Commodity prices are soaring. Grow food.

[atash]

In February 2008 I posted something similar elsewhere BEFORE the commodity prices took off (actually, were already starting to but now the process is accelerating). That's because I knew they were going to. That's because I understood that the growers were not able to fully finance their operations in the wake of the US (global, actually) financial crisis. There were some other fiascos too, like the biolfuels.

forums.seedsavers.org/showthread.php?t=106

Someone was offended by that post, and I ended up getting flamed, censored, reprimanded, and given a warning. Not dissing another forum. Just recounting an objective fact, with no recriminations or personal attacks, neither of which is my style.

In retrospect it was probably my second post in that thread that stepped on toes.

Most of it has stood the test of time, except that Monsanto has continued its downward spiral:

www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/business/05monsanto.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=business

Here is the current state of affairs, courtesy Casey Research:



Now vegetable oils are starting to catch up to cereals:

www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-31/food-inflation-rising-as-cooking-oil-poised-to-catch-up-with-grain-gains.html

I suggest making plans to grow MORE food. I suggest you keep in mind what are staple crops you can live on.

Vegetable oil production is an interesting problem, especially on a small scale. I would guess oils are expensive for plants to produce, so they tend to only produce small amounts, unless you live in a really warm climate. I think we might be doing less frying at my house, because that's a relatively consumptive use for oil. Save the vegetable oils for salad dressings and baking. Then you're eating them, and not just coating the bottom of a pan with oil much of which will end up not being eaten.

[mnjrutherford]

Nov 2, 2010 2:05:42 GMT -5 atash said:

Vegetable oil production is an interesting problem, especially on a small scale. I would guess oils are expensive for plants to produce, so they tend to only produce small amounts, unless you live in a really warm climate. I think we might be doing less frying at my house, because that's a relatively consumptive use for oil. Save the vegetable oils for salad dressings and baking. Then you're eating them, and not just coating the bottom of a pan with oil much of which will end up not being eaten.

I've been pondering the issue of producing oil for several years. The process is very much akin to grinding grains on a large scale. I tried to find a place that could grind 10 to 15 lbs of corn. No such luck. What I did discover was surprising... I was told, by a local, large scale grinder, is that small mills existed all over the area until just a very few years ago. "Few years ago" meant within the past 5 years. I'm trying to track their stones at this point. But that is another issue entirely.

In Indiana, I learned that stones used to grind corn are not all that good for wheat. Issues with grain size. However, wheat stones can be used with other grains.

Olive oil is produced by grinding the fruit, pit and all, into a paste. The paste is spread onto a thick felt pad, the pads are sandwiched in layers of up to 10 pads. The "sandwich" is placed between 2 large stones and then pressed with a similar type of screw as that which is used to press cider. The felt pads are part of the filtering system and they hold most of the solids.

Anyway, by have several sets of stones and using several belts that can be moved from machine to machine, a miller could produce oils and flours in a single setting using a water powered mill. This is why we are looking for property with a water powered mill and press.

On a side note, we use our old frying oil to feed our terra preta pit. It's perfect for making a slow fire after a heavy rain. So, it isn't lost to us.

[mjc]

One of the easiest types of oil to produce on a small scale is sunflower oil...

Oil types produce about a tenth of a pound of seed per head in commercial production. Gardeners, with their better soil and care, invariably do better than that. Our conservative estimate is that 1,280 plants will be enough for three gallons of oil. Spaced one foot apart in rows two feet apart, 1,280 oilseed plants will take a space 40-by-56 feet, or 80-by-28 if you want a more rectangular patch to face south.

journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/oilpress.html

[plantsnobin]

Raise pigs. Lard is very useful.

[atash]

MNJRutherford, good thinking on reusing spent frying oil. If I ever end up pressing my own oil, I am going to be stingy with it.

MJC, good thinking. I did not think of sunflower when I first read the article that said that vegetable oil prices were catching up with cereals, but Tom Wagner reminded me of those this morning. I think I will make the effort to look around for sunflower seeds specialized for oil--typically the small black ones. It seems to me sunflower oil is highly polyunsaturated and is best left to salad oil and baking, not frying.

I should work on pumpkinseeds too, and figure out what their oil composition is. Probably a lot of monounsaturates. Might make a good substitute for olives in climates too cold for olives. Oddly enough, they've been selling a relatively coldhardy olive up here as a novelty. I doubt that it is practical, but they've planted a grove as far north as somewhere around Grants Pass Oregon.

I should also evaluate Canola (a variety of Rapeseed bred to have non-bitter oils...).

Plantsnobin Karen, that's right, people used to use lard in a lot of applications where now most folks my age and younger use vegetable oil. For example, making pancakes or pie crusts (I think beef fat might have been used for piecrusts too, though it was often reserved for candles and soap).

