The Least We Can Do Is the Best We Can Do
Organic Lifestyle Comments Off on The Least We Can Do Is the Best We Can Do
Yes, it’s infuriating to know that the biotech and pesticide industries are out there spreading lies, poisoning the food supply, killing the bees, polluting the soil and water, and on and on and on.
We can rage against the machine—and I often do in this blog—but there’s something else we can do, something positive. We really have no control over Big Ag and its tentacles, so what do we have control over? Where do we call the shots?
At home, in our personal lives. It’s here, in our real world, where what we do has real consequences. Tonight I mentioned to Susanna that on a visit to my son and daughter-in-law, I tasted a cup of Keurig coffee—you know, the machine where you put a pre-measured plastic cup of ground coffee beans in the machine and it brews a cup for you on the spot. I allowed that it was actually a pretty good cup of coffee.
“I wouldn’t want that machine,” she said. “All those plastic cups going into the trash.” Right. When you brew a cup in your stainless coffee pot, nothing gets thrown away but the coffee grounds—and they don’t actually get thrown away, either. They are an excellent ingredient in the compost. Or, in our case, in the bucket of vegetable kitchen slops that I feed to our three worm beds.
The grody kitchen slops—only vegetable waste, no animal products, no onion family members, no hot chili peppers—go into the bins, and within a week or two, our indefatigable red wiggler worms turn it into the most sweet-smelling, nutrition-packed worm castings ready to nourish something in our garden that will nourish us.
On our acre and a half, we grow prune plums, ‘Santa Rosa’ plums, red peaches, three kinds of cherries, ‘Hachiya’ persimmons, ‘Snow Queen’ nectarines, black ‘Mission’ figs, ‘Wonderful’ pomegranates, Asian pears, ‘Bartlett’ pears, ‘Golden Delicious’ apples, ‘Gravenstein’ apples, ‘Rome Beauty’ apples, almonds, grapes, ‘Meyer’ lemons, ‘Bearss’ limes, ‘Marsh’ grapefruit, and a slew of ornamentals too numerous to mention.
Our eight raised beds this summer grew ‘Sparkle’ strawberries, spinach, ‘Little Gem’ lettuces, ‘Crane’ melons, butternut squash, okra, cowpeas, English peas, tat soi, lacinato kale, curly leafed kale, borage, cucumbers, two kinds of zucchini, crookneck summer squash, ‘Detroit Dark Red’ beets, ‘Danvers Half-Long’ carrots, ‘Early Girl’ and ‘San Marzano’ tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, and jalapeno peppers.
The fruit became jams and preserves, peaches became sliced peaches frozen in honey-lemon syrup, wild-picked blackberries became blackberry jam, tomatoes became canned tomato puree, the beets became pickled beets, the cucumbers became pickles, all to be consumed when the cold weather shuts down the trees and gardens. And all organic and packed iin re-useable Mason jars and plastic Zip-Loc freezer bags.
Since we do everything organically, and eat only organic food, the wildlife that visits our property is safe. The birds are safe, the insects thrive, the soil is improved with compost as it yields its bountiful crops, the deer need not worry (although they are not given access to the gardens), the wild turkeys and the quail and mice and occasional country rat and the foxes, bobcats, and mountain lions do their dance of life and death. The gophers are troublesome, but what would paradise be without trouble? Still, we cohabit this property with the little buggers. We see red-tail and red-shouldered hawks, barn owls, great horned owls, kites, the occasional golden eagle, pileated woodpeckers, phoebes, and other marvelous birds—and we know all of them are welcome and safe here.
As for ourselves and our pets—Mishka the dog, Tiki the cat, and Petunia the chinchilla—we all eat only organic food and so are not poisoning ourselves and the earth with the toxic products of the ugly conventional food system.
When we do shop at Whole Foods and our local organic farmers markets, we buy grass-fed, organic beef, local organic lamb, local organic cage-free chicken and turkey, and our eggs are from an egg lady whose hens run among the goats and peck out fly eggs to enrich their yolks.
