Fruits And Vegetables

Here is an excerpt of an editorial from the San Francisco Examiner, which was published Thursday.CONSIDER THIS the Rubicon. We all know fruits and vegetables are life-savers, yet pizza and doughnuts still make up the main food groups in too many of our diets.For Baby Boomers especially, let the new results of a 14-year Harvard study be the turning point to a healthy diet. Otherwise, the risk of stroke and other diseases is all the greater.The study of 76,000 female registered nurses over a 14-year period and 39,000 male doctors and other medical workers over eight years found that the risk of stroke was cut by nearly a third among those who consumed a diet rich in fruits and vegetables.

WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency banned yesterday most uses of a pesticide applied widely for years on fruits and vegetables and tightened restrictions on another, in the first regulations intended specifically to protect children.Starting next year, the pesticide methyl parathion may not be used on a wide variety of crops from apples to turnips. The pesticide, mainly used by farmers, has been heavily regulated for years.Last year, 4.2 million pounds of methyl parathion was applied over 4.9 million acres, but 75 percent of the pounds and acreage produced cotton, corn and wheat, which are not affected by yesterday's ban. No figures were available on use of the second chemical.

Twenty years ago, Les and Pam Pahl set up a small vegetable stand on a corner of York Road with 14 other farmers. A handful of customers stopped by for asparagus on their way home. Today, what became the Towson Farmers' Market attracts more than 2,000 people to a long stretch of Allegheny Avenue between restaurants and antiques shops. Customers at the eagerly anticipated event aren't looking for just asparagus anymore. They're also buying hand-picked strawberries, potatoes, zucchini and flowers.

And you thought Miss Frizzle, of "Magic School Bus" fame was make-believe. Not at Valley Baptist Church preschool in Lutherville, where Ann D'Antoni (Miss Ann to her students), dresses for every school unit just like "the Frizz."If it's "yellow week," she's all in sunshine and golds. If the topic is bugs, D'Antoni, 47, is clad in caterpillars and butterflies from earrings to socks. One major difference between the fantasy teacher and the real thing: D'Antoni, of Lutherville, has straight, not curly hair.

WASHINGTON -- Seeking to breathe new life into an initiative that has languished for five months, President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore called on Congress yesterday to give the Food and Drug Administration authority to prevent foreign fruits and vegetables produced in unsanitary conditions from entering the country."

IT SEEMS LIKE SUCH a simple idea. Vegetables and fruit grown by Eastern Shore farmers should be served in Eastern Shore restaurants. The farmers get extra income, which encourages them to keep growing. The chefs get to cook with good ingredients, which keeps them happy. But as with many other seemingly simple ideas, pulling this one off can be complicated.Farmers tend to be wary of chefs and their picky tastes in produce. Chefs aren't so sure it is worth their trouble to take the extra steps required to secure local produce.

When Eva Monheim makes table decorations for a party, she likes to use material straight from the garden: Swiss chard, green and red peppers, corn and great bunches of cherry tomatoes."

The many rewards of good nutritionEating five fruits and vegetables a day makes good health sense. The concept also won a Baltimore County student a trip to Walt Disney World. Ten-year-old Sara Kenney of White Marsh is the grand-prize winner in the Produce Partners/Five a Day National Art Competition. Her poster (above) breaks down the food equation with a banana and juice for breakfast, grapes for lunch and two vegetables with dinner.Subtropical delightNow in the stores: cherimoya, a subtropical fruit that's worth the premium price.

Most people throw out their rotting fruits and vegetables.Alley Watada studies them for a living.Watada, a plant physiologist at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, has spent four years studying how produce breathes -- and rots. The point is to find the right temperatures and packing materials for preserving everything from asparagus to zucchini after it is picked, shipped and cut for consumption."They take in oxygen the way that people do, so how much oxygen they get is critical," said Watada, 66, of College Park.

Throughout my childhood summers, a crop of cucumbers dangled from my grandmother's fence. Even when I was a toddler, a pick-your-own trip to her back yard was the highlight of any visit. I could wash and eat that cuke, skin and all, while it was still sun-warm and juicy.I've been a cucumber addict ever since.For me, cucumbers make a salad. Their sweet, delicate flavor eased my transition from iceberg to the stronger-flavored salad greens.And when my parents' garden produced fresh cucumbers, our family indulged in a delicious, fat-free, simple-to-make cucumber and onion salad:Peel and thinly-slice any available cucumbers.