Tag Archives: Plants

Cancer-fighting okra?

Well, this is unexpected. Recent research shows a compound in okra “promotes selective antitumor effects in human breast cancer cells and may represent a potential therapeutic to combat human breast cancer.”

Here’s the abstract, Biotechnol Lett. 2014 Mar;36(3):461-9. doi: 10.1007/s10529-013-1382-4. Epub 2013 Oct 16. Lectin of Abelmoschus esculentus (okra) promotes selective antitumor effects in human breast cancer cells.

The anti-tumor effects of a newly-discovered lectin, isolated from okra, Abelmoschus esculentus (AEL), were investigated in human breast cancer (MCF7) and skin fibroblast (CCD-1059 sk) cells. AEL induced significant cell growth inhibition (63 %) in MCF7 cells. The expression of pro-apoptotic caspase-3, caspase-9, and p21 genes was increased in MCF7 cells treated with AEL, compared to those treated with controls. In addition, AEL treatment increased the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio in MCF7 cells. Flow cytometry also indicated that cell death (72 %) predominantly occurred through apoptosis. Thus, AEL in its native form promotes selective antitumor effects in human breast cancer cells and may represent a potential therapeutic to combat human breast cancer.

Don’t get your hopes up about that 72% figure: that seems to be that when cancer cell death occurred, 72% of it was related, not that 72% of cancer cells were killed. The 63% cancer cell growth inhibition does seem promising, though.

There are even hints in another paper that okra may be related to lower rates of prostate cancer: Continue reading →

Canning corn and peaches at Lowndes High School 2014-07-12

Even more fun and twice as many people at  my second canning class at the Lowndes High School Canning Plant.

Thanks to James Perdue and the   Valdosta Community Garden Group for organizing.

300x225 Coring peaches, in Canning corn and peaches at Lowndes High School, by Gretchen Quarterman, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 12 July 2014 These pictures are also on my facebook timeline.

See also shelling peas at the 19 June 2014 class.

-gretchen

720×540 Martha Griffis and her corn, in Canning corn and peaches at Lowndes High School, by Gretchen Quarterman, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 12 July 2014, http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/2014/07/home-canning-class-and-canning-plant-demonstration-2.html
720×540 Silver Queen corn by Martha Griffis, in Canning corn and peaches at Lowndes High School, by Gretchen Quarterman, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 12 July 2014, http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/2014/07/home-canning-class-and-canning-plant-demonstration-2.html
720×540 Group gets information about the steamer and blancher, in Canning corn and peaches at Lowndes High School, by Gretchen Quarterman, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 12 July 2014, http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/2014/07/home-canning-class-and-canning-plant-demonstration-2.html
720×540 Juicer, in Canning corn and peaches at Lowndes High School, by Gretchen Quarterman, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 12 July 2014, http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/2014/07/home-canning-class-and-canning-plant-demonstration-2.html
720×540 More about the juicer, in Canning corn and peaches at Lowndes High School, by Gretchen Quarterman, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 12 July 2014, http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/2014/07/home-canning-class-and-canning-plant-demonstration-2.html
720×540 Corn into the steamer, in Canning corn and peaches at Lowndes High School, by Gretchen Quarterman, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 12 July 2014, http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/2014/07/home-canning-class-and-canning-plant-demonstration-2.html
720×540 Coring peaches, in Canning corn and peaches at Lowndes High School, by Gretchen Quarterman, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 12 July 2014, http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/2014/07/home-canning-class-and-canning-plant-demonstration-2.html
720×540 Almost ready for the juicer, in Canning corn and peaches at Lowndes High School, by Gretchen Quarterman, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 12 July 2014, http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/2014/07/home-canning-class-and-canning-plant-demonstration-2.html
720×540 Lids and rings sterilized, in Canning corn and peaches at Lowndes High School, by Gretchen Quarterman, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 12 July 2014, http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/2014/07/home-canning-class-and-canning-plant-demonstration-2.html
720×540 Chopping up the peaches, in Canning corn and peaches at Lowndes High School, by Gretchen Quarterman, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 12 July 2014, http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/2014/07/home-canning-class-and-canning-plant-demonstration-2.html
720×540 Creaming corn, in Canning corn and peaches at Lowndes High School, by Gretchen Quarterman, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 12 July 2014, http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/2014/07/home-canning-class-and-canning-plant-demonstration-2.html
720×540 Fruit into juicer, in Canning corn and peaches at Lowndes High School, by Gretchen Quarterman, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 12 July 2014, http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/2014/07/home-canning-class-and-canning-plant-demonstration-2.html
720×540 Finished product: peach jam, in Canning corn and peaches at Lowndes High School, by Gretchen Quarterman, for OkraParadiseFarms.com, 12 July 2014, http://www.okraparadisefarms.com/blog/2014/07/home-canning-class-and-canning-plant-demonstration-2.html

Home Canning Class and Canning Plant Demonstration

Gretchen will show you how, and then you get to do it, at Lowndes High School Saturday July 12th 2014, 10AM-12:30pm.