In other words, we take care that what we do supports nature and does the least harm possible. It’s the least we can do. If everyone did it, that would be the best we could do.
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EPA APPROVES DOW’S TWICE-AS-TOXIC HERBICIDE
On October 15 the Environmental Protection Agency approved Enlist Duo, a toxic herbicide made from Agent Orange ingredient 2,4-D and Monsanto’s Roundup. This noxious mix of chemicals will now be used on Dow’s new herbicide-resistant GMO corn and soy seeds, which have already been approved by the USDA.
Dow now has permission to unleash up to 176 million more pounds (according to the USDA, though scientists predict much more) of 2,4-D into the environment, according to the Organic Consumers Association.
And that will mean about another $1 billion in sales for the Gene Giant.
It’s enough to make you sick. Literally. But it’s also reason to keep up the fight. The National Resources Defense Council immediately sued the EPA, and other groups have suggested they’ll do the same.
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PROTECT THE GMOS AND TO HELL WITH THE CHILDREN
Children living on the Hawaiian island of Kaua‘i are being threatened by exposure to chlorpyrifos, a synthetic insecticide that is heavily sprayed on fields located near their homes and schools.
For decades, researchers have been publishing reports about children who died or were maimed after exposure to chlorpyrifos, either in the womb or after birth. While chlorpyrifos can no longer legally be used around the house or in the garden, it is still legal to use on the farm. But researchers are finding that children aren’t safe when the insecticide is applied to nearby fields.
In 1995, the EPA found that Dow had violated federal law by covering up its knowledge of these health problems for years. In 2004, then-New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer found that Dow had been lying about the known dangers of the pesticide in its advertising for nearly as long. Together, the EPA and the State of New York have levied fines against the company approaching $3 million.
On Kaua‘i, subsidiaries of four transnational chemical companies—Dow Chemical, DuPont, Syngenta, and BASF—spray chlorpyrifos and several other potent pesticides to protect their experimental genetically engineered crops (GMOs) against a wide variety of bugs and weeds. Because of the heavy pesticide use, Kaua‘i’s GMO testing fields are among the most toxic chemical environments in all of American agriculture.
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Dr. Joseph Mercola recently posted these functions of curcumin—the bioactive compound in turmeric. Curcumin is available through Dr. Mercola’s website (http://shop.mercola.com) or elsewhere online and at organic supermarkets like Whole Foods and Wegman’s. It will pay to shop around.
Curcumin, a bioactive ingredient in the curry spice turmeric, exhibits over 150 potentially therapeutic activities.
Curcumin is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier, which is one reason why it holds promise as a neuroprotective agent.
Recent animal research suggests another bioactive compound in turmeric called aromatic-turmerone can increase neural stem cell growth in the brain by as much as 80 percent at certain concentrations.
The findings suggest aromatic-turmerone may help in the recovery of brain function in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and stroke.
Previous research has also shown that curcumin may help inhibit the accumulation of destructive beta-amyloids in the brain of Alzheimer’s patients, as well as break up existing plaques.
Curcumin also has the most evidence-based literature supporting its use against cancer of any other nutrient studied, including vitamin D.
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‘LOCAL’ FOOD MAY STILL BE CONVENTIONAL AND GMO,
AND ‘NATURAL’ MEANS NOTHING AT ALL
The following is by Ronnie Cummins and Katherine Paul of the Organic Consumers Association:
In 2011, we wrote an article exposing the then-popular trend in food marketing—promoting local foods as sustainable, healthy, or natural, even when they weren’t.
As we wrote at the time, “local” often means nothing more than food that has been sourced from within a prescribed geographic area. (According to Walmart and Big Food, “local” refers to anything produced within a 400-mile radius). But because a growing number of conscientious consumers actively seek out the “local” label—and are willing to pay a premium for it—corporations routinely co-opt the term so they can sell more product, at higher prices, in order to increase profit margins by promising (but not actually delivering) added value.
