Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[firekeeper@netscape.net]

Hi There

 

I also am so not a vegetarian and I find may of the statements that some Vegans make rather unsupported, but the continued health of so may Buddhist and Hindu populations rather argues that vegetarianism can be perfectly healthy for many generations.   That is why I would think that the new fashionable vegan diets may simply not be as balanced as those that have developed over so many centuries.

 

That brings us to a second problem, which is that importing hundreds of foods from other places costs us a lot of energy, regardless of whether it is vegetable or meat.  Having food grown elsewhere leaves a gigantic unanswered question about what conditions and chemicals were involved in their growth, as so many of our veggies and fruits are grown with, now, overseas.  Many of these are making the most contaminated lists and many are being grown on radically deforested lands.  There are also questions to be answered about whether there are unknown human costs involved, indigenous peoples and subsistence farmers dislocated to make way for corporations that have no ethical interest in keeping the former farmers alive or above the poverty level.

 

There are so many indigenous foods that have been lost to common use in the US.  Farming with a tiny group of common foods bypasses a LOT of foods that could, and can, provide nutrients that are not commonly found.  Purslane, Lambs-Quarters, Sorrel and dandelion, among many others, are eaten commonly, elsewhere, but not here any more.  They certainly aren?t hard to grow.  I have begun to grow some of these local and exotic veggies and do some research into the traditional recipees for them.  Native cookbooks are pretty scant but they are available.

 

Yours, Pego