Found these digging around on the net … mostly from down under!

Glenn Cardwell: Getting kids to eat their veggies … Vegetables were probably never that big in the human diet. We evolved eating meat, seafood, nuts, seeds, fruits, tubers, fungi, berries and insects because that’s where the kilojoules are. When you need energy (kJs/Cals) each day to survive, why bother eating a leaf (lettuce), a flower (broccoli) or something else that is mainly water …

c: I don’t subscribe to the evolution theory, I’m more a creation girl – it makes me feel more special. And the people I have read about who lived 3-4000 years ago definitely knew their grandparents.  But I love the idea of talking positively to your children about vegetables! What about kids and meat?

Dieticians missed point on story: 60 Minutes – National – NZ Herald News … TV3’s 60 Minutes says criticism by nutrition experts on its report on the effects of food colouring on children was disappointing and failed to focus on the real issue – that Britain is phasing out some artificial colours while New Zealand is doing nothing….

c: Medical and other science experts such as dietitians get exasperated with some media reporters who either deliberately or out of ignorance use anecdoctal evidence or dubious ’studies’ to sensationalise their story. Of course dietitians don’t condone artificial colours and, whether or not  they cause your kids to ‘lose the plot’, it would be good to see these unnecessary additives phased out.

Editorial: Don’t tinker with our daily bread – Health – NZ Herald News … It is not too difficult to see why many public health authorities support the mandatory fortifying of bread with folic acid. No one questions folate’s effectiveness in reducing the incidence of certain birth defects, notably spina bifida, if it is taken in sufficient quantity around the time a woman becomes pregnant …

c:Nice commentary but there are hints of negative effects on the US population -update today on kiwiblog and read my own folate posts.

Omega-3 deficiency causes 96,000 US deaths per year, say researchers … Omega-3 deficiency is the sixth biggest killer of Americans and more deadly than excess trans fat intake, according to a new study. The Harvard University researchers looked at 12 dietary, lifestyle and metabolic risk factors such as tobacco smoking and high blood pressure and used a mathematical model to determine how many fatalities could have been prevented if better practices had been observed …

c: This is really interesting but keep in mind it’s an analysis of numbers – and we all know how they can be manipulated! Still, I’ll be sure to keep up my weekly salmon dinner and salmon sushi snacks – delicious.

A rural town in Australia has voted overwhelmingly to ban the sale of bottled water over concerns about its environmental impact. … Campaigners say Bundanoon, in New South Wales, may be the first community in the world to have such a ban…

c: Good on them! Why pay for something you can get naturally. Bottled water has its place – it’s made it trendy to drink water – that’s got to be a good thing. But if you want to be even more ‘on trend’ and eco-friendly simply drink filtered tap water (see TIME mags megatrend on this).

Blood glucose control ranks high in US death causes

c: From the same mathematical analysis as the omega-3 story.  Blood glucose ranked 5th and omega-3 ranked 6th in preventable causes of death ie it doesn’t include accidents. I’m surprised at inactivity ranking 4th. I’d better go for that bike ride – even though it’s freezing cold outside and I’d rather sit inside and eat cake!

Price of milk too much for many families, study finds – Nutrition – NZ Herald News … Price increases for milk and other dairy products are having a detrimental effect on children’s health, University of Otago researchers say …

c: This means almost 2 out of 3 Kiwi kids don’t drink milk daily – that’s terrible! Instead of cereal with milk what are they eating for breakfast – toast and a can of fizzy? Perhaps we will have to re-introduce milk at schools. How about banana smoothies or Milo instead of sausage sizzles and lollies (see my article on toddlers healthy bones).

This is Part 2 of Haare’s story about going out and catching eels with his grandparents. ( Part 1 is here.  Also see added footnote at the bottom of this post, about my husband’s eel hunting experiences too) ..c

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It was late afternoon when we settled down beside a blazing fire with Wairemana positioning herself close to the edge of the river. Other kuia were settling down along the riverbank for some distance away.  We were positioned near a dark, swirling pool, which looked quite threatening.  Wairemana was adept and had great skill in catching the eels hungry for the bait with muka, threaded through its body.  The hand held muka line was suspended from her frail but anxious hand and as she dipped it into the water, the bite was immediate as dozens of eels rushed to grab the bait.

The swirl of the eels in the water and the rhythm set up by Wairemana meant that the eels, whatever their size, were flung with ease onto the shore.  With just a single effortless movement she flicked the line over her shoulder and with a quick flick, the eel let-go of the bait landing some way away from the river.  It was so quick; Rimaha and I had to work fast to recover the snaking fish in the dim light of the fire.

It was a joy to watch her in action.  So rhythmic and composed.  She had done this so many times before.  It looked second nature.

Yes, during the night she let me have a go as well.  But I could not flick the eel over my shoulder.

She held her position all night and by dawn we had several sacks of the choicest eels in the river.  All dead.  The smaller ones were put back.

As they lay stretched out on the ground, I was a little scared to even touch the gleaming black and grey yields of the river.  Eels everywhere.

Rimaha and I then cleaned the slime off them by passing them through the ashes of the dying fire.  And then clean them.  A job I hated.

Wairemana had earned the right to sit and rest with her torori tobacco pipe in her mouth.

Further along the river others were gathering around and cleaning their cache.  It looked like a great night for everyone.

After the karakia we said goodbye to the river and headed home.  Lady, our trusted old horse had a very satisfying load to take home.

Pawhera tuna (eels) everywhere.  They were opened up from the belly across its spine and along the back. It was then smothered in salt, rubbed in and hung out in the sun to dry.

This is tuna pawhera.  Each night the hundred or so eels were gathered in and put out again the next day. They took up every vantage spot around our kainga. And after a week of drying in the sun, the delicacies were ready to be stored away for special occasions and for our meals over a long winter.

