Support Our Local Farmers May 23, 2008

Kate is sleeping so I’m taking a break for once. It occurred to me that I need to take breaks when she is napping.

We get up at 6 or 6:30 am every day. And she doesn’t go to bed until 7. So that’s a 12-13 hour day! Plus then I still have to get dinner on the table and do the dishes and clean up the kitchen.

I don’t know how some of you moms out there do it. The ones who are homeschooling and cooking traditional foods and doing all your own cleaning. I guess if you have older kids, you can put them to work doing chores. But it is a lot of work. I commend you.

It’s a rainy overcast day today. Cold, like winter weather. Bizarre, since it was blazing hot all last week.

Kate and I went to the Japanese market this morning to get sashimi for dinner. Seth eats a lot — so I bought $30 worth. This GAPS diet is expensive. We used to be able to save money by eating more rice and beans and other things. But when all you are eating is meat and vegetables, you need more meat to fill up.

I only buy the wild-caught sashimi — so I got tuna and albacore and some snapper. All the salmon was farm-raised which I refuse to buy. I’ve also got some bonito broth simmering on the stove for miso soup. And I’ll make a seaweed cucumber salad.

I dug out some grass-fed ground beef and bison heart out of the freezer for tomorrow night. Gonna make taco salad. I’m going to grind up the heart and add it to the mix. Hopefully Seth won’t be able to taste it!

Here’s some exciting news — about a week or so ago I dumped some cut up potatoes into a big pot outside. And guess what? They already sprouted. There are green leaves coming up out of the pot! Isn’t that exciting? These were just potatoes that we didn’t get around to eating (since we went on GAPS).

See, this is the thing. People are getting all worked up about food prices and how there’s going to be a famine. And yet it is so easy to grow food! I mean, I literally just dumped those potatoes into the pot, added a little soil and water — went out and watered them a couple of times — and that was it. People need to get out of the grocery store and get into the backyard.

I was listening to Joel Salatin’s lecture at the last WAPF conference. He said an interesting thing. “In America today, there are twice as many people in prison than there are on farms.”

Doesn’t that blow your mind? Is it any wonder why so many people are incarcerated? Why so many people are dealing drugs?

We used to be able to live off the land and support ourselves. Now we are forced to work outside the home and leave our families for 8, 10, 12 hours a day. We are forced to drive cars to work since everyone is so spread out. And most families have two cars — 50 years ago, most families had one car if they had a car at all.

It’s ridiculous the way we live. Most of us are stressed out all the time, working way too many hours, not spending enough time with our kids, and yet we have huge homes with five TV sets and two cars and fancy gourmet kitchens we never cook in.

How did this happen?

Joel Salatin said something else in his lecture. He said, “Over 50% of all meals are eaten outside the home.” Isn’t that incredible? And restaurant food is not only bad for you, it’s very expensive!

Salatin said, “Try just making one homecooked meal a week.” It’s a good goal.

Here’s another statistic I heard today: 30 million people — oops — that’s supposed to be 300 million people in the world are malnourished. The person who said it said it was due to industrial agriculture and monocropping.

We need to take back our land. Even if you don’t have a backyard, you can grow something. Even if you only have room for pots on a patio — you can grow potatoes! Or herbs. Or lettuce. I remember when I was single, living in San Francisco, I used to grow baby bok choy in a pot on my tiny little postage-stamp sized deck.

If you can’t grow anything, you can support a local farmer. Local organic farmers take care of the soil. They don’t monocrop. They don’t spray poisons on the food. Go to your local farmer’s market and buy as much as you can from the local farmers. You can still go to the supermarket to get other things.