Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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the food revolution
The Common Ground Interview with John Robbins
Interviewed by Virginia Lee, 2002
http://www.foodrevolution.org/commonground.htm
Introduction (by Virginia Lee):

Much like Siddhartha, John Robbins was born into a life of affluence and 
privilege, only to turn away from it once he realized the suffering of the 
world. With his 1987 bestseller, Diet for a New America, Robbins brought so 
much media focus to bear on the fast-food industry of America that he caused 
them to change their ways, just for the sake of public relations. Because he 
was bred to be a capitalist insider, Robbins understands the strategies 
employed by the corporate structure of the world economy to get rich legally, 
while bankrupting humanity.

If Diet for a New America was ground-breaking 15 years ago, Robbins' latest 
book, The Food Revolution, brings the politics of environmentalism and food 
consciousness into the 21st century. Robbins tackles the new demons of 
genetic engineering, food irradiation, e.coli and Mad Cow disease, to mention 
only a few. He exposes the motives behind globalization and the monopoly of 
Monsanto on seed patenting and seed sterilization, to the degree that small 
farmers are no longer free to grow their own crops outside the dominion of 
corporate control.

John Robbins' clear, precise and articulate rhetoric is already a well-known 
voice to be heard above the static of media sound-bytes and robotic 
advertising. Having been featured in newspapers from the San Francisco 
Chronicle to the New York Times, having appeared on Oprah and PBS, Robbins 
undeniably practices what he preaches. He asks no one to do what he isn't 
willing to do himself. And with compassion, all he asks is for each of us to 
take the first step.

As a father, a husband, and now a grandfather of twin boys, John Robbins 
embraces a simple yet honest lifestyle in the Santa Cruz mountains. His home, 
including three offices, are run exclusively from self-generated solar 
energy. Whether you eat tofu, fish or steak, John Robbins regards you like 
the real human being that you are. It is through gentle and persistent 
awareness that he encourages all of us to realize the consequences of our own 
decisions—and actions.

CG: How is the message in your latest book The Food Revolution different from 
your 1987 bestseller Diet for a New America?

JR: When Diet for a New America was published, there had been not a single 
acre planted anywhere in the world with any form of genetically engineered 
food. Today we have over 120 million acres.

When Diet for a New America was published, E. coli 0157H7, the virulent form 
of E. coli that causes what's know as "hamburger disease" (the one that 
killed several kids that ate at Jack in the Box in the Northwest a few years 
ago), had not yet mutated to any significant degree. We had no problem with 
pathogenic E. coli at that time.

Also at that time, Mad Cow disease, was not known yet to even exist. I 
mention these as examples of the amount of change that we have seen in the 
world of food in the past 15 years. Obviously, there was deep need for an 
update, to bring the message into the 21st century. At the same time, there's 
a need to reacquaint people, reawaken people to an understanding of how our 
food choices profoundly affect our health—and the health of the planet. And 
the well being of all of its creatures.

Most of the books on food and health that are out there deal with 
cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes, diets and that sort of thing—the many 
ways that human health is impacted by what we eat. And that is all well and 
good. But it is also true that what we eat has a tremendous influence on our 
ecosystem and environment, our culture and society—as well as its 
contribution (or lack thereof) to the health of the planet.

We vote with our dollars, and we spend a lot of our dollars on food. Yet 
people don't often see their diet as a political statement. But it is. When 
you vote for McDonald's, that's one kind of vote. When you vote for organic 
food, that's another kind of vote. What you support with your dollars is what 
will exist in the future. Every time you spend a dollar, you are saying to 
the people who produce that product, "Do it again." That's how it will be 
read, that's how it will be interpreted and that's how it will be manifested.

Some people say, "Well I just bought a chicken at the store, but it was 
already dead. So it doesn't really matter that I bought it." Except that's 
not true because, if you buy that chicken, then the store will order more. 
And the producer will produce more. And the breeder will breed more. That's 
how the whole food supply chain will be reinforced.

CG: Please talk more about the "McDonaldization" of the world.

