Promoting the growing of tree nuts in Canada, and their use. |
Email acorn@treenuts.ca |
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![]() Saturday, September 20, 2008... The experiment got underway today as the best of the year's acorns were falling. Here is the gist. According to international oak researchers, the red oak (AKA Quercus rubra) acorn may contain 10% to 30% edible oil that is like olive oil. Do the multitude of red oaks here at Constance Bay have this oil, and if so, how much? We aim to find out. (And we can use the acorn flour, too!) Do you live in Constance Bay (located in Ottawa, Canada) or have a friend who does? Then join our experiment. Here is our participation poster telling you how join our experiment. Follow the experiment... |
![]() Sunday, January 4, 2009 ... This is the first progress report on the experiment. As of Winter Solstice 2008 (on December 21 this year), the Constance Bay Red Oak Forest Acorn Oil Experiment was quickening as we got yet closer to our first oil assay. Read our first progress report... |
![]() Tuesday, September 23, 2008 ...The Allbirch site in Constance Bay is about a half acre (fifth of a hectare) of mostly open ground. To date, mowed lawn has covered most of the site. In June 2008, it was decided that most of the lawn should be converted to native and naturalized Controlled Pollinator Garden, inspired by the red oaks. So, only a set of paths is now cut, the rest left to return to native plants (which is happening fast) that provide leafy food for local caterpillars and nectars for feeding adults, as well as enable young oak trees to get started without fear they will be 'mowed down'. The red-spotted purple butterfly's caterpillar favors the red oaks on the site. We are seeing sulfurs, white cabbage and others already. There are many natural benefits to this arrangement... |
![]() Tuesday, September 30, 2008... The approximate nutrition expected in leached tannin-free acorn flour/meal, full fat included (no oil extracted) for a serving size about 100g. Acorn flour offers a satiating meal, possibly the more so than any athoer. Acorns are thought by some researchers as a major food of humans for possibly thousands of centuries. Here are the data... |
![]() Tuesday, October 7, 2008 ... Many edible products can be made from the living oak. Its not just the acorn. For example, wine can be made from young oak leaves in the spring and/or older leaves in the late summer or fall/autumn. The Scot's make the world's best oak leaf wine. They add a few selected berries to the ferment, so maye you might do the same and thus improve on the recipes we offer here. Here is how... |
![]() Saturday, October 18, 2008 Black walnuts trees are common in the city of Ottawa's urban agroforest, as well as in the surrounding municipalities and here and there across the rest of Canada, too. Estimates of hundreds to thousands of trees have been made for Ottawa alone. Black walnuts are thought the most flavourful of our tree nuts. Try them out... |
![]() Saturday, October 18, 2008 ... Many kinds of tree nuts can grow in the Ottawa region, including such notables as Acorns (Quercus spp), Beechnuts (Fagus grandifolia), Black Walnuts (Juglans nigra), Butternuts (Juglans cinerea), Sweet Chestnuts (Castanea dentata), Gingkos (Gingko biloba), Hazelnuts (Corylus spp), Hickory (Carya spp), Pecans (Carya illinoinensis), and Pine Nuts (Pinus spp). There are still others (horsechestnuts and buckeyes for example), but these are the ones we have recipes for right now. Here are some recipes for their fruits... |
![]() Sunday, October 19, 2008... Scones are seldom made with tree nuts, as far as we can tell. So, we decided the time has come to bring these two supreme food groups together. We have compiled a list of treenut/scone recipes to try out, Few have been tried yet, but those that have proved good enough to have at teatime certainly, and for most any other time for that matter. Give them a try yourself, eh... Try tree nut scones... |
![]() Sunday, October 19, 2008 ... Back in 1989, we at Cobjon Nutculture Services had already been working for over a decade to mitigate the global climate change we could see already underway. It was already clear that forests everywhere were coming under risk of local collapse. However, by us moving tree nut seed northward a distance matching the wave of warming, we could keep at least forest kernels that could then expand naturally as change settled down to the new stasis. Hence, our proposal, PLASM. Here is how PLASM 1989 can work... |
![]() Tuesday, October 21, 2008 ... Tree nuts are your best kind of food, good nutriton, palatable, durable. They are versatile foods as well, for at any meal, , adjuncts to meals, snacks and more. (They have lots of uses other than as food, too.) Here are nine general food categories that Canada tree nuts can provide. More about tree nut food uses... |
![]() Tuesday, October 21, 2008 ... Urban forests are on the agenda of most municipalities. These trees are thought to bring benefits to the denizens. Research shows this to be true, and more important even than many expect. We at treenuts.ca want to carry these benefits even futher, to transform urban forests to urban 'agroforests' with many tree nuts. These agroforests would also offer nut crops for many uses. More about tree nuts in the city... |
![]() Sunday, November 2, 2008 ... Canada Nulture Association (CNA) promotes tree nut growing and crop use in Canada, as well internationally, provincially and locally. Canada is a tree nut growing nation, though on a small scale now but with considerable prospects for the future. CNA has refined the best five business models for Canadians to apply to crop production. In order of fastest startup, Cormier and Jones are quickest, within a single year to production. The Thomas and Campbell can take up to ten years to production, though CNA has strategies to shorten the time to well under five years.More about CNA tree nut business models... |
