More and More Reasons to Avoid Processed Foods

[talon]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/01/AR2010080103469.html?hpid=topnews

There are thousands of chemicals that find their way into our food and we don't know what many of them are, what effects they have long or short term, whether it migrates from the packaging into the food if the chemical isn't used directly in the food itself, what chemicals are used in the food processing that might contaminate the food, and what quantities might be considered safe.

I realize that demanding food manufacturers fess up about all the chemical they use is counter-productive - they won't do it and we have no regulations to force them to, but we can use the power of our money to not buy it.

I know everyone says that buying real food is expensive, that manufactured food product is cheaper, and I suppose it depends upon where in the country/world you are whether this is true or not.

I do know that buying food from a food coop or crop share program or the farmer's market is not cheap - around here, the farmer sells their vegetables and herbs at really high mark-ups, higher than what we would pay at the organic local foods section of the health food stores and what we get are the dregs of their farms. The same farmers supply the organic local foods sections of the grocery stores and health food stores, so why they charge so much more to those of us buying directly from them and then giving us their dregs just beggars my imagination. I stopped buying fresh produce through the local food coop/crop share program because the vegetables were old, woody, bitter, and tough, and the "fresh" herbs were all stems and seeds. So I understand why people complain that buying "real" food isn't affordable, not when they have to throw away ¾ or more of the food they buy directly from the local farmers because it's inedible as well as over-priced.

I get that it's a problem that will take time to sort out.

On the other hand, in 3 months, with containers (and maybe some help from grow lights) or a plot of land, we can be harvesting real food, tasty, fresh, and as chemical free as we want it to be. Done right, container gardens with grow lights can produce year round. I read a book not too long ago about square inch gardening - how to grow food in really small spaces, places one normally overlooks. I can't remember the name of the book, and honestly, it was way more philosophy than practical tips and how-tos - I wouldn't recommend buying it because of that unless you want the philosophy and the hard sell on why you should do it. But it was useful in that it pointed the way to show that people living in small walk-ups and in dim, tiny places or geographically or agriculturally poor areas can still produce the bulk of their vegetables at home with less expense than shopping for their food and often in less time than it would take to shop for food or to go to and wait at restaurants for food to be prepared for them. I thought I was up to most of the home grown food tricks and this book showed me just how much more I still had to learn about cramped gardening. I mean - square inch gardening! A farm that lives on top of your refrigerator and microwave, that's tucked onto shelves and niches over your kitchen sink and bathtub, that hangs from baskets in corners throughout your rooms, that rests on windowsills and the tops of bookshelves. It was amazing. With staggered plantings and a boost from grow lights, we can grow patio tomatoes, lettuces, cabbages, celery, carrots, radishes, strawberries, blueberries, lingonberries, broccoli, kohlrabi, parsnips, peas, scallions, onions, garlic, even potatoes and squashes in unused nook and crannies of one's home year round.

When I found these pocket planters and these woolly pocket planters, I knew square inch gardening would be so much easier for city dwellers - if they choose to do it.

It's all about choice, after all. We can choose to eat chemical laden cheap processed foods. We can choose to buy from local farmers and ranchers. We can choose to grow our own.

My choices are limited by the fact that we don't have any local crop share farms, the local farmers sell their dregs through the only local food coop I've been able to find, and the farmer's markets either sell imported foods from Mexico or the leftovers that they don't sell to bigger markets. I can either buy manufactured food products, fresh fruits and vegetables from dubious sources, or grow my own, and I'm choosing to grow more and more of my own.

It doesn't take that much time - 15 minutes of watering before work in the mornings, 15 minutes or so of harvesting and weeding and reseeding in the evenings - a whole whopping hour or two to prep the beds and plant them in spring, another hour or two to prep the beds for winter in the fall. I suppose it would be more work if I planted directly in the ground instead of into little kiddie wading pools and straw bales. I like the wading pools because they don't dry out in the Okie winds as fast as most planters do.

And I very much like knowing the food I eat isn't laden with a host of unknown chemicals and pesticides and/or contaminated with salmonella campylobacter, calicivirus, hepatits A, botulism, and e.coli.

Articles such as this one just confirm my choices to me.