JR: This is what I call the homogenization of the planet into a uniform, 
monotonous lifestyle. And I see McDonald's as a leader in this; they want to 
open up stores everywhere in the world. The answer to world hunger is not to 
put McDonald's in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. That would simply continue the same 
system in which the resources, labor, and cultural values of a unique part of 
the world will be sucked into the profits of a few, who get extravagantly 
rich while the world is ground up beneath their feet.

Today, we're seeing a world in which the rich and the poor are even more 
segregated than ever. The rich are alienated from the life experience of the 
vast majority of human beings and as a result, are disconnected from the 
human condition. Through this alienation, the rich lose contact with their 
fellow man and don't see the impact of their actions and choices on other 
people. Their wealth isolates them and puts them in conflict with the higher 
good of anyone, including themselves. Naturally, this dynamic will breed a 
level of rage and hatred that cannot be controlled. None of us are safe or 
secure in that situation.

CG: Although genetically engineered foods promise to feed the starving 
populations of the earth, can they really do that?

JR: Genetically engineered foods don't promise to feed the starving. There 
are certain people who promise that they will, but the foods themselves 
aren't doing any promising at all. The foods so far are doing quite the 
opposite. All of the studies that have been performed (including the ones 
done by Monsanto) on the foods that are currently available commercially show 
decreased yields for transgenic foods. All of them show decreased yields; 
none of them show increased yields, even though sometimes the decrease is 
minor.

Of the 120 million acres of GE food that is growing, a lot of it is soybeans, 
a lot of it is corn, a lot of it is canola and some of it is cotton. Those 
are the four big crops. With soybeans, which is the largest share, you see 
anywhere from a 7-12% decrease in the yields. The harvests are down by that 
much per acre when they use "RoundUp-ready" Monsanto soybean seed. And it's 
the same with corn—it's true across the board.

So, the crops are not promising to feed the world. But the people who stand 
to profit from the widespread deployment of genetic engineering technology 
want the public to believe it's true. And they want to believe themselves 
that this technology will, at some point, be of use to the starving masses of 
the planet. That's a very powerful argument. And if in fact it were true, I 
would take my hat off because the problem of world hunger is enormous. But in 
practice we have seen no indication that it can—or will.

The crops that are being genetically engineered are being designed to have 
certain characteristics. If Monsanto's goal were to create crops that would 
help address world hunger, there would be certain qualities that they would 
be predictably seeking to develop in those crops: to create higher yields; to 
grow in marginal soils; to be drought tolerant; to grow in saline or acidic 
soil; to grow in extreme temperatures.

Now we have 120 million acres of GE crops already. Not one-quarter of one 
percent of this agricultural acreage is planted in crops that have any of the 
characteristics I just mentioned. But they have been engineered for different 
things, primarily the ability to withstand massive over-sprayings of RoundUp 
and other herbicides produced by the same companies that engineered the 
seeds. Basically, they are creating crops that can tolerate their own 
chemicals. It's no coincidence that the five largest genetic engineering 
companies in the world are also the five largest agro-chemical companies in 
the world, the five largest producers of pesticides in the world. Their 
purpose is an economic one; they are seeking to enhance their profits. To say 
that this is being done to feed the world is insulting to those who are 
suffering.

CG: What will happen to the production of soybeans—a staple in the vegan 
diet—if most soybeans are grown from genetically engineered seed?

JR: Already most are. The US is the biggest producer of soybeans in the 
world, and two-thirds of our soybeans today are genetically engineered to 
resist RoundUp. For people in the vegetarian community, for that matter 
anyone interested in their health and not wanting to be a guinea pig and 
expose their body to this, the important thing is to get organic soy 
products, because organic soy products are not genetically engineered.

The issue of genetic drift (or genetic pollution through involuntary 
pollination) is very big with corn, secondarily with canola, but not as big 
with soy. What that means is that organic soy products are truly organic.

CG: Is the Starlink controversy an omen of things to come? Do you think GE 
crops will eventually annihilate natural, organic plant species?

