We are all gonna die!

Every so often, I get a bee up my butt about things. Generally, it has to do with the state of our government. Or the Economy. Or Big Agri. Or lobbyists. Or our elected officials. All of which are essentially the same thing, when you boil it down to the bare minimum.

Today, I am irritated by the fact that we are all going to die. Sounds silly, I know. We all have to die sometime, from some cause or another. But what is bothering me today is the absolute staggering numbers of ways to day that no one is telling you about.

Where to begin. Pesticides. That seems to be a given, right? If it can kill a bug, it can kill a person, right? Seems simple. So we all try to limit our pesticide use. Except for Big Agri. See the connection here? To get the increased yields that the GMO (again, see the previous rants about Big Agri) grains and seeds are supposed to supply us with, you have to keep the bugs out of it. So, pesticides are sprayed over the fields. Supposedly, they can't be used within so many days of harvest so that the effective half life of the chemical of choice is degraded enough to be safe for consumption. That all sounds lovely, doesn't it? In reality, only part of those chemicals have degraded enough for the arbitrary levels that the EPA sets to fall within the "safe" limits. The rest of it is still on the product. Well, we all wash our fruits and veggies to make sure we get rid of the rest of it. The problem is that if it has rained at all during the growing cycle, and we all know it has or the crop wouldn't grow, that pesticide gets washed into the soil where it is taken up by the root system and deposited into what ever the crop is. So that beautiful tomato that you wash so carefully, probably has pesticide residue inside it that can't be washed off. So all of that careful washing, while it will remove anything left on the surface, is irrelevant to the overall picture.

And another overlooked fact is the that when Big Agri first started it's boom in the 1950's and 60's, there wasn't a lot of research on the long term effects of some of the pesticides being used. DDT for instance. DDT was wonderful for vector control of insects, like mosquitoes, but had the disturbing side effect of hanging around long after it was sprayed. DDT has been linked to diabetes, cancers, hormonal changes in both men and women, miscarriage, developmental problems and hypothyroidism. And all of that isn't even counting the enviromental effects on wildlife. Thankfully, DDT was banned for use in agriculture in 1972 in the U.S. but it wasn't until 2004 that it was restricted to vector control worldwide. So most of use who are at least 40 years old probably have come in contact with it at some point in our lives.

These days, other less persistent insecticides are used yet the long term effects of these poisons are being overlooked or deliberately withheld from the general public. Even pesticides labeled for use in "organic" crops haven't been sufficiently tested because the companies that make them make billions of dollars from them and will not allow anyone to say they are bad.

OK, Enough on pesticides.

Another way we are all gonna die is from the food itself. Lets say you know about the pesticide issues so you grow all of your food organically, including grains, for your family. You have the 5-10 acres and the time needed to do that. First off, that makes you part of the extreme minority. But lets say you do it anyway. That is Great! You eat a lot of fresh fruits and veggies, eat a hot multigrain cereal for breakfast every day, bake all of your own bread, eat less than 4 ounces of lean meat a day if you eat meat at all. OK, lets look at what you are eating. Look at all the carbohydrates you are consuming every day. All of that cereal and bread. Every bit of those carbs turn into sugar in your body. If you are not a highly active person who actually uses all of those calories you are eating, all of that sugar will do one of two things. It either gets stored as fat or it gets burned as fuel. If you do not burn all of the calories, you will get fat. Seems simple right? Well, there is another problem. If you are constantly, consistently, eating too many carbs, you will run the risk of diabetes. And that is just from all the bread, grains, and starchy vegetables.

Most of us do not get the right mix of vitamins and minerals from our food. We just don't eat a varied enough diet. Even if you think you do, you probably don't. We have a tendency, as a society, to eat maybe 10 different vegetables on a regular basis. Peas, carrots, corn, green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, with a couple of more thrown in on the individual basis. And we have a tendency to load those few up with butter or other fats to make them tasty. Then we eat more of them than we actually need. There are micro-nutrients in things like squash and leafy greens (which most people won't eat) that we just won't get from our normal diet. And if you don't cook or use highly processed mixes and "kits" to save time, or eat fast food a lot, your diet is even more lacking in nutrients.

