An Argument for Local Food, Part I
Written by Rocky Mountain Woman on January 20, 2012 – 7:07 am -
We still have the songbirds, thank God. Well, at least we still have songbirds where I live in the wilds of Utah. There are thousands of them, brightly colored and constantly singing, along with hummingbirds and even eagles and turkey vultures, circling the oak brush on the hill behind my house.
Rachel Carson warned that pesticides and herbicides were silencing songbirds in her seminal book Silent Spring, and while our springs still have the songs of birds filling the air, birds are in fact, in trouble. The US Forest Service on their website states that “Bird populations are significantly declining. Of the over 850 wild bird species in the United States, the US Fish and Wildlife Service lists 90 birds as endangered.” In fact, we are harming all of the various species that inhabit our planet because of our reverence for cheap, mass produced food, even those of us at the top of the food chain. According to Gary Paul Nabhan in his book Coming Home to Eat, “47 percent of an American’s carbon footprint is from growing, transporting, and preparing our food. What’s more, at least 40 percent of the earth’s productivity is funneled into feeding just one species, our species, undoubtedly at the expense of the myriad other creatures trying to feed themselves on this wayward ark careening through space”.
Experts disagree on the effects of pesticides and herbicides on our health, but it is only reasonable to believe that ingesting these poisons on a daily basis has to be harmful. These toxic chemicals have been linked to a large number of health problems including poisoning, nerve diseases, developmental issues in children, infertility, birth defects and cancer. Farm families and migrant workers exposed to larger amounts of these legal poisons are especially vulnerable.
to be continued…
Posted in She Loves | 8 Comments »
January 20th, 2012 at 12:13 pm
I agree. Ingesting or breathing in these toxic poisons has to be so bad for us. I’ve heard that many of the debilitating diseases we have today can be attributed to being exposed to these toxins. We have more and more food being imported here from China and I have a friend who’s a farmer here and he always says to me, ‘Don’t eat any produce from China because if you do you’ll glow in the dark’. I just try to feed my family as much organic produce as possible and thankfully, organic food is becoming increasingly more available. Love your comment on my latest post too by the way! Sounds like you have plenty of stories of your own!
January 20th, 2012 at 2:38 pm
What a great photo! We eat organic, but in the mountains of CO, most food is shipped from somewhere else.
January 21st, 2012 at 12:36 am
About 10 years ago the province sprayed against Gypsy Moth. For quite a few years afterwards we noticed the lack of birds and butterflies. No one spoke or wrote about it, but it was quite obvious. Little by little they returned. It had to have been the spraying.
January 21st, 2012 at 8:03 am
I try to eat organic, but it IS more expensive.
January 21st, 2012 at 2:06 pm
I don’t have a green thumb to save my life. But I’m rather lucky to be surrounded by farmers, whose produce I buy at pretty reasonable prices. I said ‘rather lucky’ because, unfortunately, only a few, grow them organically.
Btw, I love how you captured the light streaming down onto your property.
January 23rd, 2012 at 10:11 am
Silent Spring was a book that moved me profoundly. As stewards of the earth I don’t think we’re doing a very good job.
January 24th, 2012 at 1:40 pm
I think of the way I grew up on a farm, our big gardens and everything home raised. The way people eat sure has changed…I think of autism and how when I was a kid, you never heard of it, why is it so common now? Pure is best that is for sure.
January 29th, 2012 at 7:07 pm
We are what we eat….so true.