GARDENING, OTHER EXERCISES AND CANCER PREVENTION
An article I read last week makes some interesting comments about exercise, gardening and the prevention of breast cancer. We know what we eat and how much we eat, how active we are and how much sleep we get are fundamental aspects of our well being.
The article from The Journal of Physical Activity and Exercise, published on the Mail Online News site summarises a study of 48 000 women in the UK and concludes daily light exercise, such as gardening, housework and walking can reduce the chance of developing breast cancer by 21%
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Being active for 5 hours and 45 minutes seems to have the most impact on preventing breast cancer. The 48 000 participants wore fitness trackers to determine their daily activity. The researchers also considered age, weight, alcohol consumption and smoking histories, all contributing factors in developing breast cancer. It is not clear if genetics such as a family history of breast cancer were considered as part of the research.
Before feeling overwhelmed by this amount of activity consider the steps taken getting to and from work, at work, doing the shopping, cleaning and generally attending to daily activities. Add some weight bearing exercises and you will be close to the daily target. To determine the amount of exercise suited to age, weight, health and current fitness level just search online. There’s a wealth of information.
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Recognising gardening as being good for your health is great! I like gardening. I wander out the back first thing in the morning to have a look around, I often do some tidying up during the day and water in summer in the evening as well as walk around out there talking to my Mother on the phone every night. My minimum step goal each day is 12 000 steps, some in the high intensity range but a lot are accrued incidentally.
So now that gardening is identified as a healthy activity, here’s a brief update of what’s happening in our garden.
This frequently blooming canna continues to please with brightly coloured flowers. I’m often asked what it is called and I don’t know! My mother grew it at the farm and she has it at her new house, I grew some , too. It was growing in a garden bed but it was so vigorous I dug it up and put it is pots. So pretty.
The hollyhock seeds have germinated as have the stock seeds, planted in a recycled dip container. I will plant them soon and add ranuncula corms to entice bees to the garden. We enquired about ‘hosting’ a beehive in our garden and were told it was too crowded. Shame, it seems bees need a bigger runway than we can supply.
PUMPKIN, FETA AND CARAMELIZED ONION TART
Needed to take finger food to an At Home movie night so decided to make a tart. Roasted some butternut pumpkin, caramelized some onions and crumbled some fetta. I had intended to use crumbled stilton but decided it might be too rich. ( So I ate it instead) Lined the tart tin with pastry and blind baked it, then added the other ingredients plus beaten eggs and milk, sprinkled fresh rosemary on top and baked it. Delicious.
How something that tasted so wonderful could look so unattractive is a mystery but I think it’s the caramelized onion which looks black, not luscious brown and richly flavoured.
Turned the leftover pastry, feta, onions and butternut pumpkin plus eggs and milk into a smaller, rather rustic pie to eat on the weekend.
What is the difference between a tart and flan? Both are open topped and generally pastry based but a tart can have a savoury or sweet filling but a flan is generally sweet. Despite finding agreement in these definitions I have seen both terms used to refer to both sweet and savoury dishes.
CHICKEN DINNER
I thought I was pretty particular about labeling leftover food before I put it in the freezer. Apparently not, so the container of chicken I thawed to make something for dinner was a bit of a mystery. I added leftover roasted butternut pumpkin, leftover caramelized onion and half a cup of peas. Turns out the chicken had a slight curry flavour and went well with the other flavours. Mystery dinner was great but I’ll never be able to repeat it as it will never taste quite the same. And I’ll be sure to label containers before I put them in the freezer.
CINNAMON SCROLLS
Then the weather changed and it really started to feel like autumn even though winter is only a month away.My thoughts drifted to cosy, warming afternoon tea food. I made cinnamon scrolls. The soft, satisfying dough, kneading and adding cinnamon and sugar and rolling them out resulted in fat little scrolls.They smelt so good while they baked. When they were cool I added drizzled icing. We fell on these cold weather treats. Luckily there were some left for breakfast, too.
Did you watch the coronation?
This frequently blooming canna continues to please with brightly coloured flowers. I’m often asked what it is called and I don’t know! My mother grew it at the farm and she has it at her new house, I grew some for my son and of, course, we have some. It was growing in a garden bed but it was so vigorous I dug it up and put it is pots. So pretty.
The hollyhock seeds have germinated as have the stock seeds, planted in a recycled dip container. I will plant them soon and add ranuncula corms to entice bees to the garden. We enquired about ‘hosting’ a beehive in our garden and were told it was too small. Shame. A lot of alysium seedlings have have self seeded in the same area.
An article I read last week makes some interesting comments about exercise, gardening and preventing breast cancer. We know what we eat and how much we eat, how active we are and how much sleep we get are fundamental aspects of our well being.