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Got Real Food From Life-Giving Soil?
Health is built from the ground up!
Date: 9/11/2013 3:37:40 AM ( 11 y ) ... viewed 20248 times September 11, 2013 -
Until the day comes (if ever) when we can totally "transcend" all our needs to nourish our bodies we'll need real food from real healthy soils. Regardless of whether you recognize the truth of that statement - science has finally confirmed that violent behavior is a direct result of inadequate nutrition. But don't wait to act out violently before considering an upgrade on your nutrition! There are innumerable good reasons to upgrading now.
One way to upgrade is to make sure that your food comes from life-giving soil. Most likely that will mean sourcing from a small local grower who builds their soil with compost. The importance of the soil has been well known and documented for close to one hundred years starting with Rudolf Steiner and his agricultural lectures[2] which became the foundation for Biodynamic Agriculture (the Grand-mother of all organic agriculture that we know of in the western world). Also Weston A. Price realized this and said so in his great work: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
The Soil of Conventional Agriculture Lacks Nutrients -
"... Most of our food is grown on soil which is sadly depleted of its life-giving nutrients as observed by Dr. Weston A. Price in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: 'The data available on the subject of soil depletion and animal deterioration are so voluminous that it would require a volume to present them adequately.
When we realize the quantities of many of the minerals which must enter into the composition of the bodies of human beings and other animals, we appreciate the difficulty of providing in pasture and agricultural soils a concentration of these minerals sufficient to supply the needs for plant growth and food production.
In correspondence with government officials in practically every state of the United States I find that during the last fifty years there has been a reduction in capacity of the soil for productivity in many districts, amounting to from 25 to 50 per cent.'
Note: Dr. Weston A. Price wrote his book in 1939, so just imagine how much more the soil has been depleted of nutrients since then.
Dr. Price also notes: 'Not only is the soil itself depleted of nutrients but also many toxic chemicals are use to fight off predators, insects and disease, particularly by factory farms. These are done to save time and money, but they have absolutely no benefit to animal, plant or human health. In fact, the reverse is true.' See Soil depletion and plant and animal deterioration.
Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD sum it up very well in Farm and Ranch: Splendor From the Grass: 'During the time when the cultivation of our animal foods has been transferred from farms to factories, the incidence of chronic disease has risen precipitously (to a great degree).
Cancer and heart disease were rare 100 years ago and today allergies and autoimmune problems make life miserable for millions of people. Can the trend towards confinement feeding be cited as a cause for the upsurge in these diseases?'[3]
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November 19 2018 -
Health Begins Right In The Soil - Where "Growing Good Medicine" Is Possible! - (Happy Birthday to "Your Enchanted Gardener"!) -
"... The Journal of the American Medical Society recently published an article from France showing a lower incidence of several cancers in those who ate a diet high in organic food. It made big news. The headline in the NY Times was, 'Can Eating Organic Food Lower Your Cancer Risk?' The Times article goes on to state 'In a study, those who ate more organic produce, dairy, meat and other products had 25 percent fewer cancer diagnoses over all, especially lymphoma and breast cancer.'
The challenges of proving the health benefits of organic are enormous, but the study seemed to point a clear finger. It has always been the contention of the organic movement that an organic diet provides us with better health. Since Albert Howard and Eve Balfour first made these assertions, there has been a great deal of science to support their assertions. And now the French study, conducted over 5 years on 70,000 adults seems to support them as well.
As I was reading the study, I was struck by the fact that, in the future, we might need to conduct separate studies for USDA organic as compared to EU organic. Clearly the standards are deviating between the two around hydroponics and livestock conditions. My first thought looking at the study is that the results are due to the reduction of pesticides in organic. But a second consideration, and certainly one that Howard and Balfour would have believed, is that a healthy soil produces a very different food than crops grown in a hydroponic solution (or a chemically fertilized field). And if the USDA organic loses that distinction, then the health outcomes might vary significantly.
Howard’s work was often based on simple observation. He saw that the animals and plants grown in an organic system had far fewer health issues. One of his two books was even entitled Soil And Health. This important observation of the benefits of healthy soil has never occurred to many new customers in the organic marketplace. They think organic is just about fewer poisons. But the idea of organic in the first place was that it produces food that is GOOD for you. It is growing good medicine. It is nutritionally different in ways that we can benefit from, but we are still hard pressed to understand.
