{"id":111,"date":"2014-06-15T16:06:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-15T16:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/merribee.swcomputerlab.org\/index.php\/2014\/06\/15\/carob-syrup-discovery-of-the-week\/"},"modified":"2014-06-15T16:06:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-15T16:06:00","slug":"carob-syrup-discovery-of-the-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/merribeeorganicfarm.net.au\/index.php\/2014\/06\/15\/carob-syrup-discovery-of-the-week\/","title":{"rendered":"carob syrup ….discovery of the week"},"content":{"rendered":"
Do you ever fret that sugar is so energy intensive that we should not eat it, even if it was healthy? And we are \u00a0learning how very unhealthy is the high fructose corn syrup sweetener. This fructose is found in -well ,just about every processed food , especially fizzy drinks . The fructose corn stuff is GM,( \u00a0as is the soy that is also in every processed food) . High fructose corn syrup \u00a0is not\u00a0recognized\u00a0by the body\u00a0as a food, but as \u00a0a toxin. Dr Robert Lustig ,\u00a0pediatric endocrinologist, \u00a0tells us this and many things in his speech “The bitter Truth about Sugar” which has had nearly 5 million views!! His latest offering “Fat Chance \u00a0Fructose 2.0” \u00a0is also very interesting<\/span>
\n\u00a0https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ceFyF9px20Y<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So I am\u00a0pleased to report that we just made carob syrup for the first time, and \u00a0it is surprisingly nice! \u00a0\u00a0The carob bean is something like 78 % sugar .Traditional recipes call for 5 kgs of carob beans and 4 kgs of sugar, but I am quite happy with the carob on its own. The tree is dioecious ( and here spell check can\u2019t help me) \u00a0It means there are male and female trees. It takes about 20 \u00a0years to find out who is who and the females to start bearing .The bad news \u00a0is, only one in 10 is a female. On the bright side they are all handsome evergreen trees and \u00a0wow, do the females \u00a0ever crank out the carob pods! \u00a0If you are a clever clogs you can successfully graft \u00a0most of your trees with female scions. Might give it a go one day with no expectation of success.<\/span><\/div>\n

These trees can handle any \u00a0amount of heat and drought once established. Carob pods are very sweet and mineral rich and a great stock food, but for me they are a tad fibrous. I call them a fibrous mars bar. \u00a0But lo! Carob syrup \u00a0can be rendered out of the pods . It fits in wonderfully with Mediteranean permaculture, because the pods ripen in May and can be collected and stored easily. Come June you will probably have a wood stove going , burning the latest tree that fell down on a fence to heat the home and boost your solar hot water. You just break \u00a0up the carob pods in your hands while talking on the phone ( its not messy), then soak this in a pot \u00a0for a day, then boil for an hour or 2, strain out the juice and put it back on the stove. Reserve\u00a0<\/span>the dregs for the pigs \u00a0to cheer them up on a cold, miserable day.<\/span>\u00a0With the fire going \u00a0 the juice \u00a0evaporates down \u00a0overnight to a yummy syrup.It doesnt seem to need stirring.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

If you put cream with it and some roasted nuts, \u00a0it is heavenly. I think a new \u00a0winter tradition has just begun at our place. \u00a0All ingredients could come from any half decent WA permaculture , so \u00a0being a locavore doesn\u2019t have to mean being skinny . At our place chestnuts, macadamias, walnuts and pecans fall from the trees in late May. The fuerte avocado is on in June\/July and could be mashed and mixed in to extend what I can only describe as \u00a0a\u00a0<\/span>super healthy version of \u201cnutella\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

If you are sad to be missing out on processed food because you don\u2019t want to support GM corn and soy plantations, I salute you. \u00a0Smile now because \u00a0you can grow carobs , you can milk a jersey cow! We are going to be all right!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
One of the 4 jersey heifers born this year on the farm.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\u00a0Local, organic, \u00a0superfood carob syrup is easily done and \u00a0no doubt can be bottled. \u00a0Now is the perfect \u00a0time to plant a heap of carob seeds and start a carob forest. \u00a0We can post you seeds for $3.50 a packet . http:\/\/merribeeorganicfarm.blogspot.com.au\/search?q=seed+catalogu<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you ever fret that sugar is so energy intensive that we should not eat it, even if it was healthy? And we are \u00a0learning how very unhealthy is the high fructose corn syrup sweetener. This fructose is found in -well ,just about every processed food , especially fizzy drinks . The fructose corn stuff… <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1],"tags":[26,37,38,103,104,127,177],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fruit-and-nuts","category-uncategorized","tag-avocado","tag-carob-syrup","tag-carob-trees","tag-local-sugar-source","tag-macadamia","tag-permaculture","tag-wood-stove"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/merribeeorganicfarm.net.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/merribeeorganicfarm.net.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/merribeeorganicfarm.net.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merribeeorganicfarm.net.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merribeeorganicfarm.net.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/merribeeorganicfarm.net.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/merribeeorganicfarm.net.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merribeeorganicfarm.net.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/merribeeorganicfarm.net.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}