Contact: James Perdue
Valdosta Community Garden Group
229-251-6362

See facebook event.

And here are pictures from the previous event.

-jsq

Remembering Elsie Quarterman –Paul Somers, Ph.D.

Posted with permission. I added the links. -jsq

Remembering Elsie Quarterman
by Paul Somers, Ph.D.
Retired State Botanist, Massachusetts Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program
and former botanist, Tennessee Natural Heritage Program

Not wanting to miss a chance to pay tribute to my friend, the 103+ year old Dr. Elsie Quarterman, I’m sitting down to reflect on my remembrances of this wonderful woman who befriended me and many other botanical and conservation colleagues. It was the summer of 1976 when I moved to Nashville to join the young staff of the Tennessee Heritage Program as its first botanist. The program, now well established with the State Department of Environment and Conservation, benefited greatly from the prior work of Dr. Quarterman (Elsie) and many of her graduate students at Vanderbilt University who had done vegetation and rare plant studies in the Central Basin of Tennessee.

For help with understanding and conserving the best examples of cedar glades and their many endemic, nearly endemic, or otherwise rare Tennessee plant species, I and other colleagues frequently turned to Elsie and her Continue reading →

Mobile Market at Barnes Drug Store every Tuesday

Today Lowndes County Partnership for Health picked up some OPF red potatoes to sell at their Mobile Market. Next week probably OPF okra. And every week other good vegetables and fruits from other farmers.

Here’s a South Health District facebook post of 10 June 2014:

It’s Tuesday – know what that means? The Mobile Market, full of fresh fruits and vegetables, will be at Barnes Drug Store Downtown Valdosta from 2:30-4:30! They’re there every Tuesday! Come by and see them…they accept all forms of payment.

-jsq

Dr. Quarterman’s ground-breaking work will continue –Dr. J. Richard Carter

Received 13 June 2014 and permission to publish granted today. -jsq

From: J Richard Carter
To: Patrick Quarterman

I am very sorry to hear about Dr. Quarterman. She was a remarkable person. I started graduate school at Vanderbilt in 1978, a few years after Dr. Quarterman retired, so I didn’t have the privilege of taking her courses. However, she was still very much a presence in the department, attending seminars and interacting with faculty and students informally in the departmental conference room.

I also remember that she very kindly gave me a set of reprints of her classic Continue reading →

Canning at Lowndes High School

Our outing today to the canning plant was a grand success. We had peas shelled, blanched and bagged and canned some peaches!

The canning plant at Lowndes High School is a wonderful resource in Lowndes County open now to the public for shelling, canning and more. Behind the Lowndes High School on Norman Drive.

Here are pictures from the canning class I taught there yesterday, organized by the Valdosta Community Garden group. These pictures are also on facebook.

Perfect timing. The Valdosta Daily Times had Continue reading →

Elsie Quarterman WPLN audio

Nina Cardona of WPLN Nashville Public Radio talked about pioneering ecologist Dr. Elsie Quarterman; here’s the audio:


Emily Siner // Nashville Public Radio // WPLN 90.3 FM // Enterprise Reporter

And here’s WPLN’s text version of the same story.

The radio story draws on the video by MTSU Center for Cedar Glade Studies of the April 2008 dedication to Dr. Elsie Quarterman of the annual wildflower festival at Cedars of Lebanon State Park east of Nashville, Tennessee.

A memorial service will be held 10AM this Saturday 21 June 2014 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 3900 West End Avenue, Nashville, Tennessee, with a reception at the church following the service. See the Elsie blog page for many more stories and pictures of Aunt Elsie.

-jsq

Home Canning Class and Canning Plant Demonstration

Gretchen will show you how, and then you get to do it, at Lowndes High School this morning, 10AM.

Contact: James Perdue
Valdosta Community Garden Group
229-251-6362

See facebook event.

-jsq

Memorial service for Elsie Quarterman in Nashville, TN 2014-06-21

In the Tennesseean today, Elsie Quarterman (1910 – 2014)

Obituary

Guest Book

Elsie Quarterman, Nashville, TN

A Memorial service will be held at 10 a.m., Saturday, June 21, 2014 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 3900 West End Avenue, with a reception at the church following the service. Guestbook crawfordservices.com.

Crawford Mortuary & Crematory, 615-254-8200.

Continue reading →