The last 50 years or so have seen extreme change in the farming industry. Prior to this time, most farms in the U.S. were small and managed by the families who lived on them. These agrarian families tended their own gardens and lived off the land. They grew potatoes, corn and other assorted vegetables and grains. Typically, they had a flock of chickens, some dairy cows, some hogs, a horse or two, and perhaps some apple, pear, or plum trees, and some blueberry or raspberry bushes. What they did not consume themselves they sent to local markets for sale. These farmers ate fish occasionally and other wild foods that they fished, picked or hunted, like trout, berries, wild turkeys or deer. They took shavings, peelings, leftovers, and other natural organic garbage and used it as compost plowing it back into the soil as fertilize' They collected their cow, horse, chicken, and pig manure and plowed it back into the soil as well. Through this ecological process, the soil was constantly being recycled so that all of the nutrients originally found in the soil remained there. Crops were also rotated for this expressed purpose owing to the fact that some crops deplete certain elements of soil more so than others while still others help to synergistically recharge certain elements found in soil.
in this way, the soil was kept in a state of nutrient balance and yielded healthy crops from within its own natural ecosystem with few outside influences. During winter, the soil rested and all of the microorganisms, worms, and bugs in soil would continue to break nutrients down into forms usable by plants. This winter "rest and recycling" period made more nutrients available for next years crop. The lowland fields near streams and rivers were naturally flooded during winter's thaw and rainy seasons and experienced large scale flooding every one to three years, which served to bring in new layers of silt. These layers of silt leached from the surrounding mountains and highlands brought in even more minerals and nutrients to the farming soils.
This was a period in farming history when chickens were free to roam around, eating whatever bugs and seeds appealed to them; the typically "small udder" dairy cows were likewise free to roam the fields and sample whatever elements of nature they chose. Collectively, this natural feeding process resulted in food that looked, felt, smelled, and tasted much different than our mass-produced foods of today. Eggshells and egg yolks defied breaking and milk was thick and tangy—versus today's brittle eggshells, pale yolks, and watery milk (from hybridized "big udder" cows). This was a time when vegetables had deep, tangy flavors and whole-grain breads were dark and heavy. to satisfy our appetites versus the waxy tasteless vegetables and crumbiy, air-filled breads we currently find in the supermarket.
it is obvious to anyone who is old enough to remember the farms of yesteryeai, or who was fortunate enough to be able to tend his or her own private gardens through the years, that typical food was totally different fifty years ago.
The changes to our modern farming system began with the emergence of gigantic, high-profit farms which progressively replaced the status quo of small farms in America. These large farms were measured in square miles instead of acres, as their small farm predecessors had been. This shift into large farming operations was widespread throughout the U.S. and Canada. The new gigantic farms were extremely productive turning out huge surpluses of grains, dairy products, vegetables, and livestock on a magnitude never seen before' This potent agricultural force became the backbone of U.S. supremacy in the world as a superpower. In a land of such great abundance, we go so far as to pay our farmers not to produce product (subsidies), and either give away or practically give away food for the political manipulation of other countries in the world—charity?
In this mass-production world of super-productive farming, the soils are pushed well beyond their limits of natural balance. Many of these same soils—where previously one crop per year was grown—are now subjected to two, three, or even more crops per year, with no rest in between. This holds true especially for the warmer climates in the U.S., where there is an eternal, year-round harvest.
The typical large-scale modern farm uses powerful insecticides to kill bugs and deadly herbicides to destroy unwanted plants. These poisons are dropped from the air by planes, from the undersides of tractors, and in some cases by hand, in order to contain agricultural pests. Unfortunateiy, these poisons also tend to destroy beneficial bugs, worms, and micro-organisms needed in the soil to keep it nutrient-rich.
Rivers that used to follow their natural courses are now dyked and dammed to prevent flooding. The minerals they used to carry in from the surrounding highlands and distant mountains to deposit as silt over agricultural topsoils are now whisked directly out to sea and lost forever.
