Most people in the Takoma Park area know Dr. Nazirahk Amen
and his family as the Purple People who live in a bright purple house
on Carroll Avenue, our main street. Some know the good doctor as the practitioner of
naturopathy, acupuncture and other healing arts, or as the teacher of
meditation and vegan cooking. But what I only learned recently is that
they're in the forefront of the growing movement to eat locally,
popularized by Michael Pollan in his bestseller "The Omnivore's
Dilemma". Food that is merely organic makes way for the growing
legions of "locavores," and what's more local than growing your own
food? That's exactly what the Amens do, though not because they read
Pollan's bestseller. It's all part of their spiritual quest to live
sustainable, holistic lives.
THE GARDENS
To learn the secrets of their sustainable food
operation, my first stop was behind that purple house, where I found
raised 2-foot-tall vegetable-growing beds filled with compost (9
years' worth) and coconut core. And everywhere are containers of all
types - even old tires - planted with food-to-be, many of them discards
from Whole Foods ("wasteful!"). An 85-gallon compost tea brewer is
nearby, and inside the house is a kitchen compost bin and the worm
composting operation. Nothing is wasted.
Then it's only a short drive to the nearest community garden - on Blair Road in D.C. - where
the largest part of their suburban farming operation is located - a 50
x 30-foot plot bursting with sweet potatoes, okra, tomatoes, eggplant,
pepper, okra, cucumber, corn, summer & winter squash when I visited
in September. (They pay only $30 a year for this double plot, which
generously covers all the water used! Incredibly, plots
went unused this year. To reserve a plot for next year call Howard Williams at 202/529-3683.)
BIOINTENSIVE GARDENING
According to Dr. Amen, a family of four
can feed themselves on a quarter-acre lot, or a 30x30-foot plot, which
includes space for crop rotation. And what makes it work are the
techniques of biointensive gardening, which produce maximum yields from
a minimum of land while leaving the soil better off. (See Growbiointensive.org and PolyfaceFarms.com.)
The raised beds are intensively planted, meaning with different plants
in the ground, on the ground, and vertically in air space above. Okra
is grown on top of sweet potatoes in the same spot. Cukes are grown
under corn. Different crops are grown in the same spot at different
times of the season, as well. The plants grown include good compost
crops, too, so that the gardens produce their own fertilizer, too.
Using these and other techniques of biointensive gardening, the Amens
produced over 700 pounds of sweet potatoes alone.
FORAGING FOR DINNER
I love this part. Turns out there's plenty
of free food around town for the picking - literally - and the Amens
supplement their gardening by foraging for the unwanted food around
town. Like wild persimmons, berries, figs and apples. Even bamboo
shoots are good eating, stir-fried. Those messy droppings from
mulberry trees that everyone complains about are sweet and great for
pies and muffins - just get them before they drop. And speaking of
freebies, the Amens estimate that half the greens they eat are either
weeds or volunteers, like the squash and tomatoes that grow from seeds
in their compost. The weed amaranth (aka pigweed) is a grain that's
complete protein and a popular food in the Caribbean, "like spinach but
more nutritious". So the Purple People will tell you they're not just
gardeners but "gleaners" or "freegans."
THE RESULTS
From June through October the Amens feed their
family - equivalent to four or five adults - entirely from the garden.
Winter is trickier but greens can be grown all winter using a high
tunnel or a greenhouse. Other winter
crops include squash and sweet potatoes and everything they've canned,
dried, frozen or stored from the previous season. So the key to eating
in winter is "intensive kitchen prep", like drying herbs and sun-dried
tomatoes, making and freezing gumbo, making and canning tomato sauce.
Carrots and beets are simply stored for eating during the winter. So
year-round, the family grows about 85 percent of all the foods they
eat, with only such items as oils, nuts, flour, peanut butter, and
sweeteners remaining to be bought. Their diet is vegan, primarily
whole grains, with seasoning making up for the lack of "meat taste."
Not bad for suburbanites. At their monastic headquarters in the
Ozarks, even greater success in sustainability has been achieved
through the practice of extreme conservation, and there's almost zero
waste. For more information visit ThePurplePeople.org.
TEACHING HEALTHIER EATING
Fortunately, Dr. Amen isn't satisfied
with having the healthiest family on the block. His mission includes
setting an example for others, especially his patients. They come to
him as individuals with problems like arthritis or overweight and leave
with 3-week detox diets that he hopes become lifetime diets for their
whole families. "It's hard to change in isolation, so whole families
have to change," he explains.
Judging from my own brief exposure to the biointensive, vegan
lifestyle of the Amen family, I can report that it's hard not to be
swept away by the sheer wholesomeness of it all. The sweet potatoes
and sweet potato greens that they cunningly sent me home with tasted so
good that they changed my own thinking about food, even about how I
garden (which for me is a bigger deal than how I eat). Okay, maybe it
wasn't the taste alone that was so compelling but the awesome
experience of eating food that's just been pulled food from the soil -
just as awesome as my online veggie-growing friends have been saying
all along. So you see what finally convinced me to rip out my front
lawn and turn that patch of unproductive monoculture into an edible
landscape.
For more information about growing and preparing foods, Dr. Amen recommends:
Posted by Susan Harris
by Elson Haas