As the word organic gets pushed around by large economic forces, it is very important that we honor and remember its original meaning. We are guardians of an idea and a style of agriculture that embraces the complexity of a healthy soil. Thus some organic farmers think of themselves as livestock farmers, and their 'herd' is the tremendous variety of life they are stewarding under their feet. That rich ecosystem will provide the plants with superior nutrition, that will go on to nourish both humans and other animals. This understanding is an inheritance that we need to preserve for coming generations. ..."[10]
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September 8, 2018 - The Real Organic Project -
"Back in 1979, I gave USDA scientists a tour of the best organic farms in Europe for research entitled 'Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming.' We blew the socks off those researchers. They had never believed that organic farms could be that good. At the end of the Carter administration, one of the members of that study team was set up as the USDA’s organic representative and 3 months into the Regan administration he was fired, that office was shut down and all the copies of that study were destroyed. The idea of having the USDA run organic is ridiculous."[9] - Eliot Coleman, Real Organic Project board member.
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August 7, 2018 - Minerals vs Drugging the Soil -
Minerals are ionic conductors of electrical activity. ... they are all deficient in our food supply because minerals are never used in fertilizers to replenish nutrients. Instead, most farmers drug the soil with chemicals like Monsanto's Round Up, which binds up half the minerals remaining in the soil.[8]
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May 21, 2018 - The "Real Organics Project" - "Our New Standards" -
"... All we are seeking is transparency. Our message is clear and simple. Organic farming must be based on healthy soil, with plants and animals as an integral part of that soil ecosystem. The only radical thing about our new standards is that they have been rejected by the USDA. They are a return to the fundamental beliefs of organic farming."[4]
This report "update" goes on to say:
"As CAFOs and hydroponics become an ever bigger part of the certified organic products, the public is being ever more misled. And the real organic farms who still make up the vast majority of certified operations are being lost in the shuffle. A recent story written by Cornucopia noted that the remaining 6 'organic' dairy farms in Texas (all large CAFOs) produce one and a half times more milk than the 450 certified family dairy farms in Wisconsin. We now see the organic family dairy farms being driven out of business in Vermont and California by CAFOs every day."
"The Real Organic Project is family farmer-driven and embraces centuries-old organic farming practices along with new scientific knowledge of ecological farming. Healthy soil equals healthy crops and livestock, which equals healthy people ..."[5]
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May 24, 2018 -
"Healthy food comes from healthy plants, (and animals) and healthy plants come from biologically vital, ecologically regenerative, and carbon-rich soils."[6]
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And - The "Clever Deception" of the Hydroponics Industry -
"We have a rapidly growing percentage of the organic fruits and vegetables on grocery store shelves being produced hydroponically, without soil, and mostly in huge industrial-scale facilities. And we have a hydroponics industry that has deceptively renamed 'hydroponic' production—even with 100% liquid feeding—as 'container' production. With their clever deception they have been able to bamboozle even the majority of NOSB members into complicity with their goal of taking over the organic fruit and vegetable market with their hydroponic products."[7]
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February 17, 2018 -
"... food is information and that information directly affects the emotions, the nervous system, the brain and behavior."[2]
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Notes:
[1] With a remarkable series of lectures that were presented June 7-16, 1924, (and subsequently published as: "Agriculture: Spiritual Foundations for the Renewal of Agriculture") - Rudolf Steiner founded biodynamic agriculture. The lectures contain profound insights into farming, the plant and animal world, the nature of organic chemistry, and more!
[2] https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/environmental-toxins/violent-behavior-a-solution-in-plain-sight/
[3] http://www.healingnaturallybybee.com/articles/heal13.php
[4] https://mailchi.mp/423fba12c07b/real-organic-project-update-155575?e=7d4d4bfab2
[5] https://www.realorganicproject.org
[6] http://bionutrient.org/site/real-food-campaign
Also see: http://bionutrient.org/site/chapters/local-chapters
[7] https://onpasture.com/2017/11/06/a-farewell-warning-to-the-national-organic-program/
[8] Dr. Carolyn Dean to her subscribers.
[9] https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/real-organic-project-may-update-reminder-255927?e=7d4d4bfab2
[10 ] https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/watch-our-latest-know-your-farmer-video?e=7d4d4bfab2
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Keywords:
Rudolf Steiner, Mary Enig, soil health, biodynamics, health, real food, nutrition, violent behavior, compost, organic agriculture, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, minerals, soil depletion, chronic disease, Cancer, heart disease, allergies, autoimmune disease, nervous system, brain, behavior, CAFOs, real organic project, food as medicine
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