3 March, 2023
Rural Living The Weekend Sun 5
...and onion and honey sandwiches “My mantra is there must always be another way…” Then he starts pitching potato juice which doesn’t quite have the same pull-power as mango, cranberry or pomegranate. “My mantra is there must always be another way…” And perhaps potato juice might just be the way. Allan was on another holiday, another conference, this time in China, the world’s biggest potato producer, and they were handing out cans of potato juice. “I thought it might need something else like raspberry to make it vaguely interesting.” What about the nutrition, the goodness. “It’s not bad for you,” says Allan. “It’s good stuff.” Maybe! But then Allan is not a bad advertisement for some free thinking… and potato juice, and honey and onion sandwiches. At 82, he’s still doing eight hours, he’s very mindful of his health and wellbeing, and still enterprising and entrepreneurial. “I have a whole lot of creative, fascinating things going on to keep the interest levels up.” As they say, the more we do, the more we can do. And a busy person never has time to be unhappy. That’s the cue for Allan to climb on his soapbox…to hammer the case for
the use of ozonated water in growing our vegetables. “Ozonated water – sterilised, completely pure water, devoid of contaminants. It’s great stuff.”
Ozonated water
Allan’s dabbling with ozonated water for crop sanitation, to control funguses on those crops. “It’s easy to use, it’s low cost and helps reduce and prevent diseases.” Again, his bugbear with pharmaceuticals re-emerges. “For 60 years the attitude has been that chemicals will fix anything. And it’s been found those things that were initially sold as wonderful are dangerous.” But now, says the apostle of ‘better ways,’ there is a very safe and efficient alternative. And he points to his large heads of broccoli on sale at his ‘drop-in’ as case and point. “Ten to 15 per cent improvement in good nutrients, 10-15 per cent improvement in size and 10-15 per cent improvement in taste.” In the meantime the self-confessed ‘bush scientist’ offers a detailed travel plan for his 2023 ‘holiday’ – a 16-hour
The ‘Onion Man’ Allan Noble isn’t a fan of onions – but he does eat a honey and onion sandwich each day for health reasons.
operation at Waikato Hospital to remove cancerous bone from his jaw. As with everything in Allan’s life, he has done his research. ‘Listen, observe and ask the questions’ is another of his mantras.
“They’ll cut out the affected bit of jaw bone, screw in a piece of titanium, they’ll harvest some bone from my leg, hook up the veins that keep the bone alive, throw away the cancerous bone and start reconstruction.
Spooky eh?” And the ‘Onion Man’ might have to ingest his honey and onion sandwiches through a straw for a couple of weeks. But he would have thought that through too. Hunter Wells
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