economy and tractors and real food (politics?) was: debunking myth...

January 29, 2004

At 10:48 AM 1/29/2004, you wrote:

>Ah, yes. A move to a truly healthy diet would almost certainly crash the

>economy.

i'm not certain that this is true. i mean, you might have meant it more for

emphasis, but it's something i've been thinking about lately, what with

leaving the city and becomming a farmer and all...

i certainly think that if we moved to healthy food production, it would

wildly re-organize the economy. but i don't think that it's impossible, at

all, to move to a system of family farmers producing healthy crops and

healthy animals in a healthy way. i think we could still easily feed all

the people and i think that it would be completely sustainable.

i don't think that's a choice that the country is going to make, because

most people don't think that farming is a respectable job, and because the

industries who currently hold the market (big food, pesticides, GMO

companies, etc) are not willing to give up the easy life they have right

now by simply maintaining the status quo. which is a shame, cause ya know.

it's really no more difficult than ww2 or putting man on the moon. just

it's not a priority...

also, after reading allan's article yesterday, i was thinking about

tractors. we don't have one yet: a neighbor does our fields and takes half

the hay in payment. but after that article, all i could think was that i

wanted to get horse team equipment and forgo oil! my husband pointed out

that we could get used restaurant oil and run an old tractor on that, which

would be a compromise for me since it wouldn't require gas and it wouldn't

require new resources in the form of a new tractor. does anyone have any

thoughts to add to this? if you had the option, would you pay more for meat

that was not only pastured and grassfed, but which required only the

minimum oil to produce? (since our labor would certainly be higher in that

case)...

January 29, 2004

When I say " crash the economy " I mean look at the billions of dollars that

go to the major drug companies. Think what it would mean to the economy if

that money, or a major portion of it stopped.

Think of what would happen if people stopped taking just one class of drugs.

The cholesterol lowering drugs. Each one of those major drugs garners over a

billion dollars or more a year for the drug companies. And the profits

multiply for the medical industry because of the additional doctor visits,

hospital stays, drugs prescribed to alleviate the miseries caused by the

cholesterol lowering medications, not to mention funerals because of the

deaths caused by all of those drugs.

Think what would happen if the incidence of diabetes were cut in half (with

a good low-carb diet the incidence should drop far more than that.)The

drugs, paraphernalia and doctor and hospital visits that would no longer be

needed. That would be a major hurt for the industries affected.

Same way with heart disease. Few drugs needed, no more surgeries, no more

doctor visits.

Any one of those three happening would have a major effect on the economy.

Factories shut down, jobs lost, etc.

I do agree with you that sustainable farming could feed the world, and in a

much healthier way than they are fed now. If worse came to worse we could go

back to horses.

Back in the 1970s when the oil crisis hit I'm sure the Amish sat back and

laughed at us.

The idea of running tractors on vegetable oils sounds great. And they

wouldn't have to be used oils. That's a far better use for the stuff than

feeding it to people.

Judith Alta

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From: katja [mailto:katja@...]