Laurel Nest Yurts

Hal and I attended the Mills River Community meeting today. We live out in a beautiful mountainous town sandwiched between Asheville, Brevard, and Hendersonville. Many of the people have been here for generations, and hold a strong mountain spirituality and offered us some good southern hospitaity.
One of the local organic farmers made a presentation about organic food and the importance of eating organic. An older woman in the group asked him, why should we eat organic? Why is it so much more expensive then the other stuff at Ingles? It’s interesting, because I’m a bit of a “die hard” organic; I try to eat everything local and organic. We believe in gardening and CSAs… and I think our daughter Emilia is helathier for it, growing up primarily vegetarian.
So… why organic? There’s so many reasons, but one thing to think about, is that buying organic, and spending your money within your local economy is one way of voting everyday. Organic and sustainable food is a hot topic now, and what we eat is turning into a bold political statement.
Food is vital as we rethink our way of life. Many of the dilemmas we face—how to reconcile city and country, man and nature, prosperity and sustainability—can be addressed through food. Food is the common denominator: the one thing without which we can’t survive. Carolyn Steel, the author of “Hungry City” introduces a new word, “sitopia,” from the Greek terms sitos (“food”) and topos (“place”) to introduce a new model. What follows is some excerpts from an extremely inspiring radio talk she gave a few months ago. “We already live in a sitopia of sorts, since the cities, landscapes and ecosystems we inhabit have been profoundly shaped by food. The problem is, our blindness to food’s influence has created a bad sitopia; one so bad, in fact, that it threatens to destroy itself—and us—if we don’t change it. So we must create a good sitopia, one that restores balance to our lives, to society and to our relationship with the natural world.
How might that work? First, we need to understand that sitopia is not utopia. We’re not trying to create an ideal world, but a way of thinking that allows us to create many different places, connections and relationships, using food as our tool.
Much of the mess we’re in is due to lack of respect for food. To create a good sitopia, then, we must restore to food its true value. This isn’t just a question of how much we pay for food, although that matters, but of what we understand it to represent. Ask a starving man what food means to him, and he’ll give you a frank answer. Food remains the most important shared element in all our lives.
The moment we restore food’s proper value, we begin to see where it belongs—not at the periphery of society, but at its heart. For example, “cheap food”—the apparent triumph of modern agribusiness—is an oxymoron, an illusion created by externalizing food’s true costs. Once you factor in all the fossil fuel consumption, rainforest destruction, soil erosion, pollution, water depletion, carbon emissions, loss of biodiversity, rural depopulation, animal suffering and obesity that result from cheap food, it doesn’t look quite so cheap. In fact, we pay a very high price.
When such externalities are taken into account, the debate about how to feed the world shifts.

The pursuit of ever more “efficient” food systems is revealed as profoundly uneconomic. The false choices of industrial versus organic, high tech versus traditional, also disappear, replaced by an open debate about the farming practices and food systems that best match our aspirations for the future of the planet. Such thinking represents a reversal of the current trend, which treats food as a necessary yet somehow separate problem. In the ongoing food debate, the most vital question of all—What is a good life?—is rarely asked.
Of course, that question has no single answer; instead, it generates a spectrum of further questions. Being open to asking these questions, and realizing that there will be many different answers, is key to creating sitopia. Even if we can’t say for sure what a good life might be, we can describe some of its attributes. Most of us, for instance, would agree a good life is one in which people are generally happy, healthy, industrious, generous and loving; societies are tolerant, peaceable and sustainable; physical surroundings are diverse, bountiful and beautiful.
We know such a place can’t exist; that would be utopia. But that’s where sitopia comes in. Sitopia is contingent, partial, practical. It can be big or small, shared or personal. It can take many shapes and forms. It can be created by anybody, right here, right now. It can exist anywhere. Indeed, it already does.
To see sitopia in action, go to a place where food is highly valued—such as India. Food is everywhere in India.

The countryside is densely populated with more than half a million small farms. Close networks of villages trade with one another at busy food markets. In the cities, people cook and eat on the sidewalks; vendors sell snacks from carts and stands; and traders carry baskets of vegetables on their heads. Cows, goats and chickens wander freely, and even the temples are brimming with sweets, left as gifts for the gods.
Perhaps most impressive of all is the tiffin box culture of Mumbai. Thousands of Mumbai housewives cook hot lunches for their husbands. The lunches are packed into stacked metal containers (tiffin boxes) and collected by some 5,000 couriers, or dabbawalas, who use bicycles and trains to deliver up to 200,000 meals a day all over the city. The service is one of the most reliable in the world; a recent survey found that just one in every 6 million deliveries goes astray.

