ORGANICS

Kids learning about gardens by gardening…

Kids learning about gardens by gardening…

I don’t think everyone has to grow their own vegetables organically in order to be healthier. I do think that everyone who eats should, and has a right to know what they’re eating. From my daily observations the vast majority simply doesn’t have a clue.

The food choices of otherwise well educated people who take an interest in their diets for health purposes too often rely on biased statistics, mis-information and lies distributed by media supported by industries that have products to sell. Complete truth and honesty are not comfortable things to deal with. More often than not we just accept what’s easy and immediate. If they tell us a double burger with cheese, onions, lettuce and ketchup gives us all the food groups, why argue with that? If they say that ketchup is an anti-carcinogen because of the licopenes in tomatoes, we accept it without wondering how much white sugar or stabilizing chemicals we’re consuming along with the licopenes.

We accept tasteless, nutritionally vacant vegetables as simply the way vegetables are. Most people are staggered to find that daily fresh, nutrient loaded organically grown vegetables actually taste so good that they think they’ve never had vegetables before.

They tell us that we get all the nutrients we need from our food based on an analysis of their nutritional content. What they don’t tell us is that by the time our vegetables land on our dining room table, they have lost as much as 75% of the vitamins and minerals they originally had.

I think that’s got something to do with the fact that over 50% of us are on some kind of medical drug or another. I think it’s a very big factor in America’s over-weight problem.

I think if we want to really do something for our children, we’ll get them off the high tech gadgetry for an hour or so every day. I think we would take them out in the yard, dig up some earth, plant a vegetable, and learn along with them something about what they’re going to be consuming every day for the rest of their lives.

That’s what I do think.

Lee O’Hara

www.organichomegardener.com

Road Kill and Industrial Products ~is what it looks like to me. It will look like that to you, too, once you’ve grown some of your own food without poisonous chemicals in the soil and on your vegetables.

I’ve been here in the southeast on business for a few days.  It was Sunday, and I went to one of the higher end coffee shops for Sunday brunch.  There were lots of fried meats and potatoes and such, which is pretty usual in a brunch buffet. I went light on that area, because I wanted some fresh vegetables. Now I’m an omnivore and I love food of all kinds. I’m not real snobbish about it either. What was in the vegetable portion of the brunch buffet sent me back for more eggs. My first thought when I looked at those “fresh vegetables”?

“Road Kill! This is the vegetable equivalent of road kill!”

I doubt if any vegetable in that buffet was any less than 10 days out of the field. There wasn’t one thing there that didn’t look like it had been grown in chemicals. And yes, I can pretty much tell what has been grown ethically, and what has been grown in chemicals just by seeing the color, texture and vibrancy. If there were any nutritional value in the entire vegetable section of that buffet, it would greatly surprise me.

I know it’s winter. I know it’s a big city and there are millions of people to feed every day. And I know that as bad as it is, it’s more, and fresher, than people had access to 100 years ago, especially during the middle of winter. But did they have to grow it in chemicals and spray it with chemical insecticides? Of course they did not. The growers have opted for the easy ways. Never mind that it might cost a little more to not poison the earth, the water systems, the ground water—and the food itself. It wouldn’t in fact, but they don’t take the time to learn.

The chemical farmers who are converting to organic methods are to be applauded, rewarded, and heartily thanked. We may not be able to get really fresh vegetables in the winter months in most of the country, but we don’t have to settle for chemically marinated vegetables.

I’m lucky enough to live where I can grow vegetables year round, but when I do buy anything I haven’t grown, I buy ‘Certified Organic.’ As more people support the return to the old ways of not destroying the environment in the quest for a quick buck through the use of chemicals, the lower the price of truly organic vegetables will be. If it’s done right, it’s cheaper to grow that way in the first place.

The better idea? Grow your own if you possibly can! The sooner you do that the happier and healthier you and yours will be. My dream is that sooner rather than later, most people will look at the vegetables they’ve been accepting and say to themselves, “Road Kill!”

Lee O’Hara

www.organichomegardener.com