JR: Yes, Starlink is an omen because it shows that we can't effectively 
segregate our sources of food. Even more to the point is that it is illegal 
to grow any genetically engineered crops in Mexico. Researchers recently went 
deep onto the interior of Mexico, seeking to get the native corns (the 
original non-hybridized corn) that are remarkable reservoirs of ancient 
genetic diversity and sacred to the native peoples of Mexico. And even in the 
most innermost part of the country, hundreds of miles from commercial 
agriculture, they could find no corn that was not contaminated to some extent 
by the genetically engineered proteins we see in Starlink corn. Corn is a 
uniquely open pollinator, and that's why the problem is showing up first with 
corn.

So yes, if we continue to grow genetically engineered crops, we won't be able 
to segregate them (as we have seen with Starlink) and they will in time 
contaminate all food sources in the world.

CG: How do you deal with that? How do you stay positive knowing the 
inevitable outcome of this situation?

JR: It's only inevitable if we continue to do what we're doing. That doesn't 
mean it is inevitable; it means we have to change. Instead of surrendering to 
depression, the very intensity of the problem can serve to awaken people to 
this need for change.

CG: Would you call this the globalization of food?

JR: It is exactly that. And it is for the same purpose, which is to maximize 
profits for private corporations. Cultural diversity and biological diversity 
are just ground up and paved over by this attitude.

CG: What about the role of advertising in the globalization of food?

JR: The advertising and marketing industry is playing a huge role in 
globalization. For example, a couple of years ago, the president of Coca-Cola 
said that his goal was to make Coca-Cola more widely available in the world 
than drinking water. Ironically, in many counties it's safer to drink. 
Imagine if that same distribution network were used to supply clean, safe 
drinking water instead of carbonated sugar water (with phosphoric acid), 
which is what Coke is. That would be worth doing, but it's not where the 
money is. So it's not what Coca-Cola is doing.

CG: Do you see education as the antidote to this problem?

JR: Yes, that's why getting this information out through voices like Common 
Ground is so important. People need to know. The latest poll showed that 93 
percent of the American public want genetically engineered foods to be 
labeled. I've seen about five different polls in the last year, and they all 
vary between 89-93 percent in favor of labeling. It's usually very hard to 
get that high a percentage of the American public to agree on anything for 
any length of time. Given that, it's stunning that we don't yet have any 
effective legislation.

CG: Have you ever thought about a career in politics?

JR: Well, yes, I have. And people have asked me about that. But there is a 
Democratic US congressman from Cleveland, Ohio, Dennis Kucinich (the former 
mayor of Cleveland), a wonderful man who has sponsored bills in the House and 
Senate (along with California Senator Barbara Boxer) that would require the 
mandatory labeling of all genetically engineered food. That is where I am 
focusing much of my effort these days.

If we get that—and I think it is an achievable political goal—people won't 
want to buy GE food if it's marked and labeled. Right now they are buying it 
because they don't know. A recent poll asked people if they had ever eaten 
genetically engineered food, and 50 percent of the public said no. Which is 
impossible since two-thirds of the food on our supermarket shelves contain 
genetically engineered ingredients. So when people say no to that question, 
they're not lying; they just don't know. And the reason that they don't know 
is that there's no labeling.

The labeling issue is a critical one and it goes to consumer choice. You 
don't have to have a pro or con opinion about genetic engineering to know 
that you have a right to make a choice about what's in your food. If there's 
salt in food, it has to say so.

CG: Is the medical profession behind this issue?

JR: The British Medical Association, which is a very prestigious 
organization, has come out with a number of major policy statements opposing 
genetically engineered foods, speaking vehemently about the health dangers 
and stridently about the need for labeling. They have called for moratoriums 
and outright bans on these crops. The American Medical Association, on the 
other hand, has produced position papers in favor of GE foods.

CG: Please talk about what I call the Monsanto factor—essentially the efforts 
of agribusiness to patent seed genetics.