[orflo]

Here's a neat little hand press for oil:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0NoTxSa_tk&feature=related
sunflower seeds don't need to be hulled with this one. Besides sunflowers lots of other plants produce oil seeds, here are a few that Im thinking of:

camelina sativa: small plants, tiny seeds, no bird picking, ideal for short-summer climates, the oil is very nutty, it used to be grown more for oil but it has disappeared completely over the last century.

safflower: gives an excellent oil as well, needs a bit of a longer climate, but gives lots of seeds (wear gloves!), plants need more space

grape seeds: a highly esteemed oil, is probably quite labour intensive to clean up all the seeds,

some trees produce interesting oil seeds, especially nuts off course, the best known is probably the walnut (juglans regia) which can produce loads of nuts each year, I have one right outside here and I can collect lots...

If I remember correctly some thistles produce oil seeds, especially the onoprdum family. Thistle seeds are produced by thousands (watch the resowing!) and thistles have very nice tasting young stems as well.

There are lots more...
Frank

[mjc]

I've got some oilseed sunflower seed, so PM me if you want some...

Here's a little info on pumpkin oil...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpkin_seed_oil

The typical varieties used for oil production are the naked seeded ones.

[garnetmoth]

Neat discussion folks!
I was raised with the "use margarine instead" mantra, but plain oils or transfat free are better, and pastured animal fats arent as bad as feedlot animal fats.....

I got seeds of the African Moringa tree after reading about it, and they are pretty neat. I had 2 small treelets last year, and forgot to plant them in time this year. Id definitely use a larger container, and fertilize better. I was particularly interested in Moringa because their seed are a natural water purifier/aid in aggregating particles and resulting water could easily be pasteurized in a solar oven....

I should go back and see if the science has gotten any farther, but it looked like the oil from Moringa is less healthy than other vegetable oils. Id hate to do something useful just to do more harm!

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

I didn't watch the video but, yeah i've heard sunflour oil is as easy as boiling a pot of sunflower seeds in water. There are tons of people around here who grow sunflowers.

Also, what about walnut oil? It's my favourite oil to use. We have tons of black walnut trees around here, and even have three walnut trees planted by squirrels in my yard. I would love to learn how to harvest walnut oil from all those black walnuts.

[castanea]

For those in more northern climates, don't forget sea buckthorn oil:

www.mountainroseherbs.com/learn/oilprofile/sea_buckthorn.php

[spacecase0]

Nov 2, 2010 20:15:40 GMT -5 castanea said:

For those in more northern climates, don't forget sea buckthorn oil:

www.mountainroseherbs.com/learn/oilprofile/sea_buckthorn.php

I had no idea it made oil,
thank you

[atash]

Wow, lots of interesting brainstorming ideas! And I'm really learning a lot in short order. I had not considered oils more than casually, until I realized what the market situation was. Thanks, all, for bringing me up to speed.

We've got a little Camelina seed, Frank. I'd never even heard of it before last year when it was mentioned as a companion crop for cereals, which we will also be growing (and cereals were one of the first commodities to take off).

Safflower production scares me. We're all-organic and apparently the plant is a poor competitor. Growers usually use herbicides (so much for "organic safflower oil"). It used to be common in markets here but isn't as much as it used to be--might have actually had its reputation hurt when the trend was to move away from highly unsaturated oils to monounsaturates. I would also worry about its drying-down requirements. We've had a string of cool summers and if it wasn't ripe by summer, it would hit our fall rainy season and that would be the end of that at least in terms of natural drying. A warmer and drier climate would work better than here. Might be good to have a few just to sell seed to people in warmer, drier climates.

I didn't realize until just looking it up now that before it was used for oil, it was used as a dye plant. Well, duh, the specific botanical name is "tinctoria". The flower petals are a source of dye for food or clothing.

(speaking of dyes, walnut fruit extract is extremely staining. Makes an attractive deep brown color on clothes (including accidentally if you don't realize it stains) or woodwork).

I was aware of walnut oil. Makes a luxuriant salad-dressing oil. I wonder if black walnuts have as much oil as "English" walnuts? Might not. Both kinds grow well here, in fact people often get walnut trees in their yards from the squirrels burying them, and then they fail to harvest the walnuts! Just let them fall and eventually get gathered up by more squirrels and spread to other yards. I bought a few black walnuts to grow on my property as "crops that take care of themselves". We eat so many nuts at our house that it is unlikely that a significant number would go wasted. Also unlikely that we would have many left over for pressing, but it's an option if we had a surplus of nuts and not enough oil.

I have a few other nut trees whose nuts would make even more luxuriant oils (Pecan and hybrid Hazelnut/Filbert). For the European contingent: Pecans are a nut native to the southern USA vaguely related to Walnuts, but a little warmer growing. Different genus, same family. I would say their nuts have a pleasantly stronger taste than those of walnuts. They need a longer, warmer summer to ripen as well.

I knew that Sea Buckthorn/Seaberry juice is oily, and I knew that Russians use it in cosmetics and skin cream. Quite rich in essential fatty acids. I'll probably end up just drinking it with the juice, but again it could be used for other purposes if the need arose.

I had not thought about grapeseed oil even though it is common in Chinese markets here. The ironic thing is that the only grapes I grow do have seeds. That was actually intentional on my part because I wanted an easy way to propagate them (mine are species that will breed true enough to be useable) if push came to shove. I probably won't have enough to harvest significant quantities of oil though. That would take a whole vinyard. But it would be an interesting idea to intentionally grow seedy grapes in order to harvest the juice for juice or wine and the seeds for oil.

