This months specialist topic-LEAF PROTEIN CONCENTRATE – The Past, Present, and Future of this Wonder-food.
Leaves contain protein, we all know this. Yet, for humans to obtain enough protein from leaves we have to consume a heck of a lot of them! Additionally, certain leaves, such as grasses, are very high in cellulose which humans cannot digest. Enter LEAFU! Also known as leaf protein concentrate or leaf curd. The process of making leafu (and there are a few) extracts and condenses the protein of edible leaves into a dense food with a protein content of around 50%, plus lots of other valuable micronutrients. The process also generates nutrient-dense residues which make great fertilisers for your veganic garden!
Gardeners’ Question Time brings together a collection of experts on the past, present, and future- promise of leafu including how to make it from ‘weeds’ in your very own kitchen!
April 27th, 7pm.
Send your questions to: events@veganorganic.net
Click Here to Watch free on YouTube
The panel:
Rebecca Knowles – Rebecca is the director of Stockfree Farming, a Scottish charity that advises and supports farmers and crofters to transition to stockfree food production and land management. Leaf protein concentrate produced from clover and grass is Rebecca’s primary leafu interest as it offers farmers an alternative to grazing ruminants. She also makes and consumes leafu on a regular basis from locally foraged plants. https://stockfreefarming.org
John Davys – John has been involved with leaf concentrate (LC) in some way for most of his life, starting with vague memories of hanging around his father’s lab at Rothamsted Agricultural Research Station while he was still in short trousers (John, not his Dad!). Following a mechanical engineering degree, John spent a year in Nicaragua running a project to promote LC as an income source for local women and has remained interested in developing a market for LC in the UK as a means of supporting nutrition projects abroad. In 2010, John co-authored a chapter on LC for the FAO book “Combating micronutrient deficiencies: food-based approaches”.
Jenny Davys – Jenny first tasted leaf curd fresh from the press as a four year old in the Bill Pirie’s lab at Rothamsted where her dad Glyn Davys was designing and building the machinery to produce it in the 1960s. Along with her brother John, she grew up hearing reports of the wonderful results of supplementing the diet of malnourished children with this natural food source, of research around the world, and she visited Michael Cole who was making leafu in the UK. She was a member of Find Your Feet when it was led by Carole Martin in the ’70s and ’80s and was involved in fundraising for food trials at that time. She is not a scientist rather a passionate advocate who wishes the world would wake up to the sense and sustainability of getting protein from leaves!
Ella Players-Cole – Ella is an organic smallholder, forager, and small scale leafu producer. She was passed on the leafu baton by her father, who had been making and promoting it for many years. Leafu has been a staple ingredient on the kitchen table all her life ‘you have your salt, your pepper and your leafu’. https://www.facebook.com/Leafcycle/
David Lawson – David is a Lecturer/Researcher at SRUC (Scotland’s Rural College) and carries out research on all aspects of grassland maintenance. A significant aspect of the work is testing the suitability of new breeds of grasses and clover for use in agricultural production. He has more recently been carrying out research and development on techniques for extracting protein and other products from grass and clover swards.
Grace Duan – Grace is a multidisciplinary designer and innovator currently studying MA/MSc Innovation Design Engineering at Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art. She is passionate about sustainability and veganism, and is currently developing a domestic leaf protein concentrate extraction device for her master’s project.
A Vegan Organic Network Production