JR: This is basically what's happening. They are patenting their seeds. 
Monsanto produces 80 percent of the genetically engineered seeds in the world 
today. This is a stunning market share, unheard of really. Even with all the 
market consolidation you see in the world economy, 80 percent dominance by 
one company is just staggering. They are uniquely selfish with no regard for 
the well-being of others. I don't know that all corporations have to behave 
the way Monsanto does.

When Rachel Carson first wrote Silent Spring, a book which started the 
environmental movement in this country by exposing the dangers of pesticides, 
Monsanto tried to destroy her. They mounted a tremendous advertising campaign 
to discredit her and invalidate her work. They wanted to ruin her in every 
possible way they could. Now they are trying to do the same with me and 
others who are voices for the common good and general welfare. For this 
reason, my research has to be impeccable.

A few months ago, I had the occasion to be at a very large dinner party 
sitting right next to a man who is a major investor and on the board of 
Monsanto. I had a long conversation with him, a very heated conversation. And 
what emerged during the course of it was that he didn't know a lot of the 
things that his own company was doing. He said that if these things I was 
telling him were true, he would quit the board. They are true; there's no 
doubt about that. It's amazing to me that they withhold information even from 
their own board members.

CG: Who can stop them?

JR: It's going to take everybody, not just the Supreme Court. One entity 
can't do it. Congress has to act on this, and we can look to leaders like 
Kucinich. He's from the Midwest, and represents farmers who are a more solid 
and conservative part of the populace. They're not necessarily liberal 
Democrats, but they do want to conserve the true Jeffersonian values of this 
country. When it comes to protecting the natural resource base, the issue of 
food security is profound. When framed as part of national security, the 
issue of having a reliable and safe food supply is enormous. In truth, 
Monsanto is contaminating the food supply, and one could make the argument 
that what they are doing constitutes agro-terrorism.

CG: Can you trust anything found in a supermarket?

JR: You can trust it to be what it is. Can you trust it to be organic? If it 
says that it is, I think you can. Can you trust it to be grown in ways that 
are environmentally sustainable and ways that are healthy for people? If it 
doesn't say "organic," I don't think so.

The advantage of buying locally grown food is that there has been less 
transportation and it has probably been harvested closer to ripeness. It also 
doesn't incur the environmental costs of transportation. It is better to buy 
local food—that's for sure—but a lot of locally grown food isn't necessarily 
organic.

We're lucky to live where we do. The Bay Area, northern California and 
California in general is remarkably fortunate in terms of the availability of 
organic food. Most of the country, in fact most of the world, doesn't have 
this advantage. This is a very serious issue.

CG: Please talk about the power struggle between agribusiness and the upsurge 
in local farmers' markets.

JR: Wonderful as the farmers' markets are, and how prevalent they are in the 
rest of the world, agribusiness in this country is doing everything it can to 
knock them out. The middle men, the food brokers, the traders, take a cut of 
everything that they're involved with. If the public is buying direct from 
the farmer, that leaves them out. So, they want to do everything they can to 
keep farmers' markets marginalized, and prevent them from returning to their 
healthy role in society.

There is legislation on both the state and county levels that threatens the 
viability of farmers' markets. Federally, the USDA doesn't give anything in 
the way of funding or support to small farmers. All of it is geared to 
industrialized, large-scale food production. And none of it goes to anything 
like organics, family farms, farmers' markets or any kind of community-based 
food co-ops.

This is pretty ironic when you look at the current need to stimulate the 
economy. There would be a lot of "wins" for many levels of society if a more 
supportive USDA policy were in place. It's a shame, if not a crime, that the 
USDA has neglected the small family farms of America. Historically, small 
towns flourished all over the nation because of family farms. There is a 
certain ethic, a certain cultural value that defines American rural life 
which is being destroyed because of this. By and large, small family farms 
cannot compete with agribusiness, and it means the erosion of a way of life 
that is part of our American heritage.