All of this boils down to high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, etc. and the associated diseases like heart disease, arthritis, gall bladder issues, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, the list goes on and on.

So the food we eat will kill us even faster than the pesticides.

Then there are the environmental factors that we can't control. A little over 6 months ago, there was a devastating earthquake and tsunami to hit Japan. It severely damaged the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant and they lost containment. Radiation poured into the ocean because they were having to use ocean water to put out the fires. Radiation poured into the air through the smoke from those same fires. The land around the plant has been so thoroughly contaminated that the people who used to live there will probably never be able to go home. In the days after the accident, people in the U.S. were very concerned about airborne radiation being carried by the Jet Stream. The folks in California got down-right panicked about it. But after the first month or so, the media thought it was a non-story anymore so the coverage stopped. You have to really look to find any stories about it, even on the internet. But there are stories out there. Radioactive iodine 131 was found in milk collected in the South Central parts of the United States. Radioactive rainwater was collected in California that contaminated reservoirs used for drinking water. And again, the list goes on. But the government doesn't tell us these things because it would just cause panic and there is nothing we can really do about it anyway.

Then there is the fact that rice from the Fukushima Prefecture has been banned for export because of the high radiation levels found in the rice grown there. Has no one thought that maybe the world might need to know these things? What about all of the radiation that is falling in California as rain? What will that do to the crop land there? All of those strawberries we all gobbled up last spring probably came from California unless they were from a verified local source. But you know what? It rained here too. Hmmm, makes you wonder, doesn't it? There are places in Scotland that still cannot sell their sheep as meat because the grass they eat was contaminated from the Chernobyl accident back in the 1980's. Kind of a scary thought.

But the big concern here is that the Fukushima Daiichi plant is STILL releasing radiation. They hope to have it contained by the first of the year. So all of that radiation that made the news back in March and April is still floating around us, unseen and unreported. Pleasant thought, huh?

What this all boils down to is the fact that we are all going to die. Not necessarily because we are just old and worn out, but because the Powers that Be either don't want us to know they are poisoning us, don't want us to know what is going on around us, or they give us mis-information so we cannot make informed choices.

None of these things make me trust the media or the government.

Japan, the Economy , and Food

The more I watch the world news, the more concerned I am for the state we will soon all be in. The earthquake in Japan has fallen from the top stories, but is it still of grave concern for all of us. There are still large amounts of radiation being emitted from the Fukushima plant and it doesn't look like it will be ending any time soon. It has now contaminated the water supplies in Tokyo, but unless you are paying close attention to the news, you miss it in the mass of reports about Libya. The people of Japan are in grave danger. And we in the US are as well. The radioactive plume, that was reported as being less than a single chest x-ray when it made landfall last week, is continuing. What the news isn't telling us is that radiation is cumulative, meaning that while a single exposure is less than a single x-ray, this is still continuing, building up to be a lot of x-rays every time you go outside. And anything that lives outside, cows, chickens, vegetables, fruit, etc., will all be exposed to a concerning amount in the long term.

I will not be buying any food produced in California any time soon.

Japan owns or operates a lot of the US manufacturing. Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Sony, Hitachi, Samsung, all of these and many more like them are all based in Japan. Japanese companies have a general rule about production. They do not like to keep and warehouse large amounts of parts for the items they produce. They manufacture just enough to keep production in full swing. If something happens, like an earthquake and subsequent loss of power, there are no more parts to build with. So the factories in the US that build stuff for these companies are having to shut down due to lack of parts. Toyota has announced this week that they are having to shut down at least one of their plants in the US. That is a lot of jobs that will be lost. Another problem with items from Japan is that the products are contaminated with radiation. Most every ship coming from Japan lately has some at least some contamination. That means that even if we can get the parts, we can't use them. Again, this isn't really being reported except as an afterthought.

Have you actually thought about everything that you own that has a semi-conductor or processing chip? What will you do if you have to get it repaired and the only chips available are from radioactive Japan?

