BUT–there’s a bit of encouraging news re the garden club project!

Our group stopped meeting over the winter–people are too busy, and too tired.

Since it’s almost time to start up meetings again, I contacted our members about the next scheduled meeting.

One member excitedly told me she is planning to start a “garden-sharing” program for apartment dwellers who have no ground available for gardening. Her proposed program got a write-up in our local newspaper and begins meetings next week.

She asked me if I’d be willing to share my garden. Of course, the answer was “yes”–and I’ll be attending her first meeting.

“Garden sharing” is also an opportunity for experienced gardeners to share their knowledge, as well as their garden space.

This is an example of the way exciting possibilities can spin off from starting a simple organic gardening club. This is actually what I hoped would happen. I’m kind of a slack-twisted type, and I hoped others would kind of take the ball and run with it–starting offshoot specialty groups of their own for promoting alternative energy, wild foods, farmers markets, winemaking, cheese-making, community service projects, and things like the culture of orchards and vinyards.

One thing that’s surprised me is, the garden club core membership, though very small, is largely made up of the community’s go-getters–types whose resumes (if they had one) would reflect a long history of organizing and working on community service projects, and volunteering. They know people. They can get both your project and theirs written up in the newspaper, and they are probably well able to round up support, in the form of volunteer workers.

What this shows, I think, is that even someone like myself–without community connections, free time, organizing skills, or money–can plant a seed.

P.S.: One new member is planning to start a local farmers market. Much needed–but a major project.

So the folks buying organic will be mostly urbanites–and probably rather affluent urbanites, at that. The nearest health food store to me carries predominantly packaged “convenience food”-type health foods.

It’s also my understanding that organic certification has been “gamed” quite a bit. I understand that this means no pesticides or herbicides, but that fertilization of crops need not be along the lines of what is traditionally defined as “organic.” What this means is that the micronutrients you were perhaps expecting from “certified organic” are probably absent.

Probably the only way to get proper nutrition is to either grow your own or buy from trusted local sources.

It’s also my understanding that the micronutrients that are not provided by chemical fertilization and depleted soils are absolutely critical to good health. It’s my belief that most Americans suffer from pretty severe micronutrient starvation, which is much of the reason for the weird mental and physical pathologies you see.

It’s rather disturbing that we seem to be headed into times that will make great demands on our physical and mental powers–with a seriously debilitated population.

Easily the biggest surprise on my tour is how few of the people I stay with are buying organic food. Mostly they eat a combination of the cheapest stuff they can buy, and what they grow themselves or get through the underground economy. So I’m wondering, if my readers aren’t buying organic, who the hell is? Probably people with a lot of extra money, some of whom are motivated more by cultural fashion than health. And as the economic collapse continues, those people are likely to shift toward cheap processed foods to continue to afford fuel and housing.

It’s important to remember that processed foods shouldn’t be cheaper — they should be more expensive, because processing costs more than not processing. A can of soda has vastly more embodied energy than an apple. Rich people used to eat fluffy white bread while poor people ate whole grain sourdough. But unhealthful food is allied to monolithic centrally controlled food producers, who have the political power to influence government to give them giant subsidies. Obama’s appointment of Tom Vilsack shows the continuing power of big agribusiness.

Gardeners tend to be “do-gooders.” One of the earliest items of business at our new garden club was, “How can we serve the community?” One of the earliest suggestions was a cookbook.

I like the cookbook idea–especially if free copies could be made available at the community center, which is where people come to pick up their commodities.

Offhand, without looking into alternate methods of producing such a book, it seems to me that production costs would be pretty high. Organizations used to do cookbooks as fundraisers, but I don’t know how they ever came out on it.

Maybe members of some organizations would like to take copies of favorite cheap recipes to the community center? Got a recipe for peanut-butter soup? Make ten copies and put them on the bulletin board.

Most poor people are uncomfortable in church kitchens–or in churches.

One approach would be to put on a cheap food “feed” down at the nearest trailer park–or any neighborhood. Kind of a block party with an emphasis on getting out recipes for cheap, easy, and healthful food. Lots of possibilities here, but quite an organizational challenge.