One of the reasons there has been so much resistance to genetically 
engineered food in Europe (compared to the US) is that Europe's diverse 
cultures have their own way of growing, preparing and eating food. Their 
cuisine is an expression of who they are. It's part of their identity, their 
connection to the land, their history—and they don't want it messed with. 
They don't want it destroyed for corporate profit. In this country, on the 
other hand, we don't have a cultural cuisine in the same sense. What we have 
is a fast food nation. Our version of a cultural food identity is McDonald's 
and Burger King. And Baskin-Robbins.

CG: What about the European movement to promote "slow food" as an alternative 
to "fast food"?

JR: It's marvelous. The whole idea of the family dinner time has been 
eclipsed in this country by TV dinners, to-go food and eating in cars. Isn't 
it interesting that Europe is where the movement of slow food originated?

Throughout history, eating has been a way of bringing people together. It's 
how parents stay in touch with what's going on in their kids' lives. When 
people break bread together, it's an act of peacemaking, an act of good will. 
When you've eaten a meal with someone, you remember it. Often, that's when a 
relationship passes from an acquaintance to a friendship. Dining together can 
be a deep biological and sacred experience. When we eat, we are connected to 
all of life. It's a phenomenon found in every culture in the world, except 
ours. I see the McDonaldization of our food supply as the annihilation of our 
true relationship to life.

CG: What is a regular family to do who is just struggling to make ends meet? 
How can they afford this quality of life?

JR: That's why it's very important to ask, "What is quality of life" ? You 
have to define and clarify your own values. Otherwise, if you don't ask those 
questions deeply and seriously, the culture will define it for you. Success 
is defined by material acquisition; advertising says you can only be happy if 
you buy what they're selling. And when you buy those things, you go into 
debt. Before you know it, you're a slave to the credit card.

Personally, I made a decision years ago never to buy anything on a credit 
card that I couldn't pay for when the next bill arrived. That way I never pay 
any interest on it, which is exorbitant. It's unheard of to live within your 
means, but if you don't, you become prey to commercial forces that are so 
sophisticated and clever that you cannot escape. I've seen it ruin lives.

A friend of mine named Vicki Robin co-wrote a beautiful book with Joe 
Dominguez called Your Money or Your Life. It's been a popular book about this 
very subject, really a guide about taking charge of your financial life in 
such a way that you value yourself, about how to put your time and your 
priorities at the forefront of your financial world, rather than suffering 
from "affluenza". There's also the Voluntary Simplicity movement, started by 
Duane Elgin's book of the same name.

Just turning off the television helps a lot.

CG:What about the low-income family who can't grow their own food, can't 
afford expensive organic produce and don't have access to a local farmer's 
market? How do you wean them off fast food?

JR: In the inner cities of this country, the billboards you see are mostly 
for cigarettes, alcohol and junk food. When you go into the corner grocery 
stores, all that's available is junk food. It's this refined and processed 
food, the packaged foods, the ready-to-eat stuff (the industry calls it 
"value-added" foods) that you have to wean yourself from.

Through community co-operatives (even in the inner cities), people can get 
together and buy in bulk. Even organic grains are cheaper by far if you buy 
them that way. As an act of self-reliance, an act of affirmation, an act of 
self-respect, you have to start eating simply, wholesomely and naturally. 
Through food co-ops, you can do this quite affordably. In terms of 
neighborhood self-determination, this is one of the real options that exists 
for low-income people in the inner cities that is often not utilized. This 
would improve both their physical and financial health. These are important 
steps to getting out of the trap.

CG: Please talk about the E.U.'s ban on importing hormone-treated beef from 
the U.S. Does this mean that European meat is safe?

JR: It means that European meat is not treated with hormones, so in that 
sense it is safer. But there are many other problems that European meat has 
above and beyond the use of hormones.

The U.S. is virtually alone in the industrialized world in administering 
synthetic hormones to our livestock. It's given to over 99 percent of U.S. 
cattle. The European community refuses to import U.S. beef even for use as 
pet food, because of the health consequences that their scientific community 
has determined do exist. The U.S. beef industry and the USDA both say that 
there are no health risks.

