The Great Debate

[Suechef]

Re: The Great Debate

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan is an excellent book which has a long section on Polyface Farm (I imagine there's lots of info on Polyface if you google it). They don't use ANY pesticides or herbicides. If you farm intelligently you don't need to use that stuff.

Another point - we used to spend a much higher percentage of our income on food than we do now, and in most countries that's still the case. But in North America we expect (and demand) cheap food (and frankenfoods, which contain crazy amounts of corn derivatives, are cheap because the corn industry is so heavily subsidised). I guess that way we have lots of extra to buy a lot of junk we don't need! My husband & I live for more than half the year either in the Canadian north, where we don't even have electricity (just where we are - the north does have it!!), or in Costa Rica in a 10 x 15 foot "house", and in both places everything we have fits into a few duffel bags (apart from furniture of course). My point is that you don't need much stuff to live a satisfying life, and if you're not buying stuff you have more money to buy good food!

Oh dear, that was a bit of a rant, sorry if I came off a bit ... ranty.
Sue

[sadie147]

Re: The Great Debate

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan is an excellent book which has a long section on Polyface Farm (I imagine there's lots of info on Polyface if you google it). They don't use ANY pesticides or herbicides. If you farm intelligently you don't need to use that stuff.

Another point - we used to spend a much higher percentage of our income on food than we do now, and in most countries that's still the case. But in North America we expect (and demand) cheap food (and frankenfoods, which contain crazy amounts of corn derivatives, are cheap because the corn industry is so heavily subsidised). I guess that way we have lots of extra to buy a lot of junk we don't need! My husband & I live for more than half the year either in the Canadian north, where we don't even have electricity (just where we are - the north does have it!!), or in Costa Rica in a 10 x 15 foot "house", and in both places everything we have fits into a few duffel bags (apart from furniture of course). My point is that you don't need much stuff to live a satisfying life, and if you're not buying stuff you have more money to buy good food!

Oh dear, that was a bit of a rant, sorry if I came off a bit ... ranty.
Sue

I have heard that argument alot lately, that people are now spending far too much $$ on 'stuff' useless stuff really...we just can't seem to get enough (i'm very guilty of this, i'm a shopoholic), I think that runs along the same lines as what you are saying, if we spent less money on material things and useless stuff..we could spend the $$ on healthier food alternatives which is far more important.

I can't believe you live without hydro part of the year! We had to live for 5 days without it after a tornado at our cottage and i went crazy LOL! THough we weren't really prepared for it..i'm sure I would have been able to handle it a bit better if i'd had batteries for radios, and good flashlights.

though we now own 2 generators...which means of course, Murphy's law dictates we'll never have a lengthly power outage again

sorry that's a bit o/t i guess.

[Suechef]

Re: The Great Debate

Correct on the generators!

We do have propane power, for fridges & stoves, and a few lights in the lodge where the dining rooms is(though not in the cabins) and small generators that we can charge some things on. We get one radio station, no TV (yay!),

I am the opposite of a shopaholic. I have some nice stuff - Dad moved to Jamaica so I inherited early (the stuff he didn't take), but as the years go by I find myself giving away more & more, and the only stuff we bring into the house is pretty much office supplies & food. We do spend on travelling to Costa Rica but when we're there there's nothing to buy in our village.

My SIL is a total shopaholic and when we go to her house neither of us can get over how much stuff she has. She has more stuff for husband & 2 teens than, I would guess conservatively, 10 families in the village in CR. We have some good friends there, a young couple with a 4 year old, who own: clothes, kitchen stuff (enough for four people) 1 elderly tv, 1 boombox that doesn't work well, 1 stove, standing kitchen cupboard, a very few toys, about 3 photographs, three or four books, a plastic table, three chairs, and a washing machine. They're not miserable.

cheers,
Sue

[Success101]

Re: The Great Debate

The idea of eating organic is great but unrealistic for those of us on tight budgets. In the area where I live the prices are prohibitive.

I have it on good authority that if you take a regular grocery store bought apple and scrub it well with a strong vegetable brush, that will suffice in making it safely edible. So that's what I do.

One also has to be careful because of false labeling of products that claim to be organic but are truly not due to one factor or another. I watched a television news topic on this. Being an informed consumer is always best.

[quotidianlight]

Re: The Great Debate

One of the things that drive up the cost of organic is that it is being produced and shipped on large scale out of the area farms. Buying local saves a lot of cost and reduces a lot of the "hidden non-organic" I almost never by veggies in Safeway anymore. It just costs to much and even then I would guess I spend a 25% of my paycheck on food. It's just a decision I decided to make and I had to let a lot of other stuff go to make that choice. It's rediculous on western food should be cheap standards but in many countries it is expected that you should spend more for food. Either way it does hurt the pocket book but I feel so much better and my daughter was developing so fast that switching was worth it for me.

[Chicklady]

Re: The Great Debate

Admittedly, eating organic is a calorie reducing diet just due to it's cost. We make a point of buying the "dirty dozen" all organically, plus 90% of our meat is pasture raised (we do buy sausages in the store). Not surprisingly, grass fed beef and pastured poultry and pork have not had the price increas that grain fed beef has, so these days, our grass fed addiciton looks much more reasonable!!!

[Mirya]

Re: The Great Debate

I am totally going to make my entire front yard a garden this year so that I can can and freeze my own. I am hoping for radishes, tomatoes, green peppers, spinach, and some other little lovlies. I also can't forget about my girls so I am gonna have to devote a section of my garden to their kitty stuff. Homegrown cantnip. Let me tell you homegrown catnip is liek an amusement park for my girls lol.

I forgot about doing all the canning, blanching and freezing at the farm too. Now I just need to get a deep freezer. My little dorm fridge just won't cut it. Its really easy to can your own foods so long as you make sure the pressure cooker lid is tightened down correctly lol. I wouldn't want a repeat of the top popping off and going through the ceiling like my first time canning. That was an experience.

My bf (his house) just laughed it off and said don't worry about then the whole 3 days he spent fixing the ceiling all he did was gripe and groan about how if I did that again I would be repairing it myself and everytime he would laugh right after.