A nut bread recipe and how I became a hazelnut godmother

March 13th, 2020 | bread & pastries

I recently saw a report on child labor during the hazelnut harvest in Turkey. The post made me sad. But is there an alternative? Hazelnuts grown in Germany? I looked around and found what I was looking for: at the gates of Berlin on the Windkind farm with David and Silvia.

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70% of all hazelnuts worldwide are actually produced in Turkey. Migrant workers work there under the most unworthy conditions. Whole families get on the nut farms and work eleven to twelve hours a day for an hourly wage of one (1!) Euro. Children are not allowed to go to school during the harvest months.

I immediately went to the kitchen to see where the (organic) hazelnuts in my pantry come from: from Turkey. And under what conditions are organic nuts grown and harvested there? And how do I now bake my nut bread?

My research showed that hazelnuts are imported almost exclusively in Germany. Nearly. On the Windkind farm north of Berlin, in the Löwenberger Land community near Oranienburg, walnuts and hazelnuts are grown, “organic-vegan, fair, social and plastic-free”.

And what, please, shouldn’t be vegan with a hazelnut? David from the Windkind Hof explained it to me: “The nut itself is of course vegan. However, fruit and vegetable cultivation is rarely produced outside the cycle of livestock farming. Anyone who keeps farm animals must of course also feed the excrement back into the ground. We don’t do that. We only fertilize our green paradise with vegetable material. With grass, wild herbs, leaves and straw. Products of animal origin, such as liquid manure, horn meal, blood meal etc., are also out of  question for us. ”

To be honest, vegan is not the decisive criterion for me, but that David and Silvia cultivate a 100% sustainable product with low water consumption, high biodiversity and fair working conditions – I think that’s great (and for my CO2 karma it is also good if these nuts come from Germany instead of from Turkey).

The Windkind farm delivers your 4 kilograms of hazelnuts in a cardboard box, then it says: "Get your nutcracker ready"

But it gets even better: You can sponsor a walnut or hazelnut tree. As a tree sponsor, you get your harvest share of either eight kilograms of walnuts or four kilograms of hazelnuts a year, and by the way you support a social project in Senegal and Gambia. I can only say: The price for a sponsorship is very fair and you never commit for more than a year. And you can even visit your sponsored tree.

My first nut package has already arrived and our daughter and I have – quite meditatively – cracked the first 500 g of hazelnut kernels. It is a bit like peeling brown shrimp and is fun for two or in a group – you can have a nice chat… In the end we got 1,670 g of hazelnut kernels from the four kilos of hazelnuts, not bad, right?

Now let’s start with my nut bread recipe with wonderful aromatic and crunchy hazelnuts from the Windkind farm – completely organic-vegan, fair, social and plastic-free.

Oh, and one more thing: A tree sponsorship is also a really nice gift idea for a wedding, birthday, anniversary – really something very special, and so delicious!

nut bread

(Attention: allow the batter to rise overnight – preheat the oven to 220° C)

 

A note on transparency:

This post contains advertising.
The content and my opinion were not affected. The hazelnuts are just awesome!

Further information:

www.trusted-blogs.com/werbekennzeichnung