“Mauria mai he tuna pawhera e moko kia tunutunua ki runga i te ahi o te kauta nei. Kei te rongo koe i te kakara, nera?”

“Tino rawe tena e Ma,” showing my enthusiasm to slowly smoke pawhera tuna above the smouldering embers of the open fire in our kauata.

What a meal.  Oil under the thick skin of the smoked tuna running down my cheeks and arms.  I can still savour its unique and special taste. Still taste it now.   ..Haare

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* Cindy’s footnote: My husband recalls his eeling days as a teenager on his tribal farm, Mangatu …

“I’ll never forget it!” my husband started. “I was about 15 or 16, and staying with my cousins on our farm – 50,000 acres of rugged sheep farming country in my tribe’s Mangatu farm blocks, Whatatutu, near Gisborne (you can see how rugged the country is on this google map). Freezing cold – a night just like tonight”  – at the moment we are sitting warm and cosy at home on a cold New Zealand winter evening as he tells me this story of his teenage eel catching adventures.

“We got up at 3am mid-winter and drove in the old Land Rover beside our river until the road ran out. We then walked inland another couple of kilometres through the river’s freezing water and up over cascading waterfalls in the pitch dark (no moon), except for light from our kerosene lamps. I’ll never forget seeing the eels (NZ long fin variety) once we arrived at our posy – the water was teeming with them, attracted by the lamps.”

“They just lie there on the bottom of the stream, blissfully unaware what’s going to happen next. You sneak up to them, whack the metal hook under their bellies, jerk up and fling them up onto the bank. It took four of us – Uncle Tiny, my cousin Laurie, another cousin and me – about two hours to catch 60 or 70 eels – huge black slimy monsters.

I’ve never been so cold in my life, frozen to the bone.”

“I’ll never forget that cold and carrying those massive eels back on my shoulders – thick bodies, and this long.”  He stretches his arms out as wide as they can go.

“How did four of you carry so many back?” I ask.

“I don’t know how we did it, but we did. We threaded them with No. 8 wire through their mouths. They were so heavy. And we had to trek back down those treacherous waterfalls and through the river. We got home about 7am – soaking wet, freezing cold, knackered! We dried and smoked the eels the next day for a wedding celebration at our marae (Tapuihikitea) that was coming up – all the trouble we went to, to get them, was worth it.”

My husband’s whanau (family) on the farm are strong, tough as, rugged types, Maori – if we all had to work that hard for our food we sure wouldn’t need gyms, weight watchers or protein powders! ..c

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Related articles:

For the nutrition part, read this: Maori diet of eel could help stop diabetes rise | NZ Herald
See Haare’s other story about cultivating Kumara

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I first tasted smoked eel last Christmas. Some friends hand-delivered the delicacy, wrapped in foil, and described their nocturnal adventures catching it from a stream about an hour’s drive from Auckland. “You mean you drove down there in the middle of the night?” I asked. “Sure – that’s where you find them”, they replied matter-of-factly. Give me a deli any day, I thought!  ..c

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In this post, my father-in-law Haare Williams, tells of his growing-up experiences catching eels with his Maori grandmother (kuia). This is Part 1 …

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“When are we going, e Ma?. I was anxious to get going.  The build up had been intense over the past few days, and I was excited about the prospect of catching eels on the banks of the Nukuhou River at Matakerepu, some eight miles inland.

“Apopo, a tahira ranei.”

“Why not tonight?”

“Ehara tenei i te po e ngau ai te tuna.  Kaua e kaika.  Koina te mate o te mokopuna pihikete.  Tuatahi me ata mahi nga noke hei mounu i mua i te haere tawhiti nei.  Taihoa.”

“When then?”

“When the night sky tells us.  She said. “You see, e moko, we have one night to do this, so we have to do it right.”

“We wait then?”

“Ae.”

We went to the bush and collected worms, not just ordinary worms, but large, snake looking, wriggly worms.  Rimaha and I dug them out of the layers of soil deep in the bush behind our whare.  These worms had thrived for many years in the rotting accumulations of leaves.  All we had to do was scrape away the top layers of soil and there they were.

My thing was to collect those wriggly creatures and place them into a wet bag.  They were covered over with wet leaves to keep them fresh. These crawlies were kept in their moist billets until the day before our trip to the riverbanks at nearby Matakerepu.

“So. e Ma when is the right time to fish for eels.”

Wairemana explained “No Whiro ke tenei po, ehara i te po e tika ana ki te haere ki te mahi tuna.”

“So this is Whiro’s night.  Does that mean that the moon is not yet right for the tuna(eels) to run?”

“Kao.  When the moon is in that new-moon shape, just a crescent, it means this is the night of Whiro when neither the night nor the day is good for anything.”

“We have all the worms we need in the bag, e Ma.”

“Ka pai.”

“Tomorrow e moko we will thread the soft muka through the bodies of the worms and then we will be ready for Oua, the fourth night of the moon when it’s the right time for us to go and catch them.”

“Do you put hooks on the ends of the muka?”

“Kao.  You see when the bait is dipped into the swirling water of the Nukuhou River, the eels will bite into them and their teeth get tangled in the muka, and all I have to do then is flick them ashore.  Once they’re airborne, they release and they land up on the dry land. Easy.”

“Can I do that?”

“Of course,” she smiled quizzically.  “But your job, e moko with your koro, is to chase them when I land them, give a sharp bang on the tail, and gather them up, before they wriggle back into the water. . .”

Part 2 of this story is on my next post …

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Related articles:

Maori diet of eel could help stop diabetes rise | NZ Herald
See Haare’s other story about cultivating Kumara

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