Now, back to the radioactive plume. It is hanging over the US. Yes, most of the radioactive materials have fallen out over the ocean. And yes, the levels that are hanging out over us are small, comparatively. But remember the cumulative effects. That is building up. There are places in Scotland where they still cannot sell their sheep for human consumption due to the contamination from Chernobyl back in 1986. That was 25 years ago folks. Yes, we are farther away from Japan that Scotland is from Chernobyl, but if they do not get this radiation stopped soon, everything on Earth will be contaminated with low levels. Everything we eat, the air we breathe, the clothes we wear, everything. Remember the cumulative effects. And the real problem will be food. There will be no getting away from it. Until there is a way to grow food, in large quantities, without exposure to soil, air and water, we will all be getting it. Expect a rise in cancer rates across the US in the next 20 years.

If you think what happens in Japan doesn't affect you, you are mistaken. It affects us all. And on more than just the humanitarian scale.

Excalabur 2900 dehydrator

I got my new dehydrator in this week and I am so excited. It is more than twice the size of my old one (15 sf of drying space) and actually much faster too. The first day I got it, I dried 6 chopped bell peppers (on sale for $1.78 for all 6) and 5 chopped onions ($1.99 for a 3 pound bag) and still had 2 trays left empty. The same amount of chopped dried onions retails for about $6. And since I use the peppers and onions all the time when I cook, it is a great deal for us. And also much better for cooking when I just don't feel like chopping up an onion.

I also picked up some really nice strawberries from a roadside vendor this week. I have bought from them in the past and they are some of the best strawberries you will ever eat. At $14 a gallon, they are a little bit expensive, but still cheaper than the grocery store, and the taste just can't be beat. We ate a few of them fresh and the rest (a little less than a gallon) I made into fruit leather and dried sliced. The finished product gave us about 10 fruit roll-ups and almost a quart jar of dried slices.

The sliced berries work out really well for us. I make scones with them, and we use butter and strawberry freezer jam on the hot scones. Really awesome and very easy. Take your favorite biscuit recipe (there is a good one on the back of the Bisquick box, just don't use the liquids), add 1/2 cup of sugar, 3/4 cup of sour cream, and a big handful of crumbled berry slices and enough water or milk to make a really, really stiff dough. It just needs to hold together and not be too "wet". Place the dough on a greased baking sheet and pat it out to about 3/4 inch thick and round. Slice it like a pizza and bake it in a moderately hot oven, I generally bake at 375, until it is nice and browned all over. Like I said, just awesome.

Drying food takes up a lot less space than canning, and the majority of the time, tastes just as good as fresh. 3 pounds of chopped, dried onions will fit into a half gallon jar and you don't have to worry about them getting soft or mildewed in the pantry. If you need "fresh" onions for things like potato salad or similar recipes, just soak them in a little warm water and they will plump back up. Same with the fruit. To make a fruit salad or compote, soak your mixed dried fruits in a little water or apple juice to plump them back up and chill.

Just about every vegetable can be dried and stored. Potatoes work out really well. Slice and parboil the spuds, surface dry with a paper towel and lay them out on the trays. After they are dry, they can be used for scalloped potatoes, re-hydrated and fried, or cooked in the microwave with a little milk and then mashed. Drop some in a stew or soup, run through the blender to make potato flour or instant mashed potatoes. Very very useful.

I would suggest this to just about anyone who wants to be able to preserve food without the mess and expense of canning. Buy produce when it is on sale or in season from a farmers market and dry it. And if the dried foods are kept sealed, they will keep just about indefinitely. It is a great way to save money. And eat healthier.

Raising rabbits?

OK, so today I have been learning about raising meat rabbits. Apparently, rabbit meat has fewer calories per pound than any other meat, has very little cholesterol, and *surprise!* tastes like chicken.

From my research, I have learned that meat rabbits can dress out around 4-5 pounds in 8-11 weeks. That is a lot of meat in a very short time. And considering that the average litter is 5-8 kits, that is more than 20 pounds of meat every three months with only 1 breeding doe. I have also read that to start a family sized meat operation you would only need 1 buck and 3 does. So that would be 60 pounds of meat every quarter, that is 240 pounds a year! I am thinking that is a very cost effective feed to meat ratio.

And rabbits can be kept in 5 foot square elevated cages to keep predators out and make cleaning the cages easier. They are also very quiet so as to not disturb the neighbors. Another little tidbit I learned is that rabbit manure is the only manure that does not have to be aged before use as fertilizer. So straw from under the cages can go directly into the garden or flower bed. Cool, huh?