Fast forward a couple of years, and we see that sales of “local” food are still on the rise, as are sales of “natural” and more recently, “Non-GMO” foods. And today, just as they were a few years ago, consumers are still being duped by corporations that use these labels to pass off products as something they aren’t.
The fact is, none of these labels—local, natural or non-GMO—on its own provide a guarantee that the food behind the label is either healthy, sustainable, or natural.
There is only one food label that provides that guarantee: USDA Organic. And because organic food sourced locally is not only healthy, sustainable, and natural, but also supports small farmers and contributes to strong communities, today’s Gold Standard for the health-conscious and environmentally and socially concerned consumer is USDA organic and local.
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HARVARD STUDY IMPLICATES HFCS IN OBESITY EPIDEMIC
Fructose, a sugar widely consumed in the form of high-fructose corn syrup, may promote obesity and diabetes by overstimulating a hormone that helps to regulate fat accumulation, reports New York Times writer Anahad O’Connor.
The study, carried out at Harvard Medical School, marks the first time that scientists have identified a hormone that rises sharply and consistently in response to eating fructose. The finding suggests that people may vary in their sensitivity to the sugar, and that eventually it may be possible to test an individual for susceptibility to illnesses linked to weight gain.
When ingested—and it’s not only found in sweet drinks but in products as diverse as English muffins and chocolate pudding–the vast majority of fructose goes to the liver, where it stimulates the production of triglycerides, some of which are packaged into lipoproteins with cholesterol and secreted into the bloodstream.
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WEALTH OF THE LAND AND POWER OF THE PEOPLE
The following was written by Willie Nelson for Reader Supported News:
“Last month at Farm Aid 2014, I was lucky to meet Phillip Barker, a Black farmer who, like many minority farmers, lost much of his farmland as a result of discriminatory lending practices by banks and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Today, Phillip and his wife Dorathy farm the 20 acres they were able to hold on to in Oxford, North Carolina. Their farm is one of two Black dairy farming operations in the state of North Carolina. They also operate a nonprofit organization, Operation Spring Plant, which provides resources and training to minority and limited resource farmers, including a program that introduces young people to farming and provides youth leadership training. Phillip said one of his goals is to provide tools for the next generation and to help young people ‘come back to the farm to understand the wealth of the land.’
“Wealth of the land.” That’s a powerful phrase.
“Phillip believes the next generation must see a sustainable livelihood from the land, but the wealth he refers to can’t be measured only in dollars. It is measured in the experience of working on the land, tending the soil, and caring for the animals and crops that grow from it. It’s measured in the ability to be independent, to feed himself and his family. It’s measured in the way he and Dorathy sustain and strengthen their community. It’s measured in being rooted to a place and passing something valuable to the next generation.
“It seems to me that understanding the real wealth in the land is key to a sustainable future for all of us.
“Our greatest challenge is in re-visioning how the majority see “wealth.” The wealth of the land cannot be boiled down to the investors’ return on investment. It cannot be gauged by the commodities it returns to us — in gallons of oil and bushels of corn.
“The drive to extract as much value from the land as possible — to maximize production without regard to whether we’re exhausting the soil, to give over our farmland to Wall Street investors, to seize land held by families for generations for corporate profit — bankrupts the land, our food, our nation and our future.
“We need to redefine wealth as the ability to make a decent living from the land and sustain it for the next generation. To grow crops for food and fuel while simultaneously enriching the soil upon which future crops depend. To support a family and a community. To work in partnership with nature to protect our health and the health of our planet. As caretakers of our soil and water, this has been and always should be the essential role of the family farmer.
“Today, fewer than two percent of us live on farms. Clearly, we can’t all be family farmers, but we can all shift our priorities to ensure we’re doing our best to support them and encourage new farmers to get started on the land. Playing music to bring awareness is how I started Farm Aid in 1985, and it’s how I continue to support the people who best know how to care for the land: our family farmers. Each and every one of us has the power to do what we can to support and sustain family farmers. Our common wealth depends on it.”
I would only add this to Willie’s wise statements here: it’s our organic family farmers, certified or not, who “work in partnership with nature to protect our health and the health of our planet.”
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