Due to the current economic crisis, people are going back to gardening in droves these days. Elizabeth Hart at Reality Sandwich recently posted Grow Your Own, quoting Thomas Jefferson as saying, “Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens…They are the [...]]]> This is the second of three articles.

Due to the current economic crisis, people are going back to gardening in droves these days. Elizabeth Hart at Reality Sandwich recently posted Grow Your Own, quoting Thomas Jefferson as saying, “Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens…They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands.” She brings to our attention The Greenhorns, a new documentary about our next generation of young people who are returning to the land and a simpler life.

Our recent financial collapse has often been compared to the Great Depression, with one very important difference: many of our grandparents survived because they knew how to grow food; in today’s world, not only are there many more millions of people, but most wouldn’t know the first thing about farming. Here is a link to a list of some non-GMO seed stores. You don’t need much to get started – a few pots or a rooftop can create a viable garden even for urban dwellers.

Ironically, it’s becoming more and more difficult for smaller, local and organic farmers to survive, even as demand has skyrocketed. Originally published as an editorial in the New York Times last year, My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables) by local farmer Jack Hedin tells quite a story. Here’s another article recently from OpEd News: Organic farming booby trapped. The author encapsulates the issue and provides several links below, which lead to various articles on the dismantling of sustainable farming and USDA attacks on non-corporate farmers. In a nutshell, many claim that the government has been working to get rid of organic farming altogether by various means, including forcing farmers to use Monsanto seeds and even raiding small farms and co-ops.

Another similar issue is the increasing vigilance of the USDA, the FDA and other organizations around the world to legislate away our access to natural remedies. I wrote a long while back about Laetrile and the controversy surrounding “Vitamin B17” and its anti-cancerous properties. Some theorize that cancer is a actually a deficiency disease much like scurvy or pellagra, which could be easily cured with “B17”. The substance is found occurring naturally in various foods, including apple seeds and the kernels found inside apricot pits. According to some doctors, it’s of beneficial use, but it’s not legal to prescribe Laetrile for cancer treatment in the U.S. You have to go to Mexico or some other country to find a doctor who will prescribe it.

Also at Reality Sandwich, Laura Jane posted Endocrine Disruptors, Big Pharma, and BHRT, which explains that bioidentical hormones, naturally occurring substances that can make all the difference in the world for some people with deficiencies, could soon be banned. You can’t patent a naturally occurring substance, don’t you know.

It seems as if the FDA is working hard to protect the pharmaceutical companies, rather than ensuring that the populace as access to healthy options. It is currently illegal in the U.S. to claim that any natural substance can cure cancer. Cancer is big business these days for drug manufacturers. Many herbal remedies and even vitamins may soon be more difficult to access, and even become illegal, as may happen also in Canada. Just recently, Natural News reported on the news that the FDA Declares Form of Vitamin B6 a Drug, Effectively Banning Pyridoxamine from Dietary Supplements, and explained, “Now, any nutritional supplements containing pyridoxamine will be considered adulterated and illegal by the FDA, which may raid vitamin companies and seize such products. See the history of FDA raids on vitamin companies here.” This is regardless of the fact that pyridoxamine occurs naturally in various foods.

This will all likely soon become a matter of international law, along with our financial structures and trade agreements. From the Atlantic Free Press: “The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC), based in Rome, Italy, is an international organization jointly created in 1962 by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) of the United Nations “allegedly” to protect the health of consumers with guidelines for food standards…Codex treats food as toxins.” They are controversially involved in the re-categorizing of herbs and dietary supplements as drugs, making them controlled substances.

Interesting that is so, when man-made chemicals with many known dangerous health effects are allowed to remain in our foods, including aspartame, high fructose corn syrup, MSG/autolyzed yeast, and other food additives and preservatives. I found an abstract for an intriguing scientific paper published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health entitled Persistent toxic chemicals in the US Food Supply. Toxic chemicals can be found in your laundry detergent, skin care products, and meat. The list is long, and it’s becoming difficult to afford organic/non-GMO food for many people. Tricky. How to Afford Eating Organic suggests it could be done, if we cut corners elsewhere and make it a priority.

It’s almost too much to comprehend. Before you know it, you’ll have to buy a license to grow that basil out on your porch. It is such a vital step for our civilization to return to local sustainability in terms of food and energy production. I am not suggesting to give up our global communications or other technologies. Personally I think if we did it right, we could have both. But so far, the government is still protecting large corporate interests over the common man. The revolution should come in the form of local sustainability, not rioting in the streets, which is already in the news around the world, along with a growing number of tent cities in the U.S.

Working together as neighbors, we might be able to avoid a total system collapse and the inevitable martial law that would follow, though some believe this is what They’re aiming for anyway. I’ll believe in the “change” if I see the new administration do something about this travesty. During these times in particular, sustainability, community-based, non-corporate farming, and healthy alternatives should be supported.  

Part III: Our Contaminated World: The Pharmaceutical Darkside coming soon