Rose Petal Jelly

Rose petal jelly. Doesn't sound like that big of a deal, does it? Maybe it isn't, depending on the rose you make it with.

But WOW, when you make it with a 7-sisters rose, you know you've got something!

First - the 7-sisters rose...

Named in 1817, supposedly when it was brought over from an unknown country - some say China, some say England, it was an instant hit.

There is also great controversy regarding what type of rose it is. It has no fewer than 12 latin names that it can be called. That's confusion. LOL

Regardless, it's the hardiest rose I've ever seen. It rarely gets black spot - it may this year with all of the rain we're getting so early, but maybe not. It almost never gets aphids. They try, but they never succeed in infesting it. It tolerates significant drought, shade and poor soil. It's not quite a climber, so most will call it a rambling rose.

The name comes from its ability to have at least 7 different colors on a single stem or spray. This year we even have some white blooms - rare for her. As you can see, the shades might be subtle, but the blooms also might be striped as you can see from the bloom in the lower right side of the photo. They are anywhere from 1-3 inches across, double petals and wonderfully scented!

For this project, I decided to use old blooms where the petals were ready to fall from the bloom. I just can't sacrifice such beauty and incredible scent just to try something. And from the results, I don't need to! WOW!
As you can see from the color of the rose water, something chemical occurs to change the color of the petal to the rose water. Most likely acid in the pectin and lemon juice. The smell when making the rose water is just divine. Actually, the smell throughout the process is just divine. Just incredible.



The recipe I made was a 1:1 sugar to rose water ratio. Make it as you would any jelly, and you get about 4 half-pint jars. The pictures are from my first batch. Is this just the most gorgeous jelly you've ever seen? You can practically read through it! If it weren't for the distortion from the jar glass, you probably could!

One thing I've yet to master with this rose is propogating it. This year, just for grins, I stuck some of the prunings in the ground. Just shoved them in. I did nothing else to them. Whenever I have, it hasn't worked, so I figured I'd do it this way. It worked! At least thus far. They all have some roots, so I transferred them to a more ideal location with far better soil and that is more like the mother plant's location. So, we'll see.

Can you believe this jelly sells for over $1/oz, plus S+H? I'm not selling mine for nearly that much. It's not as little as my rhubarb, but it's not a buck an ounce either!

Tasting it is like truly capturing the smell of a rose. It lingers on your tongue the way you wish smelling one would. Just incredible. It's perfect for those days in december when you are holding to the hope that June truly will return again. Wow.

If you'd like to try some, please contact me. I'll be making at least 2 more batches. The smallest jar is 4 oz at 2.75. The 8 oz is 6. I'll figure out shipping individually. And if you live nearby, it just might be free!
BloomsBaker @ gmail.com
I broke the link, so take the spaces out to make it work right for you.

BPA From Endocrine Society

WASHINGTON (June 10) - Hormone experts said on Wednesday they are becoming worried by a chemical called bisphenol A, which some politicians say they want taken out of products and which consumers are increasingly shunning.

They said they have gathered a growing body evidence to show the compound, also known as BPA, might damage human health. The Endocrine Society issued a scientific statement on Wednesday calling for better studies into its effects.

Studies presented at the group's annual meeting show BPA can affect the hearts of women, can permanently damage the DNA of mice, and appear to be pouring into the human body from a variety of unknown sources.

BPA, used to stiffen plastic bottles, line cans and make smooth paper receipts, belongs to a broad class of compounds called endocrine disruptors.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is examining their safety but there has not been much evidence to show that they are any threat to human health.

"We present evidence that endocrine disruptors do have effects on male and female development, prostate cancer, thyroid disease, cardiovascular disease," Dr. Robert Carey of the University of Virginia, who is president of the Endocrine Society, told a news conference.

The society issued a lengthy scientific statement about the chemicals in general that admits the evidence is not yet overwhelming, but is worrying.

Dr. Hugh Taylor of Yale University in Connecticut found evidence in mice that the compounds could affect unborn pups.

"We exposed some mice to bisphenol A and then we looked at their offspring," Taylor told the news conference.

We found that even when a they had a brief exposure during pregnancy ... mice exposed to these chemicals as a fetus carried these changes throughout their lives."

The BPA did not directly change DNA through mutations, but rather through a process called epigenetics -- when chemicals attach to the DNA and change its function.

Widespread Exposure

Taylor noted studies have shown that most people have some BPA in their blood, although the effects of these levels are not clear.

Dr. Frederick Vom Saal of the University of Missouri, who has long studied endocrine disruptors, said tests on monkeys showed the body quickly clears BPA -- which may at first sound reassuring.
But he said when tests show most people have high levels, this suggests they are being repeatedly exposed to BPA.

"We are really concerned that there is a very large amount of bisphenol A that must be coming from other sources," Vom Saal said.

Dr. Scott Belcher of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio and colleagues will tell the meeting they found BPA could affect the heart cells of female mice, sending them into an uneven beating pattern called an arrhythmia.

"These effects are specific on the female heart. The male heart does not respond in this way and we understand why," Belcher said. He said BPA interacts with estrogen and said the findings may help explain why young women are more likely to die when they have a heart attack than men of the same age.