The growing soils of today are pushed to the limit, "toxed up" with deadly poisons, and typically miss out on the majority of nutrient-recycling phenomena common just fifty years ago. Our modern soils are no longer replenished within the fundamental ecology of nature. Instead, man has brought in billions of tons of artificial chemical fertilizers to help enrich the soil for productivity purposes, not ecological purposes. By this, I mean that these specific fertilizers are put into the soil only to keep crop yields up and not to restore the natural ecological balance of the soil and what grows on it and feeds on it. Crops produced nowadays can look good (even without artificial colors, which are often used to optimize food's appearance). Corn still looks like corn, and may even grow to be twelve feet tall; strawberries and melons look good; lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, and potatoes all look colorful, and full and well shaped. But looks aren 't everything, and when you get down to the finer science of what's in that food—something major is missing.
Plants build themselves out of about seventy to eighty different elements provided that they are available in the soil as the plants grow. Commercial growing fields are continuously overused and the chemical fertilizers added to maintain productivity inadequately replace nutrients that the plants have been extracting from the soil. Typicaily, the most common synthetic fertilizers are composed of only three to five different elements such as nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, and calcium. These few elements are used because they are the only ones that are needed to make the plants grow big and appear healthy.
unfortunateiy, these elements are not all a plant should have. Plants by nature want about seventy or so different elements as sustenance for life if available. But these natural elements just aren't in the soil anymore. All that is left in the soil in dense amounts are potassium, phosphorus, nitrogen, and calcium. The other necessary plant nutrients are found few and far between if at all in "modern soils." This nutrient-deficient soil crisis has affected our food in many ways, but in particular has undermined the nutrient qualities of food drasticaily.
According to the Firman E. Bear Report, published by Rutgers university, variations in the mineral content in foods vary by hundreds to even thousands of percent in some cases. Please see the Appendix: I ("Variations of Mineral Content in Vegetables") for more details.
On his audio tape, "Who Stole America's Health?" Dr. Erwin L. Gemmer comments that, at the turn of the century, "wheat was 40% protein . . . now it's 9%. If two slices of bread were to give you a certain amount of food value in 1900, now you may have to eat ten slices to get the same nutrition." Also according to Dr. Gemmer, "In 1948, spinach had 150 mg of iron per 100 grams . . . . In 1965, spinach had 27 mg of iron per 100 grams . . . . In 1973, spinach had 2.2 mg of iron per 100 grams . . . ."
Another expert weighs in on this issue: Dr. Joel Wallach, D.V.M ' , N.D., 1991 Nobel Prize Nominee in Medicine, echoes these serious concerns about the state of soil depletion in his tape, "Dead Doctors Don 't Lie." The lack of nutrients in the soil is undermining the mineral content of our growing soils, which in turn is compromising the mineral density of our foods. Dr. Wallach grew up on a farm and worked with plants and livestock for many years. Further commenting on this crisis, Senate Documents 264 and 268 demonstrate over 90% average mineral depletion from farming soils.
From my personal experience—having had access to my grandparent's vegetable garden covering about half an acre—I was always delightfully spoiled by the rich flavors, crisp freshness, and complete appetite satisfaction I experienced with our home-grown foods, as compared to the supermarket produce that didn't look, taste, smell, or satisfy my appetite as well.
So far, in my professional research, I haven't been able to isolate the source of Dr. Gemmer's wheat and spinach statistics, but I have seen many similar statistics in relation to other foods, as assayed by consumer groups, government agencies, and from other professional publications, including research work done by Dr. Michael Colgan, Ph.D. These statistics demonstrate a wide array of varying nutrient densities in foods, usually far below the values you'd expect. Imagine oranges with only a trace of vitamin C left, and other produce completely devoid of selenium and other vital minerals we count on for our good health.
That isn't all, unfortunately: we have a new host of toxic residues in food from pesticides, herbicides, and other mass production, storage, and refinement aftereffects. Meats are full of fat, antibiotics, and steroids; milk is pasteurized and homogenized to compensate for dirty cows; and our meats are deficient in nutrients not apparent in livestock feeds or supplements. (Yes, even farm animals need many of the supplements humans do, because their foods are not up to par, either.) Scientists have developed new genetic food hybrids (plants and animals) aimed at increasing the quantity of yields but not necessarily the quality of nutrient density. it all tastes different and affects us differently than food grown in the "good old days."
This disturbing "hit or miss" phenomenon, where we come into contact with varying nutrient and toxin density in our foods, is only one more reason why we all need to be properly "typed." We should not leave our foundation of good health to chance.
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