Pages

Friday, December 21, 2007

Will You Have Food to Eat Next Year?

Food that costs less and solves your health problems AND builds a new world for all of us.



With the economy tanking and the weight of fear hanging over us, the future looks bleak. Right now many Americans are facing the reality of becoming homeless and hunger and malnutrition will most likely become a reality to Americans who thought that impossible for even the poorest among us.

Like dominoes slowly falling onto their neighbors we are living in a web of causes that are less than obvious. Understanding how each thing relates to the others gives you what is needed to break out of the grids most of us accept as necessities of life. They aren't.

You need to take action now, starting with the most elemental issues that sustain life.

Americans depend on the food they get from the grocery store more than ever before. The unpalatable fact is that food from the local, corporate grocery store is going up in price so rapidly that people who have not shopped for a while are having sticker shock. The price you pay is only one issue, however. That food, and how it is produced, is also causing many of your health problems.

The grocery store food has changed since it came from local farms. The advent of factory farming converted the food we eat into the profits of corporations. Looked at from the viewpoint of a corporation, who have only one goal, to make money for themselves, each aspect of production becomes an issue of minimizing their costs and maximizing their profits. That hits you in ways you cannot imagine. Until now. You need to know so you can make an informed decision about what is best for your family and yourself.

We are going to look at what you are buying and what it is really costing you and show you ways to rebuild the economy while you rebuild your health.

Factory farms produce food that is designed to keep for long periods. Therefore factory growers identified varieties of plants that can be harvested green and ripen later. Monsanto has genetically engineered many of the foods used by factory growers to augment their profits and allow them to own what was once viewed as the property of God. Monsanto wants to own the DNA of the food you eat, making the seeds you buy sterile. They have taken steps in court and law to give them ownership through the twisted ideas of privatization, which is really an ongoing corporatization of everything we need to live.

Monsanto leaves no leaf unmolested in its quest for profits as this writer shows. “Monsanto scouts out farmers who it feels have unlawfully planted patented seeds, or who have saved seeds from one generation to the next, and collects damages by threatening legal action (through either infringement or breach of contract charges). The company claims to pursue as many as 500 infringement cases every year. But no farmer can control the wind, which indiscriminately cross-pollinates crops without regard for their genetic makeup. And some farmers, like Schmeiser, claim that Monsanto strong-arms innocent farmers who never wanted to grow GM crops to begin with.”

The seeds sold by Monsanto are not designed for your health. Corporations are not held accountable for the long range impact of what they sell. Factory food has been described as actually growing hydroponically, in soil that has none of the microminerals or organic content that the plants can use to ensure their own health – and yours. Pesticides used to diminish the impact of insects that are drawn to unhealthy plants like wolves are drawn to the diseased deer in a herd and killed through the use of pesticides that remains on the plant and becomes part of your dinner.

What is not healthy cannot nourish you or those you love.

Today the residue of such pesticides are everywhere and accumulating in the milk suckled by babies from their mother's breast. Yet healthy plants do not draw pests and do not need pesticides. Regaining the balance with nature makes those unnecessary; something that has been proven by Steve Tvedten, the author of The Best Control.

Pesticides originated from the development of weapons of war. Now they are killing us and still profiting the same companies.

Factory farming, plants and animals, are inherently unhealthy because of these kinds of practices designed to burnish that corporate bottom line. Profits.

So you need to know that a revolution is going on in America today. All across the country people who have taken a hard look at the world corporations are creating have said no and are changing how they, and those around them, eat.

You can join that revolution by learning how to grow your own and eat locally. On our show this Friday we will hear from one of the people who are leading the revolution back to locally produced food, Joel Salatin of the three generation Polyface Farm.

“IN 1961, William and Lucille Salatin moved their young family to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, purchasing the most worn-out, eroded, abused farm in the area near Staunton. Using nature as a pattern, they and their children began the healing and innovation that now supports three generations.

Disregarding conventional wisdom, the Salatins planted trees, built huge compost piles, dug ponds, moved cows daily with portable electric fencing, and invented portable sheltering systems to produce all their animals on perennial prairie polycultures.

Today the farm arguably represents America’s premier non-industrial food production oasis. Believing that the Creator’s design is still the best pattern for the biological world, the Salatin family invites like-minded folks to join in the farm’s mission: to develop emotionally, economically, environmentally enhancing agricultural enterprises and facilitate their duplication throughout the world.

The Salatins continue to refine their models to push environmentally-friendly farming practices toward new levels of expertise.”

The Food Revolt is happening across the country. People who life in large, metropolitan areas are also finding the means to eat local contracting for food with farms not so far away. Local Harvesting, decent respect for the animals we eat, knowing where your meals originate, are becoming part of the direction for Americans who will survive the meltdown just starting.

And the food will be better than any meal you can remember because your body does know what is good for it. We need to remember that while the change over is scary and difficult that challenge is insignificant when compared to the benefits we will all of us enjoy.

Every time you climb off one grid point, turning off to some tiny extent, the profits of big corporations you are striking a blow for – freedom, community, and the kind of world you want to leave to your children.

Think about what you eat. It makes you what you are and it can make you free.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We sold our over-priced home in California and bought the cheapest one in Deschutes County, Oregon. Cash. Then, we started composting and after 3 years, have transformed the volcanic ash ground into a fertile garden that produced enough vegetables for us to eat all winter. We also have a greenhouse now to grow things that are too frost sensitive to grow outside. We have seven chickens that keep us in eggs. We've reached out to neighbors and formed a dynamic grassroots organization that is united on groundwater and other issues. Strong friendships are being formed that will help to sustain us all when TSHTF. People are already talking about community gardens organized around cul-de-sacs. We are part of a cyber tribe of folks united in opposition to the powers that be and supporting each other in the resistance against the corporatists and creating an alternative. Our blogsite is called Trout Clan Campfire, if anyone wants to check us out.
Anyway, the point is that preparing for the collapse and growing your own food is not only prudent, but emotionally satisfying on many levels.
And, by the way, my husband and I are anarchists from both left and the right leaning histories. I just changed my political party status to that of a Republican so that I can vote for Ron Paul in the primary. Probably switch to either Green or Libertarian once that is over.
Next year is crucial. Duck & Cover.

Anonymous said...

I want to bring up the lack of popularity of hydroponics. I've recently written a fiction novel and hydroponics plays a key role. I cannot understand why hydroponic farming is still not considered commercially viable, let alone universally accepted as superior to current farming/gardening methods. The only real drawbacks to hydroponics is that you may need to pay more attention to what you're doing and, depending on the scale of the project, it could be considered cost prohibitive in the short run. With hydroponics YOU get to be in charge of how much and in what time of year things will grow.

This has nothing to do with genetic modification of the plants in any way. The plants live in a solution that provides them with all of they nutrients they need. They have lights overhead to simulate whatever day length is required. The plants can be spaced closer together to generate higher yields. The enclosed structure and lack of soil greatly decrease the risk of disease, cross pollination and ground water contamination. The products yield better flavor, appearance and longevity than those grown by traditional methods as well. I could go on and on, but I think I've made my point. Hydroponics is a win-win for everyone.