In India, food is powerfully embedded in the broader culture. But some aspects of Indian food are more difficult to swallow. Poor infrastructure means that food worth an estimated $10 billion is lost each year, while nearly half of young children are underweight.
Yet how much better are things in the U.S.? More Americans live on food stamps than do people anywhere else in the world, while 50 percent of all food—worth $136 billion—is thrown away each year. In India, meals remain at the heart of family life; 19 percent of American meals are eaten in cars. Agriculture employs half of the Indian population; in America, that figure is less than 1 percent. In India, one in 20 is obese; in America, one in three.
Such comparisons merely demonstrate the effects of two contrasting food cultures in two very different nations, one developed, the other developing. But that’s precisely the point. When you consider the social benefits and drawbacks of food systems worldwide, you’re forced to conclude that the former belong mostly to traditional food cultures and the latter chiefly to industrial ones. A country like India could certainly benefit from some modern technological and infrastructural improvements, but not at the expense of its traditional food culture. Food in India is still about sociability, connectivity, identity, seasonality, family, craftsmanship, love. The developed world could do with a dash of those ingredients, too.
High-tech industrial farming isn’t the only way to feed the world. Comparative studies of alternative approaches, such as organic or permaculture, tend to focus on short-term metrics, like crop yields. But the number of tons of grain produced per acre per year is much easier to measure than happiness, the feeling of the wind on your skin or the satisfaction of following in your grandfather’s and father’s footsteps. The tacit assumption that nobody in his or her right mind could possibly choose farming over a desk job is clearly false, too, as hundreds of highly educated farmers in America and Europe can testify.

So the essential task of sitopia is to put food first. The quickest and easiest way to become a sitopian is to change the way you eat. Perhaps you’re already a self-sufficient vegan who cooks everything from scratch and composts all your leftovers. In spite of your good intentions, such an approach would not necessarily create a society in which most of us would want to live. Growing your own food might bring a sense of personal achievement, but if we all did it, we’d have to abandon cities altogether, so we’d lose all our sociability. Coming together to exchange food and other goods was, after all, what created cities in the first place.
Understanding food’s influence, and using it positively and collectively to guide our actions, is the key to sitopia. This can take many forms, including cooking more for our kids, eating less industrially produced meat, buying from local markets, joining Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) projects, composting our food waste, refusing to buy unsustainably sourced fish or joining movements such as Slow Food and Transition Towns.
Whatever form you choose, remember that what you’re doing isn’t just about food. It’s about deciding, together, what sort of world we want to live in—and using food to get us closer to it.”

For the whole speech, http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/health-headlines/2011/2/17/carolyn-steel-a-new-food-manifesto.html

Karma yoga (Sanskrit: कर्म योग), or the “discipline of action” is a form of yoga based on the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Sanskrit scripture. Of the four paths to realization, karma yoga is the science of achieving perfection in action.  In a nutshell, Karma Yoga is the spiritual discipline of selfless action. 

The word karma is derived from the Sanskrit kri, meaning ‘to do’. In its most basic sense karma simply means action, and yoga translates to union. Thus karma yoga literally translates to the path of union through action. However, in Vedantic philosophy the word karma means both action and the effects of such action. Karma yoga is described as a way of acting, thinking and willing by which one orients oneself toward realization by acting in accordance with one’s duty (dharma) without consideration of personal self-centered desires, likes or dislikes. One acts without being attached to the fruits of one’s deeds.  A major facet of karma is the work one does, and the attitude with which he goes about his duty. To work for selfish reasons, such as to be able to afford luxuries such as convertible cars and swimming pools, is bad karma, especially when one craves these possessions to gain stature in society. Actions such as materialism restrain one from furthering their place in life and from attaining an honest satisfaction with spiritual growth. There is not a single way to practice good karma. If, for example, one acts with selfless and true compassion toward another, good is bound to come of his action.

A few weeks ago, I drove to town for a yoga class.  Our budget was really tight, and I felt like the $15 class was such a splurge! When I got to class, Sierra reminded me that her classes are always $5 if we’re struggling, and $15 when we can.  “It’s Karma Yoga!”  What a gift…

A few weeks later, I took my daughter out to my favorite cafe in town, Kathmandu Cafe, and we had the most lovely Himalayan buffet lunch.  I filled out the check, and then remembered Sierra’s words about Karma Yoga and bumped the tip up several dollars.  I felt lighter in my heart, and had an incredibly beautiful day.  That afternoon, on an impulse, we got to make a belly cast of a girlfriend’s pregnant belly.  Three days later, I watched her son June born into this world.

I can’t tell you the abundance of generosity I’ve been surrounded by since that small act at the Kathmandu Cafe.  We received muffins at a discount the next day, gifts from strangers on the street, and today a dream of mine is continuing to manifest.  The world is full of abundance, and if we open ourselves to it, and share the abundance in our life, we continue the cycle.

During these times, we are surrounded by opportunities to help, and growing amounts of tragedies each day that need prayer, action, and service.  In each moment is an opportunity to take action, this is the gift of the present…

I usually try to stay a little shy from politics with this blog, as I know that we get slammed with disheartening news so often.  However, I do feel that part of my mission with this blog is to educate and inspire people, and now I’m calling some of you to action.

One of the most important freedoms that we have is choosing what we put in our bodies.  That said, I feel it is very important to protect equal access to healthy, organic foods and natural herbs and remedies.  Over the last year or so, a battle has been waging over HR875/S425 that has turned into the current legislation in process, S510.  This issue is of grave importance to me and I hope it will be to you.