You could also put on a block party just for getting gardens going. (This would be a very ambitious undertaking, but a garden club will also attract consummate organizers.) Have people volunteer to haul in a truckloads of manure, cardboard, newpapers, and bags of leaves and grass clippings. Fall would be best for this. Have residents help each other plunk down a bunch of “lasagne beds” that could decompose over winter. Helping with the work would earn you the right to 50 square feet of garden space at your own residence.

This type of project should also involve a “feed.” Residents could provide covered dishes for everyone to share.

Any existing organization could do this with very little cost.

I live in a very working-class neighborhood, and even if you entirely put aside how people eat, there’s still the issue of how so very many people here absolutely saturate themselves with both cigarette-smoking and alcohol-consumption. Either of those are bad enough, but together? There are more young men in their 30’s around here who look like they are in their 50’s than you can shake a stick at! And the only reason they do this, of course, is that they are trying to medicate away the existential pain of a life of existential ignorance and doing slave-labor for peanuts in a very socially-atomized society.

@sharon:

A cookbook that taught people how to eat the better way you describe would certainly be a good and useful thing, especially the part about giving people ideas for sustenance which is easy to prepare. The reason so many working people pollute themselves with convenience food is that their lives are so full of work, work, work, working their asses off for peanuts that they feel they lack the time, energy, and consequently the motivation for real-food cooking.

I’ve been asked to review an upcoming book:

http://anationoffarmers.com/

They seem to have encapsulated what many of us on here know and practice already, at least on an individual level. Maybe it will be useful to your group.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to checking it out.

People like this have multiple health problems–diabetes, hernias, back problems, mental and emotional problems, etc.–and they have these problems at an early age. Their kids have these and other health problems.

The answer, to me, is obvious: Just don’t eat ANY packaged or processed foods. No frozen dinners, pizzas, or meat pies, no hamburger helper or boxed macaroni and cheese, no convenience foods of any kind.

You can enjoy a far better diet far more cheaply simply by cooking from scratch. You can enjoy a pretty darn good diet if you largely forego the meat and cook from scratch with whole grains and legumes. It’s so much cheaper to cook with staple whole grain foods bought in bulk that you can probably afford to go organic for most items. You can even afford to consume a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables and use a lot of olive oil.

Since I’m a poor person myself, I speak from experience.

Taking this a step further, if you plant a large vegetable garden and can your produce, you can eat real, organic produce, packed with the micronutrients you won’t get even from purchased organic products–and you can do it cheaply.

Poor people are eating foods that are full of harmful substances and lacking in nutrients for two main reasons: They’ve been taught to choose badly, and they lack access to even a small plot of land to grow their own food.

How to counteract this? Probably with grassroots community organization. Members of the garden club in my area have expressed an interest in branching out into community service, such as providing home-canning demonstrations in local churches (which all have kitchens), and helping younger people learn to cook.

We have a whole generation (or two) of young people who don’t know what kale, leeks, and rutabagas ARE, let alone how to cook with them.

It’s as fast and convenient to cook many healtful foods from scratch as it is to prepare “conveniece foods.” A few examples would be soups, couscous, fried rice, stir-frys, and bruschetta.

There is simply no reason to eat nutrient-depleted processed foods for conveniece.

Given a bit of ground, there’s no reason not to grow your own. One of my pet projects is to establish a community seed bank and encourage people to donate their surplus “volunteer” seedlings (such as strawberries, raspberries, and reseeding herbs) to the community center. I’d also like to see more people donate surplus garden produce.

This is only going to happen through grassroots organization, and from community members setting an example.

By the way, even the higher priced processed foods at the grocery store are pure crap. I recently bought a package of a premium brand of cookies (I got the craves). After years of eating homemade cookies, I was appalled at the chamical flavor and weird texture of even the premium store-bought. The same is true of most other convenience items I’ve purchased in moments of weakness. They are HORRIBLE! Once you get used to real food, there’s no going back. You just have to get people there.

Maybe pole shift will involve the south being wealthier than the north, and by wealthier, I mean livable.

here is a question:

is food a hassle (like having to periodically fill up the car with petrol) or one of life’s great pleasures?

And recent studies indicate that prolonged sugar abuse can do permanent damage on the cellular level.