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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] The looming food crisis

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: Liz <liz@allslash.org>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] The looming food crisis
  • Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2007 17:24:21 -0400

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




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