The pelts can be tanned for numerous uses as well. I can think of gloves and hats just for starters.

So just about anyone can raise rabbits for meat. They take up very little space, breed like, well, rabbits, and are a very healthy choice when it comes to meat.

I wonder if I can talk my husband in to building me some rabbit cages?

Eating Healthy on the Cheap

I read an article this morning about how eating beans and whole grains can help to reduce your cholesterol levels a significant amount. "According to a 2001 study from the Archives of Internal Medicine, people who eat beans four times a week reduce their heart disease risk by 20 percent." While I am not sure we could stand to eat beans that often, I think that eating beans a little more often will certainly help improve our health. And not only that, but beans are a very inexpensive way to get extra protein in our diet. And they are very versatile. We could easily have a vegetarian night once a week. And once a week will not cause too much disturbance in our house.

Bean burritos are probably the easiest way to serve them. Of course, we also like brown beans with bits of ham cooked in it. But like any true Southerner, you have to have fried potatoes and cornbread with it, and that will probably counteract the health benefits from the beans. Or a bean salad with lots of fresh veggies. When I was growing up, my mom made a really good bean salad that had kidney beans, chopped onion, chopped tomatoes, corn, (and something else, I don't remember) with a little bit of mayonnaise and salt and pepper. It was really good when we grilled out. I might actually try that tonight for dinner.

Garlic was also mentioned as a plus. We use a lot of garlic anyway so that shouldn't be a problem to just use it a little more.

The article also talked about how oats and oat fiber help you offset the negative effects of cholesterol by, essentially, soaking up the fats in the digestive tract. The good news is that oats are also inexpensive. And they are very versatile as well. Not only can you simply eat a bowl of hot oatmeal, you can run them through the blender to make oat flour for baking, make oatmeal cookies, use it as a binder for meatloaf or meatballs, the list goes on. I think I will be using a lot more oats in my daily cooking than I have in the past. Not only does it help with the cholesterol, it is an excellent source of fiber, and that is never a bad thing.

Purple grapes, either as juice or as wine, are rich in biflavinoids that will reduce the "stickiness" of platelets in the blood, reducing the probability of clots. It will also help repair damage caused by free radicals. So again, that is a good thing. 8 to 10 ounces a day is all that is needed. So go ahead and have that glass of red wine with dinner.

Eating cheaply doesn't mean you have to sacrifice your health. Between the beans, oats, garlic, cutting back on fried foods, and getting a little more exercise, we should be a lot healthier in the long run and still not be overspending on overpriced health food.

Good Food is Better Than Trash Food

I know that I have harped before on the quality (or lack of it) of store bought food. But the more I read studies and hear the news about food born illnesses and contaminated meat and vegetables, the more I never want to enter a grocery store again.

As a society, we have institutionalized every aspect of our lives, right down to the foods we eat. All processed foods contain preservatives and, for some reason, high fructose corn syrup. Why does our bread need high fructose corn syrup? It only takes a spoonful of sugar or honey to make a loaf of bread. Is sugar really so expensive that a loaf of white bread from the store has to use altered sugar(fructose, dextrose, and glucose and all of other 'oses) to make a profit? And why are we eating so much bread anyway?

Wouldn't it just be easier and cheaper to fill up on high quality proteins like meats and beans, vegetable fibers like salads and fruit, whole grains like rice, oats and barley, and starches like potatoes and corn instead of serving a lot of breads that have been over processed and nutrition-deprived?

Our grandparents ate maybe 3 or 4 servings of bread a day as biscuits and corn bread, but had a lot of meats, fresh veggies, and whole grains. And you know what, they were a whole lot healthier for it. They also didn't sit around watching TV after a day of work. There were chores to do right up until dark. Then there was always stuff that needed doing inside.

Going to the gym for exercise was just laughable. There was plenty of exercise to be had in everyday living. Want to life weights? Go move a couple of bales of hay down out of the barn loft to feed the cows and mule( they weigh anywhere between 50 and 80 pounds). Want some movement to tone down those "luv handles"? Use a pitchfork to clean out the barn stalls. 30 minutes on the treadmill? Try chasing down the chicken that got out of the hen house before the dogs could get her. That takes some running.