I was raised with the "use margarine instead" mantra, but plain oils or transfat free are better

Interesting point, Garnetmoth. You know, commercial oils are TOO refined. Except for a few intentionally "fruity" extra-virgin olive oils, they intentionally refine out most of the flavor, to produce neutral-tasting oils. But home-expressed oils would be cloudy, rich, and quite flavorful. They would make good dipping oil for bread in lieu of butter, like many Italian families do.

The typical varieties used for oil production are the naked seeded ones.

The one I am familiar with is "Styrian Hull-less" from Austria, which alas is hard for me to grow because it makes huge pumpkins that take a long time to ripen. I've got seed for it but I also have the smaller, and faster-to-ripen Lady Godiva, which should work just as well.

I wonder if the hulled types would work as well? Just filter out the hulls? Otherwise, the excess seed is either wasted, or you wear down your teeth cracking the hulls!

Hmm, according to that article mjc posted, cooking it wrecks the flavor. Probably if the temperature exceeds some threshold--frying's probably a bad idea. Better use a more stable oil for cooking, and leave the pumpkin oil for salads and...interestingly...uncooked desserts!

I need to write all these ideas down so I don't forget them.

Garnetmoth, I'm guessing that you leave the African Moringa trees indoors for the winter, as they are fairly tropical. I think Indian Moringa tolerates a little cooler temperatures. Well, at least it seems to. Indian Moringa is believed to be (I don't think anyone is absolutely certain) native to the foothills of the western Himalaya, where it probably experiences mild frosts in habitat when dormant. I have both. My Indian Moringa is full of flower buds, which makes me wonder if I actually have the legendary PKM1 variety.

PKM1 would be the one to grow for oil, because it has non-bitter seeds. Was selected for non-bitterness not to mention precocious fruiting. It is an amazing multipurpose crop, though in India they are primarily after the pods, which are a common vegetable there known as "vegetable drumsticks". If you ever see that term in an Indian cookbook, that's what they're talking about.

For those who don't know what Moringa is, look it up on my forums, there's at least one very long thread about it. It is an extremely useful and amazing crop for warm dry climates that have a rainy season.

Moringa is fussy to get started. Many of us who have grown it have had trouble getting seedlings established. It seems to get tougher once it gets older and established. I think the seedlings are vulnerable to disease if kept too cold or too dry. Once established the trees are fairly drought-tolerant, especially the African which has a fat trunk like a baobab, not to mention a deep taproot and drought-deciduous leaves too. The Indian Moringa grows in much wetter climates but still has some vestigial resistance to drought, by having a deep taproot and by being drought-deciduous. If grown in a drier climate than it is actually native to, it will eventually develop a water-storing trunk, reverting to the nature of its xeric ancestors.

[mnjrutherford]

Nov 2, 2010 15:21:17 GMT -5 atash said:

MNJRutherford, good thinking on reusing spent frying oil. If I ever end up pressing my own oil, I am going to be stingy with it.

This tickles me because we have been living by the philosophy that "If it comes onto the property it stays on the property!" Meaning that we make permanent use of whatever we attain.

I want to grow olives. I think they are more cold hardy than some might think since they grow beautifully in the northern climes of Spain and Italy which are, globally speaking, at the same latitudes as much of the US. Methinks I'm going to be taking a closer look at the globe later today. Regardless, I hear a whole lot of stuff about why I shouldn't be trying to grow them here, but no one says anything about ever trying so how would anyone know?

I would really like to know if they can be grown in places like the Ozarks and Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. If I can ever get my hands on some wood or some seed, You better believe I'll be verifying whether or not they can be grown here in North Carolina. Olive oil has been used for everything from lamp oil, to soap, to pharmaceuticals, to frying eggs (my personal favorite).

I may be mistaken, but I do believe that pretty much any food grade fat can be used exactly the same with equal efficacy but slightly different qualities. Variety making the "spice of life" so to speak. Read, "I LOVE LARD!" But, not in biscuits.

[mnjrutherford]

Nov 2, 2010 15:51:56 GMT -5 orflo said:

grape seeds: a highly esteemed oil, is probably quite labour intensive to clean up all the seeds,

Dual purpose, squeeze off the fruit for wine/juice, pulp for jam, the left behind seeds for oil... That way, both fruit and labor are consumed 100%.

[mjc]

Nov 3, 2010 7:07:00 GMT -5 mnjrutherford said:

I want to grow olives. I think they are more cold hardy than some might think since they grow beautifully in the northern climes of Spain and Italy which are, globally speaking, at the same latitudes as much of the US. Methinks I'm going to be taking a closer look at the globe later today. Regardless, I hear a whole lot of stuff about why I shouldn't be trying to grow them here, but no one says anything about ever trying so how would anyone know?

I would really like to know if they can be grown in places like the Ozarks and Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

The type to look for would be Arbequina...

aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/fruit/olive/olive.html

The Arbequina can be containerized. It is one of the smaller varieties and it can be grown in a 20 to 30 gallon container.