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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] the food revolution
  • Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:44:05 -0600


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.




  • [Livingontheland] the food revolution, Tradingpost, 03/30/2008

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