U.S. government toxicologists at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences expressed concern last year that BPA may hurt development of the prostate and brain.

A 2008 study by British researchers linked high levels of BPA to heart disease, diabetes and liver-enzyme abnormalities.

Jam Making

I've been making jam. A lot of jam. For the farmer's market, which gives me a little cash flow, which is always nice. I can make jam - versus other far more perishable goods - when I have a little extra energy, rather than forcing the issue the day before the market. Like today!

I went and picked rhubarb at my aunt and uncles since my 2 clumps need a little time to recover. I've got enough for at least 8 batches, and probably more than that, if I really pushed the issue.

Since I hate regular store-bought jam, and since we've always made our own anyway, it seemed a natural thing for me to make to sell at the market. Sales are just starting to pick up, so I'm getting more hopeful about continuing to make it.

I always get angry when the jam doesn't set. Well, I have done a ton of research on the topic and have come to many conclusions...

Sugar is cheap. Fruit is expensive. Make jam with as much sugar as possible.

Pectin is a sugar, and needs regular sugar to help it set - it's a loose crystaline structure.

Pectin needs different cooking times with different fruits - whether you're using what's in the fruit only or supplementing with store-bought.

The sugar helps decrease cooking time as well as unify cooking times.

Rhubarb just coming up this spring.

By reading Meta Given's Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking, I was able to see that longer cooking times might be needed - and won't ruin the setting. It gave the perfect visual que that the jam is ready - when the drops on the spoon suddenly congeal into one before they drop off the spoon. Ha! And that you can cook it too hotly. So if you have a longer cooking time, turn the heat down.

This also works with lower sugar amounts.

And while there are different types of pectin that will work better with high or low sugar or no sugar batches, you can putz around with it and make it work with just about any pectin. Which is why I bought a huge bag (10#) through Pacific Pectin. That'll be enough for roughly 80 batches of jam. LOL - I think I'll have enough. But still - at .80 v. 2.30 per batch, that's a huge price difference that I'd rather have in my pocket than sure jell's.

Last year's blueberries.

So right now, it's rhubarb jam and blueberry rhubarb jam. Very soon, the blubarb will be replaced with strawberry rhubarb, and strawberry. And very very soon, I'll be able to make a batch or two of rose petal jelly. The 7 sister's is getting ready to bloom, and so will use that. It's an old heritage rose that has gorgeous scent and color - perfect for jelly!

If you have a problem with your jam - cook it longer and at a lower temperature. It'll come together for you!

Corn Equals Fast Food

That the $100-billion fast food industry rests on a foundation of corn has been known more through inference and observation than hard scientific fact — until now.

Chemical analysis from restaurants across the United States shows that nearly every cow or chicken used in fast food is raised on a diet of corn, prompting fresh criticism of the government’s role in subsidizing poor eating habits.

"People had talked about what they observed or found out about, as individual journalists or individual consumers," said University of Hawaii geobiologist and study co-author A. Hope Jahren. But anecdotes do not add up to scientific proof, she said. "We got national data on how this food is being produced. It’s very objective."

Corn is central to agriculture in the United States, where it is grown in greater volumes and receives more government subsidies than any other crop. Between 1995 and 2006 corn growers received $56 billion in federal subsidies, and the annual figure may soon hit $10 billion.

But in recent years, environmentalists have branded corn as an icon of unsustainable agriculture. It requires large amounts of fertilizer and pesticides, both of which require large amounts of fossil fuel to manufacture.

Most of the resulting corn is fed to livestock who didn’t evolve to subsist entirely on corn. In cattle, eating corn increases flatulence emissions of methane — a potent greenhouse gas — and creates an intestinal environment rich in e. coli, a common cause of food poisoning. That necessitates mixing cow feed with antibiotics, in turn producing antibiotic-resistant disease strains.

Many of those livestock end up in high-calorie, low-nutrition franchised fast foods, which have been repeatedly linked to obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Fast food’s biggest selling point is its low price — and that, say industry critics, is largely possible because of corn’s ubiquitous cheapness.

"We’re seeing that corn is the number-one reason that fast food is so cheap and available," said Meredith Niles, a food policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety who was not involved in the study. "U.S. programs are subsidizing obesity in this country."


Jahren’s team analyzed hamburgers, chicken sandwiches and french fries from multiple McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s restaurants in six U.S. cities.
In both types of meat at every location, a telltale configuration of nitrogen and carbon traces showed that the animals had eaten corn-heavy diets; in the case of beef, 150 out of 162 samples came from animals that ate nothing but corn. Fries were prepared in corn-based oil.

The results weren’t surprising, said New York University food studies expert Marion Nestle, but underscored the fact that "most people aren’t aware of the extent to which corn ingredients permeate the food supply."

Nutrition aside, Jahren urged consumers to consider the implications of what they eat. "When you give a nickel to fast food, invariably it goes right back to the corn industry," she said.

For Niles, the results are a political challenge.

"We have a new President taking his place in the White House. It’s a great opportunity to rearrange agricultural policy and to think about obesity," she said. "This study shows that it comes down in a lot of ways to one product."