CG: Do you think that an outbreak of Mad Cow disease in the U.S. would get 
Americans to stop eating beef?

JR: Yes it would, and I think it could happen here. We don't have any proof 
that there is any Mad Cow disease in the U.S. herd today, and there very well 
may not be, but the firewalls to prevent it are not iron-clad. There are a 
lot of ways that Mad Cow disease could get into our food supply. The USDA 
knows that and so does the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. They all 
know it and they're worried sick about it. They are working very hard to take 
preventative action, but what they're doing isn't to shore up the firewalls. 
The action they are successfully taking is to get the federal government to 
guarantee economic insurance for them. So if it happens, the federal 
government (which is to say taxpayers like you and me) will have to pay for 
the losses that this industry will suffer.

The day that this happens will be an enormous news story.

CG: What are the dangers of food irradiation?

JR: Subjecting food to the equivalent of 250,000 chest x-rays in order to 
sterilize the food from its pathogenic organisms is vigorously advocated by 
the beef industry. It causes molecular changes in the food that are totally 
beyond our comprehension: it creates what are called radiolytic by-products; 
it reduces vitamin levels. And of course, no tests have been done on human 
beings for an extended period of time. However, they have been done on 
animals and the results are not good. Animals who have been fed irradiated 
food have shown irreparable health damage.

CG: Is there any irradiated food on our shelves yet?

JR: Some of the spices are, and some of the meat served in fast food chains 
has been irradiated. The technology is not yet widespread in the food 
industry, but there are those in the industry who want it to be. The meat and 
poultry industries are probably the main proponents of food irradiation, and 
the reason is that these are the industries whose products are most heavily 
contaminated with E.coli, Salmonella, listeria, campylobacter, a whole host 
of problems.

It's an issue of liability. They don't want kids eating undercooked 
hamburgers and dying. It isn't good for their sales, their public image—or 
one would hope for the people who eat their food. But if they were really 
concerned about the people who eat their products, they would clean up their 
act and not produce food that is so heavily contaminated in the first place. 
Instead they want to sterilize it and serve it to people, rather than giving 
them wholesome food to begin with. Even if it is labeled, it will be so 
confusing that many people won't understand what it is. For example, they 
want to call this process "cold pasteurization" or "electronic beam 
pasteurization." Louis Pasteur would turn over in his grave.

CG: What will it take to reverse the epidemic of obesity in the U.S.?

JR: Turn off all the televisions. Get people living their lives instead 
passively watching someone else. The level of lethargy and the sedentary 
lifestyle in this country is just flagrant. Human beings are not designed to 
do this. In most cultures, people use their bodies for the daily tasks of 
survival in life. Instead, we push buttons for everything and eat for 
pleasure and entertainment rather than nutrition and sustenance.

CG: How do fad diets jeopardize one's health?

JR: There are a number of poplar diets that promise to help people lose 
weight. We have so many desperately overweight people who will try anything 
in their pain. Some of those diets work in the short term through various 
means, but they are not healthy ways to lose weight. For example, if someone 
undergoes chemotherapy, they almost always lose weight because they can't 
eat. And drugs addicts are characteristically slim. You can lose weight in 
all kinds of unhealthy ways.

I don't think much of the fad diets either, like Atkins or blood-type diets. 
They're all different from each other, but what many of them have in common 
(and Atkins is foremost in this) is a high-protein, high-fat, but 
low-carbohydrate emphasis. It's almost a carbo-phobia. Carbohydrates aren't 
bad; you have to know the difference between good carbohydrates and bad 
carbohydrates. Take wheat for example: 98 percent of the wheat consumed in 
the U.S. is eaten as white flour. If people just ate whole grain bread 
instead, it would make a big difference in their health.

The healthy way to lose weight is to have a wise relationship to your body 
with a lifestyle that's active and natural. Your food choices will reflect 
that perspective. CG: What do you think of a pure raw foods diet? JR: There 
are people who say they thrive on raw foods, and that may be true, but there 
are many others who don't. I believe in experimentation and adventure. People 
grow through trying things and seeing how their bodies respond.

