Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Liz <liz@allslash.org>]

At 03:53 PM 8/31/2007, you wrote:

> Yes, there is a place for various animals in a sustainable society, both
> food and work animals, and right and wrong ways to handle them. Where Lappe
> hits hard is the factory farms where cattle and poultry are crammed into
> tight quarters, force fed unnatural grains and antibiotics, and sent sick
> to slaughter. We can do without the stinking, gargantuan feedlots of the
> midwest, and feed millions more people. If the ethanol switch closes down
> some of them and makes beef cost more, fine with me.

I'm not a vegetarian, so my comments were based on simple economics. 
I look at what beef costs right now in the grocery store and wonder 
how anyone can afford it. Since I won't buy supermarket beef anyway, 
and the man who was selling locally raised beef went out of business, 
our meat consumption has been drastically reduced. I use beans, rice 
and other complementary proteins, but I fear that many people are 
substituting simple carbohydrates, worsening what is already an 
epidemic of Type II diabetes (if it's correct to speak of a 
completely preventable disease as though it were somehow transmissible).

The problems of contemporary food production and transportation are 
so interwoven that it's very difficult for the average person to step 
outside the system. I've been talking to a social services friend 
about holding cooking classes for people on public assistance, to 
help them find ways to get the most food for their limited dollars 
(or food stamps). Unfortunately, in spite of the obvious need for 
something like this, she says it's almost impossible to overcome the 
temptation of brightly colored boxes of pasta mixes and similar 
starchy "foods" on the supermarket shelves. It's going to have to all 
come crashing down before any real change takes place.

Liz in SW VA
http://life-as-a-spectator-sport.com