![]() Sunday, November 2, 2008 ... Tree nuts are a lesser factor in allergy than peanuts (which are not tree nuts). The prevalence of tree nut allergy in the US population is 0.5% to 1.0%. Anaphylaxis to ingestion of tree nuts accounts for 10% to more than 30% of reported fatal and near-fatal food ingestions. In a review review of 32 food anaphylaxis deaths in the United States between 1994 and 1999, 94% of the deaths were attributed to peanuts (63%) and tree nuts (31%). Canadian tree nut of concern are persian walnut, pecan, hazelnut (filbert) and almond and of less concern american chestnut, black walnut, butternut, hickory, beech, pinenuts and acorn.More about tree nut allergy... |
![]() Saturday, November 8, 2008... (Dancing tree photo by Carol Lynn Fraser of Edmonton, AB, Canada) Trees, and nut trees specially, define human habitat, intown and out. Human habitations such as cities without nut trees feel impoverished and stressful. Key resources are felt missing, and the inhabitants have a measurably lower quality of life. Most cities have too few trees to start with and fewer if any nut trees at all. Learn more about this defect in out cities... |
![]() Saturday, February 28, 2009 ... We are working hard towards the Red Oak Forest Festival. Meantime we must remember that there are other kinds of tree nuts also growing around the Bay and others that maybe should be too. Here is the list of tree nuts already found growing in sand hills of Constance Bay, Ontario, and some others that could grow here. Maybe there are still more kinds here already not found yet, if not natural, then planted by someone amongst us. Learn more about the tree nuts of Constance Bay Village... |
![]() Saturday, February 28, 2009 ... While we are working hard towards the Red Oak Forest Festival for Canada's Constance Bay Village, there are all the other kinds of tree nuts can or could grow across the country. Though they cannot grow everywhere in Canada, some one or another could be found somewhere in the country, at least in its lower latitudes. The beaked hazel reaches farthest north, as it grows well in the boreal forest. Many one day there will be tree nuts growing in Nunavut? Learn more about the tree nuts of Canada... |
![]() Saturday, March 14, 2009 ...Constance Bay Village in Ottawa Canada is the luckiest village in Canada! Everyone in the village lives under the canopy of a red oak forest. Its quality of life is very, very high. It denizens are street friendly, generous and the best neighbours. All because of its red oak forest. However, like all urban forests, its huge benefits may not be understood by all, specially newcomers arriving from the concrete and asphalt jungles of downtowns, who might to fell the trees! Lets talk about what precautions are required. Read the red oak forest festival talk... |
![]() Sunday, March 15, 2009 ...Constance Bay Village in Ottawa Canada is the luckiest village in Canada! Everyone in the village lives under the canopy of a red oak forest. Its quality of life is very, very high. The mythical Green Man turns the forests green in the spring and keeps them green until the autumn, so the story goes. The Red Oak Forest of Constance Bay has its own Green Men. (Mike Harding has much to say about the Green Man...His face stares down at us from the roofs , pillars and doorways of our great cathedrals and churches, he appears on second century Roman columns in Turkey and in Jain temples in Rajasthan. He is found all over England, some parts of Wales and Scotland and a few rare places in Ireland. On the continent he has been seen and noted in Germany, France, Italy, Holland and is said to be found in Spain, Hungary and Poland. India and Malaysia have their own Green Man and though he doesn't seem to appear in Native American traditions he can be seen in his modern role as a bringer of fortune on the walls of banks in New York and Chicago. His roots may go back to the shadow hunters who painted the caves of Lascaux and Altimira and may climb through history, in one of his manifestations through Robin Hood and the Morris Dances of Old England to be chiselled in wood and stone even to this day by men and women who no longer know his story but sense that something old and strong and tremendously important lies behind his leafy mask. One of the earliest English epic poems Gawain and The Green Knight may refer to yet another manifestation of the Green Man as the God that dies and is reborn. He is the Green Man, Jack in the Green, the Old Man of the Woods, Green George and many other things to many other men but one common theme runs through all the disparate images and myths, death and rebirth and the Green that is all life. Here is the story behind our Green Men of the Red Oak Forest... |
![]() Monday, March 16, 2009 ...Its 2009. We have a spreading global recession on our hands. We have had recessions before, right? So we can just wait this one out, right? Sure, it will be tough for awhile, but the pain will pass. It always has before. Nothing really new here. Or is there? News about our planets ability to feed all us humans has not been good lately.It fact is has not been good for at least the last half century or so. And it keeps getting worse, as well. Climate shifting, quirkier weather, wildfires, growing water shortages, more fisheries closing, UG99 ... This recession, will it last longer than the others? Will it be worse than they were? Lets not wait to find out. If we cannot save everyone, lets at least take care of ourselves. Show the others the way. Heres how we do it.... |
![]() Saturday, June 13, 2009 ... The native north American butternut tree (Juglans cinerea) is suffering a fatal canker causing fungus (Sirococcus clavigignenti-juglandacearum) and the trees are rapidly disappearing over their entire natural range! Few trees are left, many are in the northern edge in Ontario and Quebec. Find trees with natural resistance so our researcher can propagate them. The once-doomed swet American Chestnut is making a fast comeback, thanks to the hard work of researchers and breeders, so I know we can do the same for the endangered butternut. Time short! So, lets get going. Heres how we do it by working together.... |