However, a pure raw foods diet doesn't work well for children. There aren't 
enough calories in raw foods alone (except under tremendously unusual 
circumstances) to provide a child's nutritional needs. As a rule, kids whose 
parents feed them a raw foods diet fail to thrive, although the parents mean 
well. I respect their high ideals and bravery to differ from the cultural 
norm, yet the results for their kids have not been good. What is good for 
adults is not always the same for children.

CG: What does it take to truly live off the grid?

JR: When we put our solar system in three years ago, it was then the largest 
residential solar facility in northern California. We have three generations 
living here, and it provides for all our personal household electrical needs 
as well as three offices: mine, the international headquarters for Youth for 
Environmental Sanity (YES!), and the John Robbins Institute for Health and 
Compassion. The solar system powers about 15-20 computers in all. Our 
refrigerator is a Sunfrost, the most energy-efficient electric refrigerator 
in the world. It uses about 5 percent as much electricity as a standard 
commercial model.

We have what is called net metering in California. With this solar system, 
it's tied in to the utility company, so we're not exactly off the grid. On a 
sunny day, we feed power back to the main power supply in excess of what 
we're using. So, at this moment, we're harvesting electrons on the roof. Our 
meter is literally running backwards. Our neighbors, whether they like it or 
not, are burning solar electricity at this moment.

At night, when there's no solar electricity generated, we are in effect 
buying back some of the electricity we sold to PG & E during the day. We have 
our own little power station. Interestingly enough, the quality of the 
electricity (the sine wave) is vastly purer too. Our computers and stereo 
equipment seem to last much longer with fewer problems over time.

CG: Do you grow all your own food too?

JR: We grow a lot of it, but not all of it. There were a few years in my life 
when we did grow all our own food, but now I travel a lot and don't have the 
time. We're all busier. The rest of it we buy from the local farmers' market 
and health food stores. During the summer, we grow about 30 percent of our 
food, buy about 65 percent from the farmers' markets and 5 percent from the 
health food stores. During the winter, it's reversed with about 30 percent 
coming from the garden, 5 percent from the farmers' market and the rest from 
the health food stores.

CG: Is this a lifestyle anyone can embrace?

JR: I think anyone can embrace it. To embrace is to love, to honor and to 
rejoice in. To what extent people can individually achieve it depends on 
themselves. The lifestyle we have created here is the product of many, many 
decades of sustained choice and effort.

We didn't always have money either. When we were growing all our own food, we 
lived on very, very, very little, much less than you would probably believe. 
Although we were poor financially, we were rich in spirit because of the 
choices we made.

However, to live this way does take discipline. Some people say that the best 
things in life are free. I don't agree. I think the best things in life take 
a tremendous amount of discipline; they take effort and constant dedication. 
They are free in the sense that they can't be bought and sold; they are not 
subject to profiteering. But it does take surrender and focus.

So if someone wants to live a life that is based in spirit, and true to the 
deepest potential of human existence, they have to make choices that run 
against the grain of our society. The courage to do that and the willingness 
to do it over time (anyone can do it for a few days or when they feel like it 
and when it's easy) and sustain that vision over decades and across 
generations is the real challenge.

The place where you start is where you are. You take one step at a time and 
it leads to the next. If you keep the goal steady in your heart, if you keep 
the faith alive in your heart and if you keep loving life in every way you 
can, in time, wonders will unfold.

Virginia Lee was Associate Editor and served on the Editorial Board of Yoga 
Journal from 1980-85, and has been widely published in magazines ever since. 
She has been a regular interviewer for Common Ground since Fall 1992. She has 
also written two books: The Roots of Ras Tafari published by Avant Books of 
San Diego in 1985, and Affairs of the Heart published by Crossing Press of 
Freedom, CA in 1993. She currently lives and works in Santa Cruz, CA for 
UCSC's Psychology Department.