always have citrus fruits at hand to give dishes a boost. Let’s see if we want to put our time into this. But it is of course very unfortunate that you throw away almost one third of the almost one hundred kilos of fruit.

With regard to fruit, it is clear that limes, lemons, bananas, grapefruit, oranges and kiwis generate the most waste. Limes are real waste toppers. That is a real problem and it will remain a problem if we continue to consume these fruits. Let’s see how we’re going to solve this. We saw that you can squeeze orange juice at the EkoPlaza. Then they take care of the transport of the waste. But that’s not a solution to the problem. It is a relocation of the problem.

It’s even more dramatic with the herbs. Roughly speaking, we throw almost half of our herbs in the trash. That has everything to do with the purchase of mint. We usually use it for making tea. After drinking it you throw all mint away. We also throw away a third of the ginger, but I have now noticed that you do not have to peel ginger. You can just grate the fresh whole ginger. Unless it’s (too) old. But then it is better not to use ginger at all.

This graph clearly shows that we are on the right track with basil, coriander, dill and parsley. Almost all of these herbs are used. Virtually no waste. The waste of the ginger will decrease anyway because we are now going to use it completely. Bay leaves and mint remain problem herbs. One hundred percent waste. But they are of course tastemakers that you do not want to miss.

Green spring salad

Lead time about 50 minutes For two persons

This recipe is a direct spin-off from the cookbook of ‘De Veldkeuken’. It can hardly go wrong. At least we never succeeded. The hardest part is to cook the eggs. According to the book, the eggs have to boil for four minutes to avoid being hard-boiled. That seems too short to us. The cooking time depends on the size of the egg, six minutes is usually good.

Ingredients: 100 grams of green asparagus 50 grams sugar snaps 50 grams of fresh green peas 2 organic eggs

Blanch the green asparagus and sugar snaps for two minutes. Cool the vegetables in cold water to stop the cooking. Blanch the green peas for four minutes and cool them in cold water. Boil the eggs for six minutes.

The dressing: 2 Tablespoons mayonnaise 2 Tablespoons yogurt 2 Teaspoons grated horseradish 1 Tablespoon water 1 Clove of garlic

Mix it all together and season the dressing with salt and pepper.

Finish off: 25 Grams of rocket 25 Grams lamb's lettuce 10 Grams cress 4 Radishes Spring onion

Clean the radishes and keep the leaves of the radich to add to the salade. You can eat the radish leaves, they have a spicy, slightly cabbage-like taste. Arrange the rocket, lamb’s lettuce and the radish leaves on two plates. Divide the cooked vegetables on top. Peel the eggs and cut them in half (lengthwise). In the width is also allowed if you find that better or nicer. Drizzle the dressing over the salad with a tablespoon. Snip some cress on the halved eggs. Cut the radishes into thin slices and divide them with the sliced spring onions over the salad. A few slices of spelt bread to finnish it off.

One of our favourite recipies Photo by Henk Lamers

Resources Tuinen Mien Ruys KNMI. Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute Veggipedia Wikipedia Ronald Rovers CBS Centraal Bureau voor Statistiek EkoPlaza Organic Supermarket Albert Heijn Supermarkt Sligro Jumbo Supermarkt Milieucentraal Markt Eindhoven Duurzame weekmarkt EU Organic label Fair for life Nature’s Pride Planet proof John Maeda Roman Krznaric CURE Waste Management De Veldkeuken

VFH project Spring 2020