Choosing the Right Groceries Can Help Regenerate the Earth

Your Role In Regenerating the Earth

You can help sustain the business of people who regenerate her grasslands, bolster her soils, and nurture her animals. Using the most innovative sustainable practice, these farmers grow food that tastes so good, it makes your eyes roll back in your head. This endeavor is way more impactful than any flow control faucet. You will impact your own health as well. These very people, farmers who practice truly organic sustainable agriculture, transcend the imaginary boundaries which modern evangelistic diet tribes have created in the last century. Today is a day where we can put the tribalistic arguments to the side and redirect our focus towards a very innovative industry which can help solve a health and food crisis,, and regenerate American soil that has been nearly yielded to death. In fact, the U.S. government just signed the largest subsidy check in over a decade to bail out a suffering industrial system. The land is crying for the something different and it’s time we listened to the signals. You have a way to help. “Today, the U.S. soils resemble that of the American diet: over-supplemented and under fed. We have created fancy diversions with impressive abundance, distribution statistics and technology which distract our attention from the resources themselves. Despite all of the ‘high-tech’ advancements in crop growing technology, the land which we farm is beginning to deteriorate. Roughly 5-12% of nutrient rich soil should be occupied by carbon (clay rich soils can carry more), today our soil carries 1-3%. Care to take a guess where it went? Atmospheric carbon levels have risen 16% and over 70% of our grasslands have been degraded.” -Robb Wolf Read more here

Get to know your farmer, cultivators of the earth

The food on your plate today may very well look like just lunch, but it is a spiritual representation of your world view. Every single bite of food you eat isn’t just an isolated morsel that began its journey twenty feet away from you in the freezer. Oh no, every bite you eat pulls a string in nature which vibrates from your fork, to a kitchen, to a freezer, to a supermarket, to a petroleum fueled delivery truck, to the health inspectors, to a packing and processing plant, to a slaughterhouse, to another petroleum fueled vehicle, to the grower themselves. That, my friends, is called the food ‘system’ and it supplies almost everyone in the civilized world, their food. It is far more complex than carefully crafted depiction of a happy dairy cow on your carton of milk would lead you to believe. The problem with this lengthy line of distribution and countless hands responsible for the safety of our food is that it makes it nearly impossible for you (the consumer) from witnessing the way your food is handled. That steak or vegetable you are eating may have contributed to erosion, rising carbon levels, depleted soil nutrition, deplete the nutrition of the food or literally have done the opposite. They may have been growing your food in a way that’s actually destructive to the environment and you would never know it. By contacting a local food producer, asking questions and developing a business relationship you are cultivating a mass of educated consumers demanding responsible food production.

What food you choose to purchase matters

The truth is, no matter whether you find yourself belonging in the paleo, primal, low-fat-high-carb, vegetarian or IIFYM communities, we all share a very sacred commonality. We all love food that makes our relationships, health and pocketbooks happy. But the food we choose will effectively sustain:

The current industrial model

a) An industrialized and commoditized approach to food which has effectively depleted healthy soils and increased erosion. It has also relied on scientific patch-working and bail-out subsidization to continue to push the next year’s yield.

Farm-to-consumer polyculture farms

b) Food producers who are attempting to cut down long lines of processing, packaging/labelling and distribution by selling their food straight to the consumer. They are growing produce and meats in a way that puts carbon back into the soil instead of in the air (climate change). They are also increasing water retention on their land by over 400%, eliminating the need for excessive antibiotics by raising animals in a natural way, and decreasing petroleum usage on their farm and in the distribution chain.

Whichever route you choose, start by developing a relationship with people who can regenerate the earth the most. Paleo On The Go supports farm-to-consumer polyculture farms in two ways: they buy from farmers that are doing things right, with the planet and people’s health first; and they are a proud member of the Farm-To-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. You can support this amazing group as well by going to http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/. They are protecting your right to choose your food. Seems like an unalienable right huh? Vote with your dollars as much as possible when you purchase food. There are plenty of farms practicing sustainable methods all over the country. Clark Farm in Carlisle, MA, Polyface Farm in Swoop, VA, Sage Mountain Farm in Hemet, CA, Some Small Farm in Irvington, KY, Boggy Creek Farm in Austin, TX are all examples of sustainable farms who make their farming methods transparent to the public and supply their food through either a food buying club or CSA. Will Harriss from White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, GA has gone as far as making his product available through Publix, a large grocery store chain in the southeast U.S., and still maintain his heartfelt integrity of a farm with pastured chickens, pigs, goats, cattle and 80 different organic vegetables. Farmswithoutharm.org is a directory of allied farmers who pledge sustainable practices in Michigan and there are many more resources out there just like it for your region. Localharvest.org and eatwild.com are two great resources to find local farms in your area who will share, with you, their knowledge, a look at their farm and a batch of the worlds best food. Diana Rodgers, founder of Sustainabledish.com offers a free ebook on growing your own organic vegetables, The Sustainable Dish Podcast and a relentless flow of the latest information in the world of sustainable agriculture in her blog. Organizations to reach out to: