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  • From: tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Trans Fats Ban
  • Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 10:59:17 -0700


Good discussion! What you're pointing out there, John, is a most sensible approach to agriculture, which is NOT "one size fits all". Of course you wouldn't know that from most gardening books and "experts". Too many variations in soil, climate, location, markets, traditions etc. And certainly there are places where livestock work best, and I use aged manure when I can get it. But I join Frances Lappe & many others who oppose the enormous waste of declining resources for excessive and unnecessary constant consumption of meat. It may be a lot worse here. What we have now is CAFOs, confined animal feeding operations, that are wrong in all the worst ways, and put extreme demands on water and fossil fuel resources that could instead feed the hungry billion or so. Most of our corn and grains goes to feed cattle, not people. Which is nothing like free range beef etc grazing where crops are impractical.

You mention "not smart to get rid of the ruminants, plow up the land and sow corn or soy." I agree again. Plowing up millions of acres - whole states - in our Midwest caused the great Dust Bowl in the 1930's. It was home to endless bison herds before the govt extermination (bison AND plains indians) in the late 1800's. What was behind all that tragedy? Wealthy land speculators of course.

On self sufficiency I might add that we don't aim for that ourselves. We feel that through history humans have been tribal and cooperative, with some specialization of labor which is far more efficient than individual self sufficiency. Community self sufficiency - partially - is more practical. We wish we could do more local barter but this is Tea Party Central, sorry to say. Total self sufficiency is a myth. We can feed several markets but we can't build the van to get there .

This is hard writing for me that touches on so many critical issues. And I need to finish clearing the old tomato beds to start repairing that greenhouse for winter. It won't get done by wishing.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
-------------------------------------

On 11/10/2013 1:26 PM, John D'hondt wrote:
Situation is a wee bit differnt here Paul.
We never eat popcorn or any corn for that matter (gmo, no thank you) except
for a little bit of our own home grown, coloured, heritage corn. And that
is not very suitable for making popcorn. We would also avoid any microwaved
food.

But were we live you can not try for self sufficiency and not eat meat. You
have vegetarians here but 90 % of what they eat is imported from the other
side of the planet.
Also much of Irish land is only really suited for grass or sitka spruce
growing. Sitka spruce plantations are green desert where no local animal can
survive. And grass is only suitable for herbivores.
It is just not smart to get rid of the ruminants, plow up the land and sow
corn or soy. I have tried to grow soy (one row in the garden) and it only
produces a minimal crop once in ten years or more. Same with corn, the
regular corn you know does not ripen here. Most corn is cut still green as
cattle food. Other grains? Not possible on our steep mountain slopes.
Plowing with modern machines causes massive errosion and the harvest is
unpredictable. I know one man who set barley on almost 200 acres and he
ended up with less than a hundred kilos of grain. That same acerage would
have fed a hundred cattle for most of the year and as I said they would not
have damaged the land as that barley cultivation did.
There are farmers here with flat land who grow wheat, barley or oats. The
one we know best fertilizes his land with cattle manure and cheese whey from
the cheese factory near him. Without those inputs he would exhaust his land
in a very few years.
John

./
Trans Fats Ban Could Have Devastating Effect On Popcorn Industry
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/09/popcorn-trans-fats-ban_n_4245453.html

I suspect what they'll ban is simply artificial hydrogenation. Gov
interest in it of course is the fact our taxes pay for so much treatment
of the health problems, plus we all pay higher ins premiums for it.

We've avoided margerine & such as much as we can for quite a while but
we don't rule out all animal fats. We do eat out but still try to eat as
low on the food chain as possible. Plus our fresh market products
encourage that. We use meat more like European style for flavoring,
since cutting down high meat consumption would free up farmland &
resources that now go to feed livestock & extend our global resources
further into the future. Maybe even buy time for people here to learn
to cook again :-\
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