Source: ResilientCommunities.com “We have spent a fair amount of time discussing vertical gardening techniques and how beneficial it can be for those with limited space or access to fertile land for gardening. It’s entirely possible to create enough food to feed a couple of people using this technique in a space as small as a one bedroom apartment and perhaps more importantly, vertical gardening...
Do you strive for perfection in your garden? Is it important for you for everything to be just so? Are these questions that you ask yourself and beat yourself up about? I don’t want an organic garden People will often tell me that my garden isn’t “organic” because I am growing in plastic containers and the containers might be leaching BPA in the soil. They will tell me that because of the water that I’m using and it’s not filtered in a certain manner that it’s not truly organic. People will say...
A post on Organic Connections Magazine called People Don’t Want to Be a GMO Experiment got me thinking about a few things. Why we should be concerned about GMOs Most people assume that GMOs are safe because they are so widely available, which is not true. GMOs have never been proven to be safe and no they aren’t feeding the world. It was some time in the late 1980s/early 1990s when they were first widely planted. So it hasn’t been that much time to see any kind of long term effects and if they are truly safe. Ultimately...
Thanksgiving is a little more than a week away. It’s a time for us to get together with our friends and family. One of the biggest parts of Thanksgiving is the food. The Thanksgiving dinner is one of the main things that the holiday is based around, getting together to share and enjoy the company of each other over food. Whether that’s what happened with...
Mark Bittman wrote a piece for the New York Times titled Local Food is Not Elitist. It’s American. The food industry has done a great job of making it seem like wanting or eating foods from local sources is an elitist act. I mean no one wants to be an elitist and it’s easy to dismiss that way of eating if it’s deemed so. This justifies eating cheap,...
I was asked to speak at Occupy LA about growing your own food. The speech touches on how the food industry is similar to the financial world and what we can do to bring about the change that we want to see. Excerpts from the speech: This Occupy movement that started out on Wall Street was started because of the outrage at the outsized power of the banks and financial...
The Wisconsin Judge, Patrick Fiedler, who said that we do not have a fundamental right to consume the food that we grow or raise has stepped down. This might seem like great news at first, but he now works for the law firm, Axley Brynelson, LLP. Why is this such a big deal? Because according to InfoWars.com, this firm has worked for and defended Monsanto in the past. This...
When I asked about what food news has caught your attention, most people mentioned the cantaloupe listeria outbreak. One person, David Csonka, mentioned a story from Food Renegade that no one else did called Is Your Choice of Food a Fundamental Right?. I’m surprised that this one didn’t get more attention. There was a court decision in Wisconsin where...
I read a story in the Guardian UK about a plant disease called aminopyralid and how it’s affecting small growers and home gardeners. Even though it’s a disease that seems to have just hit the UK, how it happened is what’s alarming to me. What is aminopyralid Here is what happened. The chemical company, Dow Chemicals, produced a hormone based herbicide,...
There was a discussion on my Facebook profile about how there is so much out of our control that we can’t truly be healthy and maintain an organic lifestyle. That got me thinking about my balcony garden and how organic it really is. My block right now is a freakin circus and a mess. My street is being dug up and repaved and on the other side there is new construction...
There was a post on The Healthy Home Economist called The Sticky Truth About Chewing Gum that got me thinking about alternatives. That’s when it hit me, I already have some growing on my balcony garden and so can you. Why you might want to consider popping that next piece of chewing gum Before I get into the alternative, I want to briefly discuss some highlights...
There was a great post on Cooking Up a Story titled The Unconventional Harvest: Conventional Dairy Farmer Art Thelen written by Nathan Winters. The Conventional Side of the Story Nathan stayed with a conventional dairy farmer, Art Thelen, in Wisconsin and had the chance to check out his farm and speak with art about his farming methods. Stories like this are great...
There were a few posts that got me thinking about healthy and organic foods being affordable. The first one came from the New York Times titled A Look at How Many Calories $1 Will Buy. The article states, “One dollar’s worth of Coke has 447 calories, while $1 of iceberg lettuce has just 16.5.” First off, who really eats iceburg lettuce??! That pretty much summarizes the problem. The cheaper foods are the ones that aren’t the healthier options. On the same day, I saw another article on MindBodyGreen titled Why Americans...
There was an article in The Atlantic called The FDA Details Its Struggle to Regulate Imported Foods. In the article it goes into details about the current global food system, the reasons why the FDA cannot ensure it’s safety and regulate all of the imported foods. Here are some facts for you from the article: Between 10 percent and 15 percent of all food consumed...
The main reason that so many people get behind chemical gardening and agriculture is the belief that it’s the only way to feed the world. This load of crap has been force fed to us by the same companies that are producing the food. What else do you expect them to say? They have all of us believing that with the rising population and our limited resources that organic methods of growing food couldn’t possibly feed the world. I have news for you – GMOs aren’t doing such a great job of it either. Here is why: Top...
It’s been a few weeks since the USDA unveiled My Plate along with the help of First Lady Michelle Obama. This replaces the old food pyramid. My only commentary on how it’s divided is – when did protein become a food group? Wonder if this could have anything to do from the meat lobbying industry. I won’t get into that discussion because Michele...
When people ask why they should grow their own food, one of the top reasons I give is because of the chemicals and pesticides that are used to treat our food. Just because you are growing your own, doesn’t mean that you aren’t using chemicals and the toxic crap like Miracle Grow, but it means that you have more control over it. Yes the pesticides might be getting rid of the pests and insects, but what else are they doing? You don’t rinse off chemicals It’s not as simple as using some water and washing the item...
When people ask why they should grow their own food, I don’t break out all kinds of reports and studies that tell how it’s better for you and the environment. I break it down even simpler and tell them it’s because we are human. It’s what we do. It’s not until the last 100 or so years that we’ve stopped growing our own and put that responsibility in the hands of others. Think about it. Humans have grown their own food for hundreds and thousands of years. Civilizations and societies were built around...
We all know that food is wasted in our country, but there was a post on Planet Green “1/3 of Global Food Production Goes to Waste” written by Sara Novak that caught my eye. Think about that. Over 30% of the food in this country that is grown for human consumption is wasted. To me that shows a lack of appreciation for food. It’s not too much of a...
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