Of all the many facets of sustainable food, food safety is probably on the top of the list. After all, what good is it, if it’s not safe to eat? Out of the perils of systematic pesticide and herbicide use, sloppy factory conditions and general negligence in the factory food sector, we find ourselves in a situation where a number of elected officials are looking to make food safety a priority in the United States.

At its core, I respect the desire to make the food supply safer, but as Senate Bill S510 has taken a number of liberties against food independence, I wonder who’s backing the bill and why? Certainly, it’s not solely about food safety.

Senate Bill S510 is summarized to “A bill to amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act with respect to the safety of the food supply” except it has a number of dangerously fascist ideas nestled within its outlined text. A small farmer becomes equated to an industrial farm, and the profit-driven industrial farm’s mistakes are passed on to our fellow CSA.

If this bill goes through, all our small farms will have to pay various fees that could possibly put them out of business and make it impossible for us to continue getting locally grown organic food.  This makes no sense because the people who brought us food that was recalled were large-scale industrial foodies; our small farms have had little to no recall.  So who are we trying to protect?

Let’s look at who supports the bill. According to maplight.org, huge corporations like General Mills, Kraft Foods North America, National Association of Manufacturers and 25 more organizations support this bill. In opposition: American Grassfed Association, Family Farm Defenders, Small Farms Conservancy 93 others in an open letter to address the Senate Bill S510.

The letter is to the point: the regulations that the government would like to enforce don’t actually apply to small operations, specifically organic farms. The disease-laden corporate industry is infected within the large-scale operations where pushing product over quality is more important and safety can sometimes be overlooked. The Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) publishes an extremely up-to-date recall list proving this point effectively.

Over the last three years of my purchasing local, responsibly-raised food, I have never once encountered a recall of any sort.

On Govtrack.us, where you can read the bill in its entirety, an anonymous answer to the question of redundancy within the Food Science Experts that work for the FDA was quite clear in its support of knowing the land from which food grows:

“Although one may try to argue that one incident is too many, it appears that the majority of the incidents actually occur in large producers who are “in it” for the money. To strangle the small farmer with regulations and taxations harms not just the industry, but the future of the next generation of farmers who would gain their skills of growing healthful food from this generation.”

That’s not to say family farms go without issue, but the small farms are able to catch issues quicker, track their product faster, contact their customer base personally and are held to a local reputation that means far more than any corporate marketing could ever buy.

As I write this blog, I’ll admit that I’m feeling a chill and a rising sense of urgency.  Let me just add one more comment: who brought us MSG (monosodium glutamate as an additive), high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), aspartame, genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), Avandia (prescribed for type 2 diabetes) and Vioxx (arthritis pain medication)?  The FDA permitted all these toxic substances and allowed them to become a mainstream part of our diet.  FDA also permitted the sale of antibiotics for nontherapeutic purposes in animals in CAFOs, a practice that has resulted in antibiotic resistance and the creation of difficult-to-treat infections like MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus). Properly-prescribed, FDA-approved pharmaceutical drugs are responsible for over 100,000 deaths each year in this country [*Starfield, Barbara--p. 484]. FDA’s true clients are not the American people but rather the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

S510 is not about protecting public health but rather about increasing federal control over food and transferring market share from the local food system to the industrial food system. The bill grants broad rulemaking power to FDA, a grant not merited by the agency’s track record. Its passage will cripple local food over time. (Kennedy, Pete)  That said, I would like to ask that we come together to protect our food and drug sources.  I personally prefer organics from my local farms and natural supplements, and would like to have easy access to them. Urge your senator to oppose this bill as it is written; it can severely impede the right of food independence. It is our own responsibility to ensure the food we eat is raised ethically with cleanliness and the utmost focus on food safety in the United States.  Below are some links you can use to take action:

Please take action and forward this information to your circle of influence in the same way.

Thank you Pete Kennedy for the wealth of information you made available, and to the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund.

To locate the contact information for U.S. Senators, go to www.senate.gov

Talking points to discuss with your senators (compiled by Pete Kenedy, Esq.) http://www.ftcldf.org/111_Cong-S510-Talking-Points.htm

Petition to vote NO! to s510 http://www.ftcldf.org/petitions/pnum1061.php

Sources for this article:

http://www.hickorynutgapfarm.com

http://www.gladheartfarms.com

Kennedy, Pete Esq http://mrscottyl.blogspot.com/2010/10/s510-revised-fda-coming-to-farm-near.html

* Starfield, Barbara.  ”Is US Health Really the Best in the World?” Journal of the American Medical Association.  JAMA, Volume 284, No. 4; July 26, 2000.  Accessed online 22 September 2010 by link at http://www.drug-education.info/articles/Starfield.htm for http://www.drug-education.info/documents/iatrogenic.pdf

http://www.justmeans.com/Senate-Bill-S510-Food-Safety-or-Food-Fascism/27723.html

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?p=5133

http://thegormleyfiles.blogspot.com/2009/10/senate-bill-510-825-billion-dollar.html

http://www.real-sonic-bloom.com/real_food_is_freedom/government_corporations%20threaten_farmers_markets.htm