It takes a lot of calories to work even a small farm. Just putting in a small garden is more daily exercise than most of us get. But the side affects are higher quality and freshest possible food you can get. And you will know what is in it or on it. So you are burning calories and eating better.

I remember going to my grandma's house for a week every summer. Breakfast was always bacon and/ or sausage, an egg or two, biscuits and gravy, and maybe a bowl of oats. Lunch was something like brown beans and ham or a fried pork steak, fried potatoes, any biscuits left from breakfast or cornbread if there wasn't any, and a glass of tea. Dinner would be something like chicken and dumplin's or a pork roast, green beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn on the cob, and a slice of pie or cake. And even after eating all of that in 1 day, we would sometimes sneak back into the kitchen before bedtime and get some more cake or a glass of cold buttermilk with crumbled corn bread in it.

Now that sounds like a lot of fat and calories for 1 day, but every bit of that was burned in the course of the day. There was always something to keep us busy. Rght after breakfast we started working outside. Hoeing the garden, feeding and watering the chickens, picking beans or berries, washing dishes, washing clothes and hanging them out, cooking and canning, sewing, helping Pawpaw in the shop. We didn't have time to sit and watch tv or get into too much trouble. And maybe that was the point. But we were always hungry come meal time.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that eating real food, regardless of the fat content, is better for you than filling up on empty calories that has no nutritional value. If you are hungry, by all means eat, but don't reach for a bag of chips or a Little Debbie. Grab a piece of fruit or some carrots. Instead of eating a couple of loaves of the fresh baked bread they give you at the steak house, get a side salad instead. Fill up on good fresh foods instead of just something to fill up that empty spot.

And for goodness sakes, stay away from processed foods.

Is our food killing us?

I have struggled with my weight for a number of years, and tried many different diets, only to have none of them really work. I think it is mainly because the so called "experts" keep changing their minds about what is actually healthy.

I read an article today that talked about how, since the FDA and USDA came up with the Food Pyramid back in the late '60's and early 70's, obesity has become epidemic. The recommended servings of grain(bread, pasta, cereals, etc) is 9-11 a day. And guess what, grains are carbohydrates. And on top of that, most of the flour used to make the things we eat is so over processed that they have to add the vitamins and minerals back into the flour after they mill it.

The article went on to state that since carbs turn to sugar as we metabolize the food, and the sugar spike causes insulin to be created to store that sugar as fat, the more sugar we have floating around in our bodies over the course of the day, the more fat gets stored, the more insulin is produced and the more weight we gain.

Now, lets think about this for a minute. If you eat the 9 to 11 servings of grains the government tells us is healthy, then we would have to be eating carbs just about all day. That means that we have a constant sugar rush going in our bodies. That much insulin being produced is bound to cause problems, not just with our weight, but on the organs themselves, which could cause diabetes and kidney problems.

Then there is the whole "fats" issue. Does anyone really know what the difference between a monounsaturated fat and transfat is? Or a saturated fat and a polyunsaturated fat? And why on earth is one better or worse than the other?

I have a theory on this, so bear with me. If a fat comes from a natural source, like butter, olive oil, lard, fish oils, etc., it is probably healthier than fats that come from unnatural sources like vegetable oils, margarine, and shortening. Why? Well, in my opinion, if it occurs naturally in the foods we eat, and we do not have to mechanically or chemically alter it to be able to use the fats, then it has to be better for us. In whole unhomogenized milk, the fat rises to the top and we call it cream. If we beat it around in a jug for a few minutes, it makes butter. No mechanical separation of the lipids to isolate specific compounds, no heat treating to alter its physical state, nothing added to stablize or preserve it. Just cream that has been beaten within an inch of its life. Nothing special added to it, unless you want to add a dash of salt, just for taste. Want olive oil, squeeze some olives. Out comes the oil. Nothing really fancy about that either. Lard is just the fatty tissue of pork that has been cut off the meat when it is butchered, then put in a pot and melted. If you put about an inch of water in the bottom, all of the impurities will cook out into the water and you will have nice clean pretty lard for making pie crusts, frying chicken, or if you want, making soap. Fish oils are in the fish, so just eat it. They really aren't that good for anything else anyway.

