There are few books that are more important to me than Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions.
The Qur’an, of course, is in a different category. I can’t put Sally Fallon above any other religious text either.
Among secular texts, though, Nourishing Traditions is head & shoulders above any other book I have ever read. This book has had a profound positive impact on my:
And that’s just for starters. [Read more…]
Good food has a good story.
The better the food, the better the story. There might be exceptions, but I don’t know of any.
In the average grocery store, the most unusual, extraordinary, inspiring story is the story of Ezekiel bread.
Like many such stories, this one starts in California in the 60’s. [Read more…]
Last month, during a stretch of below-zero nights, some of our root vegetables froze. Our space heater broke, and the temperature in the storage area dropped into the low 20’s. About a dozen sacks of carrots & beets froze solid.
We began feeding the frozen carrots & beets to our cows. They feasted on them. Good quality hay is one thing, but cattle know as well as you and I: there’s nothing like a fresh meal. [Read more…]
What’s the highest potential of organic agriculture? Can organic foods support better health?
This is not my idea. I am sure Hippocrates learned this from his teachers, who were students of their own already ancient medical tradition.
In our modern age, I would add this: All food has medical effects, but not all food is effective medicine.
This is part of why I farm: because I believe food must be grown and handled with its medicinal potential in mind.
Halal is what halal is, but striving towards complementing that, and not separating it from the tayyeb aspect, that’s the direction we want to push people in…
Ramadan Mubarak! Krystina interviews Imam Khalid Latif, co-founder of Manhattan’s Honest Chops, a halal butcher shop providing hand-slaughtered, ethically raised pastured beef and chicken to the NYC community. Their vegetarian and non-GMO fed meat is sourced from farms in Lancaster, PA as well as Maryland and upstate New York, butchered and prepped on site using organic ingredients
[Read more…]
We had a chance to pose a few questions to Munir Ravalia, a dentist, committee member at the Kingston Mosque, and an avid beekeeper, about the UK’s Muslim Beekeeping Project.
BH: I’ve read that one of the inspirations for the beekeeping project was the threat of colony collapse. Could you briefly explain this issue and why Muslims should be concerned?
MR: Colony Collapse Disorder was first noted in the USA where large apiaries (bee farms) noticed that multiple hives (bee houses–or the small boxes where bees live), were wiped out literally overnight. No one really knows the real reason and many theories are out there, but many say it has to do with resistance to pesticides. In reality, these things usually have multifactorial causes.
Muslims and all humans should be worried as bees are part of an ecosystem, so not only does it affect pollination of plants and honey production but it is a wider warning that we as humans are killing our own selves over time as we play around with nature: genetically modified crops, drug resistance, pesticide resistance, etc.
Another inspiration for the project was the longstanding Islamic tradition of using honey for its medicinal purposes. [Read more…]
Asiila Imani is a mother, midwife, doula, and writer who home schools and teaches language arts to children in her community. For the past five years she’s been trying her hand at backyard gardening, getting involved with community gardening as well as permaculture. Two years ago she began raising chickens out back of her house.
Beyond Halal: Why did you decide to start keeping chickens?
Asiila Imani: A member of our jamah, Brother Ebraheem, a serious DIYer, bought five chicks for fresh homegrown eggs. He knew that we too are striving to live as organically and pure as we can, so he suggested we do the same. And, since we all homeschool, what a wonderful experience it would be for our children! [Read more…]
Here are a few reflections on a doe I shot in October during the 2012 New Hampshire archery season.
When I speak to people about bow hunting many are surprised to learn that my arrows almost always travel cleanly through the deer and exit unobstructed. This is known as a “pass-through” to hunters, and is a shot that one practices in the off-season. After a pass-through I inspect the arrow, looking for any cracks or stress marks, and will use the same arrow again if it is undamaged.
This pass-through led to an interesting conversation with Sheikh Abdul-Karim Yahya. Over dinner he mentioned the hadith where the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: “Some people will emerge from [the east] who will recite the Qur’an, but it will not go beyond their throats. They will pass through Islam as the arrow passes through game.” Sh. Abdul-Karim said he did not fully understand the meaning of the phrase “as the arrow passes through game” until he saw these photos. [Read more…]
Krystina sat down with Rhamis Kent, a Permaculture consultant who travels all over the Middle East and North Africa advising governments and organizations on how they can engage in ecosystem restoration in order to increase biodiversity and sustain plant, animal, and human life.
In this interview, they discuss his recent article entitled “Restoring the Amanah Through Earth Repair: Islam, Permaculture, and Ecosystem Restoration Work.”
Krystina Friedlander: I want to start by asking you about Ibn Khaldun, a Tunisian historiographer who lived in the 14th century. You wrote that he warned people about the “pleasures of civilization.” What might he say about what we’re seeing now in terms of environmental degradation and industrialization?
Rhamis Kent: Well, I think it’s a proof to what he’s pointing to in his work. The Muqaddimah is a book where he’s examining the causes for the rise and fall of civilizations. [Read more…]
Two weeks ago was opening day of archery season for Whitetail deer in New Hampshire. For a hunter the nine months between seasons seems like an eternity. In the off-season there are plenty of activities that occupy your time, however, nothing is like trying harvest a deer with your bow. Nothing!
I look at each season as an opportunity to correct mistakes and missed opportunities from the year before. Its a time when all the “what ifs” are put to rest and you are afforded another season of opportunities to better yourself.
This is the fourth for me in New Hampshire and Vermont. Four long seasons without taking a deer. During these four years I have spent many hours sitting in my stands or slinking through the woods looking for “the shot.” And in four years I have only shot at two deer, and missed both!
As one of my friends said, “this ain’t Nantucket; there’s not a deer behind every tree.” The big woods of New Hampshire and Vermont have been a challenge for me. [Read more…]