Garden Pic Wednesday: Harvest of Basil & Greek Oregano

-

 Today's Garden Pic is a harvest of Sweet Basil & Greek Oregano laid out in dryer trays for drying!
Temperatures outside are getting cool, so since the Basil will freeze and I only have the one plant, I decided yesterday to hop-to and get it picked for drying!
The Greek Oregano I can get anytime as it's winter hardy here in Florida.
So, I tray Basil & 3 Trays of Greek Oregano. Once dry, I separate leaves from stems, crush up the leaves with my fingers on wax paper, then slide the herbs into a recycled glass herb bottle.
Since I had so little Basil, I combined them in one bottle labeled "Italian Seasoning."


Consumer Reports tested a number of common commercial herbs & spice brands for arsenic, cadmium & lead. Popular brands including Walmart Great Value, McCormick, Spice Islands, 365 Whole Foods, Badia and many others for particular spices & herbs: basil, oregano, black pepper, chili powder, cumin, etc.
The report is not encouraging. A lot of them all fell into red scores from anywhere from "some concern" to "high concern" for arsenic, cadmium & lead content to be a heath concern.
Spices that rated "safe" across the board were Black Pepper, Curry Powder, Garlic Powder, Saffron, Sesame Seed & White Pepper.
For Basil, only safe rated brand of those tested was Simply Organic (out of 8 brands)
For Oregano, out of the 8 brands tested, NOT a single one rated safe. All rated from one red dot for "some concern" except for a brand called, La Flor, that got 3 red dots for "high concern."
Out of 5 Brands, Thyme rated badly, too.
So, I must say I'm glad I've been growing, drying & bottling my own Basil & Oregano. And I do have my own Thyme outside in a container.

Read the report here:
 https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-safety/your-herbs-and-spices-might-contain-arsenic-cadmium-and-lead-a6246621494/

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for leaving a comment!

Popular posts from this blog

Good Eating Monday: Peach Cobbler Dump Cake!

-
Image
Yes, I tried another new Pinterest recipe and this one is a winner! The primary dictionary definition of a "Dump Cake," is an easily made cobbler in which cake mix is dumped over canned fruit or pie filling.  This recipe was pinned from Del Monte, which means it's been a recipe that's been created & tested in a corporate test kitchen. That's one benefit of all those label, can & box recipes provided by manufacturers on their product packaging. You can even buy cookbooks featuring nothing, but package & label recipes of which many are vintage. The only changes I'd suggest is add one more 15 oz can of fruit. It can be more peaches, cherry fruit cocktail, regular fruit cocktail or whatever you want. (So, I've noted 4 cans of peaches in the recipe.)   It just needs a little more volume on the fruit quantity.  And stir a teaspoon or two of cinnamon into the fruit! Otherwise, this is an excellent, quick dessert you can serve hot with v
Read more

Friday Finds: Crystal River, Florida!

-
Image
Todays "find" is a few photos I took in Crystal River, Florida. We recently drove down to Homosassa Springs, Florida to visit Hubby's half brothers & sisters, though our motel was in the adjacent hamlet called Crystal River.   The Days Inn there was a Denny's attached, so it was a great place to stay! We live on the Panhandle and Crystal River/Homosassa Springs are on the western side of the Peninsula south of Gainesville, but north of Clearwater about a 7 hour drive away. The area is small town America, both towns situated around  two large rivers that pour into a delta on the Gulf and are surrounded by State and National wildlife preserves and parks. I took this shot below off a pier looking across the wide expanse of river at boats and residences on the opposite side: This next shot is across a river bayou is typical of the scenery in the area: lots of Live Oak trees draped in Spanish Moss: Here's a view down one street in
Read more

Mama Kat Thursday: Say What?

-
Image
Today's Mama Kat blog writing topic is,  "Write about something that made you laugh this week." I call it audio auto-fill. You know like what your phone does, except this is what your brain does when your ears hear words you can't quite make out clearly, so your brain "fills" in with other words---sometimes with hilarious results. Hubby and I have had two of those this past week: We were eating dinner and I said, "Tomorrow I need to refill the bird feeder." Hubby's  fork stopped in midair as he looked at me like a horn popped out of my forehead. "What did you say?" he asked. I repeated. He chuckled. "I thought you said you had to sell some beer tomorrow." Another day we were eating lunch. Hubby likes to eat chocolate rice cakes with peanut butter and honey. Sometimes he makes a peanut butter rice cake sandwich with two rice cakes. I'd seen him slather one rice cake with peanut butter, then, when I looked
Read more

Mama Kat Thursday: A Sweaty Problem

-
Image
The Mama Kat prompt today is the word: "Glistening." Glistening immediately brings perspiration to mind: my hubby's perspiration in particular. Actually, he's NOT a sweaty guy, but he does have a sweaty problem: about a year ago his armpits developed an allergy to stick antiperspirant. He's been using Old Spice deodorant and, before that, Brut for decades with an occasional dose of Speed Stick.  (He's over 60.) But, sometimes, as we age, our bodies change, and a sudden onset of a sensitivity to something isn't uncommon. So we tried switching brands.  We bought some Arm & Hammer stick deodorant. His armpit didn't like that either. He tried my Secret, the one strong enough for a man, but made for a woman--and, nope. He reacted to it, too. So, he gave up deodorant altogether and just started using Gold Bond Powder spray instead.  At least it wasn't irritating. But Gold Bond has no deodorizing properties, a fact he recently aire
Read more

Garden Pic Wednesday: Fall Red Salvia!

-
Image
This is the time of year my Red Saliva recover from the heat of summer and put on a show until it freezes! I have lots of orange Marigolds and pink & yellow 4 O'Clocks adding brightness to autumn, too! Today, I planted that Dwarf Butterfly Bush that came in the mail recently. I also moved a Bridal Veil shrub to a new spot, since it wasn't doing well where it was. Hopefully it will take off and really look good there!  Bridal Veils bushes have long arching branches that get covered with small, white flower clusters in spring, thus giving them the name. I also moved planted a pink Lantana I hadn't gotten around to planting until now and moved several small volunteer Mexican Heathers.  Both the Lantana and the Mexican Heathers are along the new edge of the back bed I enlarged slightly.
Read more