But between butter, olive oil, and lard, what else do you really need?

Then we are told that the fat in red meat will clog up your arteries and kill you. Hmm, lets see, people have been eating red meat for hundreds of thousands of years without too much trouble. Red meat has proteins, minerals, and enzymes that you just can't find in other foods and if you don't eat it, you need to take mineral suppliments to replace them. Now, I don't know about you, but I had rather eat a nice juicy steak than take a handful of artifically produced pills to get the same nutrition. And they have to get those enzymes for the pills from somewhere, like the byproducts of meat production they cannot sell as food. If you can't eat it as food, why can you eat it as a pill? I don't get it.

In the last 30 years or so, diseases relating to the foods we consume has become epidemic. So why do we spend so much time and energy(and tax dollars) thinking up new ways to kill ourselves when we could just eat the same way our grandparents did. Fresh veggies from the garden, fresh eggs from the henhouse, beef, pork, chicken, duck, venison, fish, turkey, quail, goose, or whatever else could be hunted, and stay away from the breads and sweets all the time.

We would all be healthier for it.

My Dream Garden

I have talked about wanting to move into the middle of no where before, but now I am going to talk about what I want to do when I get there.

I want a garden. And I don't mean a couple of tomatoes and maybe some peppers. I want to raise all of the food I can so that we are not having to rely upon the stores to eat. I want onions, garlic, parsnips, carrots, potatoes, asparagus, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbages, lettuces, spinach, mustard greens, turnip greens, green beans, pinto beans, purple hull peas, black-eyed peas, green peas, crowder peas, wax beans, lima beans, corn, a couple of different kinds of tomatoes, bell peppers, chili peppers, jalapeños, cucumbers, cantaloupes, water melons, and honeydews. That is just the stuff that has to be replanted every year.

I also want blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and grapes. And for the tree crops, I want a couple of cherry trees, a couple of peach trees, 2 red and 2 yellow apple trees, maybe an apricot tree, a nut tree of some kind (either pecan or almond) and a plum tree.

Granted, I know that I am not asking for much here, but for the most part, this was how I grew up. We had just about all of this stuff, plus chickens, a couple of cows, and a few pigs, all on 5 acres.

I want to grow enough food to be able to put up enough for my family for a year. And if you stop to think about it, that really does take a lot of food. I will still have to buy some things like sugar, coffee, flour, spices , cereal and such, but it will drop our spending to almost nothing. And the best part about it is that I KNOW what is on the food and how it was grown.

I also intend to supplement our household income by selling the stuff that we have too much of.
You know, the garden stand or the "back of the truck sales". I know that I won't be able to sell everything that I pick, but we have enough friends that we can give them to if they don't sell.

And since I will have at least a few chickens hanging around, I might have organic eggs to sell too. We eat a lot of chicken so that will be handy. I might even spring for a milk cow. We do use a lot of butter and cream. But I am not sure I am up for that task. We will see.

When I was growing up, I couldn't wait to get off the farm. Now that I am older, I can't wait to get back. I have done the club scene, the orchestra concerts, the fancy restaurants, and all of that stuff. It just seems that I am happiest when I am sitting on the couch snapping beans for dinner.

Sad state of affairs

With the price of food steadily going up, it really makes me wonder if I am doing enough to protect my family. We will all be paying more for lower quality food and suffering for it in the long run.

I drove 20 miles to go to a farmer's market on Saturday and was disappointed in the offerings. Just about all there was to chose from was salad greens and garlic. I already have green beans and the green peas are done for the season. I did break down and plant a few pepper plants and some tomatoes but it will be a long while before those are ready to pick.

There just isn't anything available in the quantities I want. I am looking to buy by the bushel not by the piece and that just isn't happening around here. I am hopeful that in the next couple of weeks there will be more roadside stands and farmer's markets pop up. I really don't think that I can afford to rely on the grocery stores for our food by winter.

One on my friends and I will be buying a pig and splitting it this fall, but it is a long time until October. Hopefully, we can find someone who is growing enough different vegetables to sell and they will sell them at a decent price.

Garden Math

I guess to anyone who didn't grow up in the country, planting enough food for a year just seems a little off. But if you think about the amount of money you can save even with just one type of vegetable, it is astounding.

