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  • Article

Natural eating in Jamaica and the Caribbean

Riaz Phillips is passionate about the Jamaican food he grew up with and plant-based Caribbean food he came to later, like roti, baiganee and vegan stews and curries. Here he explores the origins and surging popularity of these natural ‘health foods’.

  • Article

The men who meddled with nature

The ‘acclimatisation societies’ of the 19th century sought to ‘improve’ on the natural world by releasing non-native species into the wild. The effects were disastrous.

  • Article

The house of Joan

The longueurs of hospital stays and enforced inactivity were the spur to Joan’s precise tailoring skills and flamboyant creations, all to the benefit of her fashion-loving sisters.

  • Book extract

Ayurveda: Knowledge for long life

The story of medicine in India is rich and complex. Aarathi Prasad investigates how it came to be this way.

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Images

  • Planters Foods Limited : manufacturers of margarine, compound, edible fats, refined oils, and other high-class food preparations : registered office & works, Brombro Port, Cheshire.
  • Helianthus annuus Greene Asteraceae. Sunflower, Marigold of Peru, Floure of the Sun. Distribution: Peru and Mexico. It was much recommended by Gerard (1633) who advises that the buds, covered in flour, boiled, and eaten with 'butter, vinegar and pepper, far surpass artichokes in procuring bodily lust’. Sadly, today only the seeds of sunflower are consumed, as the source of sunflower seed oil used in cooking. It contains mono and polyunsaturated fats, linoleic acid and oleic acid, and is low in saturated fats. As such it was thought to lower cholesterol and so the risk of heart disease, but it may increase the risk of breast and prostatic cancer. However a recent report BMJ2013
  • Camellia sasanqua Thunb. Theaceae. Christmas camellia. Camellia commemorates Georg Josef Kamel (1661-1706), Jesuit pharmacist from Moravia (Czech Republic) who worked in the Philippines and sent plants to John Ray in England (Oakeley, 2012) Evergreen shrub. Distribution: Japan and China. Leaves are used in Japan to make tea (normally made from C. sinensis) and the seeds to make the edible tea seed oil. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Try this exciting new way of making better pastry quicker : Trex 'Fork-Mix' pastry / J. Bibby & Sons Ltd.
  • Try this exciting new way of making better pastry quicker : Trex 'Fork-Mix' pastry / J. Bibby & Sons Ltd.
  • Fine salad oil.
  • Fine salad oil.
  • The fat in food.
  • The fat in food.
  • The fat in food.
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Catalogue

All works (21)