more about soil: was re: Vegetables Without Vitamins - How to deal with low quality foods produced by local farms

[Guest guest]

hee. ok. well, for one, as suze said, yep. you're wrong. i'd highly

recommend you get a refractometer - they're really eye-opening, and you can

get a simple one for 50bucks or less, actually. but think about it.

unhealthy children grow despite their un-health. we see plants growing in

the most unlikely places - even in dumps or polluted areas. you gotta know

those plants aren't healthy, but they're growing, because life clings to life.

it's pretty bad here in new england: our soil is completely devoid, for

example, of selenium. which means that any veggy you grow here that SHOULD

be a source of selenium, won't be: where would it come from? it's all gotta

come from somewhere. it must be worse in the west. at least here we don't

have near the erosion problems...and specifically here, which is to say

central vermont, we're lucky in that the land itself doesn't allow so much

for factory farming. we have 150 acres, for example, but all by 25 or so of

that is too steep for tractors. it's fine for sheep grazing, and 30 years

ago our mountain was sheep pasture, though now it's woodland. but because

of that, we're limited in what we can produce. sure, lots of farmers still

try to push the envelope to support more animals on less land, but it's not

as chronic here as other places.

this is going to lead me in the direction of farming costs and profit (ha),

and trying to make money by producing MORE instead of BETTER, and that's a

long discussion that might bore people, so i'll stop again.

but in the end, think about the laws of energy. energy is neither created

nor destroyed. what does that mean for soil? and food? a calorie is just a

measurement of energy. so let's look at the cycle: the soil (and the sun)

give energy to plants so that they grow. the plants give energy to the

animals who eat them. if those animals are meat animals, then we also get

energy from the meat. but now what happens if i don't put energy back into

that soil? the soil doesn't create its own energy - it's not an energy

factory (otherwise we won't have nuclear plants!). it's got to come from

somewhere. so does it come from chemical fertilizers? they are harmful and

burning to the soil! does it come from manure? that's better, but after

years and years, it's not enough. does the ground ever lay fallow? do we

grow the same crops on it each year - which gobble up the same nutrients

year after year, and if we do, are we putting THOSE specific nutrients

back, or are we just tossing on manure and hoping that's sufficient?

(that's what most farmers do if not chemicals).

so the point here is that food is non-linear. it's not a product at the end

of a conveyor belt. it's one stop along a cycle - a CIRCLE, really.

garbage in, garbage out.

-katja

At 08:10 AM 6/16/2004, you wrote:

>Katja, i for one would like you to go on and on...(or recommend some

>books...)

>

>I've been obsessed with nutrition the last 10 or 20 years but I've never

>given soil a second, or even first, thought.

>

>my thinking, i guess incorrectly, has always been, that whatever is

>growing is growing, therefore it must be getting what it needs from the

>soil in order to grow. i guess that thinking is wrong.

>

>also, referring to suze, i have no idea what a refractometer is and how

>it tells you your produce is good or not.

>

>is it possible that so many of our health problems have its roots in poor

>soil, and so there's pretty much nothing we can do except build up our

>own soil at home and grow our own stuff and live exclusively on that?

>

>I've been trying to live on raw kefir and yogurt with little success,

>thinking i was getting superior nutrition. but maybe the grass the cows

>eat that produces the milk is inferior and so I'm not doing myself any

>favors?

>

>thanks.

>

>laura

>

>

>i could go on and on...but i won't unless someone wants me to.

>

> I just started using my

> >refractometer a few days ago to test produce and milk in order to find

>out

> >the highest quality sources of these foods.

>

>