Lets do some math. Lets say your family eats green beans 3 times a week. That is 156 times a year that you would eat green beans. Now lets say that you pay 45 cents a can for generic green beans. That is a little over $70 dollars a year just in green beans. When you consider the all of the different canned vegetables your family eats over the course of the year, it can add up really fast.

Even buying vegetables fresh in the produce department of the grocery store is expensive. Fresh green beans at my local national chain are generally around $1.19 a pound. The very few times I have purchased them, it took almost a pound for my family of 4. $1.19, three times a week will cost you $185.64 a year, again for only one vegetable. And I have no idea what pesticides were used or what they have been treated with to help maintain freshness.

Another thing to think about with canned/tinned foods is the amount of processing it goes through. Salt is added to just about every type of canned vegetable on the market. And in large quantities. You will also find other preservatives, stabilizers, emulsifiers, added colors, added flavors, ad nauseum, all for the purpose of making their product more appealing so you will buy it more often.

I am not saying that everyone can or should try to grow all of their own food. That just isn't possible these days. Most of us do not have enough workable space to be able to grow a year's worth of food. The garden that my parents had when I was growing up was about 1/2 to 3/4 of an acre, bigger than the entire lot my house is sitting on now. That doesn't mean that I can't have a garden. It just means that I can only supplement our food supply instead of grow it all. Millions of people do this by growing tomatoes on the balcony of their apartments, or planting blueberries as shrubs around the house. Even miniature lemon and lime trees are becoming popular these days.

By processing and preserving your own home grown fruits and vegetables, you only spend the cost of the seeds or plants, you know exactly what pesticides and fertilizers have been used, you can control the amount of sodium in your food, and you would be amazed at the difference in taste. You will also get the joy of know exactly what you are eating.

Back to basics

When I think of all of the knowledge that has been lost in the last 100 years it makes me really sad. Technology has damaged us in almost every aspect of our lives, from the food we eat to the way we raise our children.

100 years ago, most people lived in the country, had a few acres and a house, maybe a few chickens, a garden, and if they were lucky, a cow or a couple of pigs. The lady of the house worked the garden, raised the kids, cooked, cleaned, sewed all of the clothing for the family, preserved the produce for the winter, washed clothes by hand then hung them up to dry, cleaned and swept the entire house, and if she had any time left in the day, would then do any handcraft that suited her like knitting, embroidery, crochet, carding wool or cotton, spinning, weaving, etc. Anything that might make a few coins in town or for personal use.

The man of the house would spend the majority of the day working the land or animals, felling trees to build a new barn, digging stumps out of a new field, repairing equipment, chopping wood for the wood stove or fireplace, and any other heavy work that needed to be done.

When night fell and it was too dark to work outside, the inside work would begin. Helping the children ( and there were many) with schoolwork, washing dishes, and reading from the Bible as a family. And an early bedtime for everyone because the day started at dawn.

Now that we don't have to worry about preserving enough food for the winter, fixing the leak in the roof, or making sure that no wolves get into the chicken house, we have more time to sit around and be bored. So we find things to keep us busy. Like watching TV. Or running to the mall.

Our kids are getting arrested because we as parents do not keep the kids busy enough to stay out of trouble. When we are not taking them to soccer practice, music lessons, tai kwon do, or putting them into pageants, we let them set in their rooms on the computer.

So, in a nutshell, we buy all of our food over processed and over salted (read as unhealthy), buy all of our meat from mass production farms where they are fed altered grains and processed feed from who knows where (read Mad Cow disease), have so little physical activity in our daily lives that we have to go to the gym to work our muscles (sedentary lifestyle with rapid bursts of activity that will only over activate the adrenal gland), kids who are not held accountable for their own actions (because they don't know what responsibility means), and a national epidemic of heart disease and other stress related disorders.

Doctors are telling us to eat healthier fresh foods, get more exercise, and do things to reduce stress in our lives.

It is amazing to me that our grandparents and great grand parents died of old age yet our children will have to worry about dying of cholesterol poisoning by the time they are 40. There is just something wrong with our way of thinking if we can actually make ourselves believe we are better off because of technology.