HIT YOUR 6 ON ROUTE KINGSTON KICKS!!! Escapade # 11 – JAS Farmers’ Market (Agro 2014) at Hope, JC grounds, May 31

Recent Farmers’ Market New Kingston – Gleaner

GMOing has been going on for millenia …….’Birds Do It, Bees Do It …Even Educated..’.

But there’s GMO…& then there’s GMO… We got ortaniques by GMOing (grafting – some loss of genetic material – seeds don’t grow) we also get all our imported soy from Monsanto’s dark arts  (gene splicing, major loss of genetic material & nutrients & disease causing) such that ‘Monstertanto’ makes us ill with it… there’s a difference.  In  the era of Monstertanto whose GMOed and chemically treated seed make up 90% of the world’s seed trade, Dominica is officially organic and Bayern is officially non-GMO… Mexico, France & Hawaii have followed suit and India is battling to keep Monstertanto out of its rice paddies.  So what can we do to save ourselves?  Politics aside, follow Mr. Tufton’s lead … and let’s all go to Farmers’ Markets – still common all over Europe and something of a persistent ‘rebel movement’ in North America … land of the supermarket.  In the last 100 years soil nutrients have been depleted by over 50% and food nutrient values decreased at even higher percentages.

What’s the good of a farmer’s market?   Well, in Jamaica, not all problems are solved by them, but here’re some really good reasons to patronise them:

1) Great prices & the middle man is cut out so all money to farmer

2) you can get more full nutrient, non-GMOed food

3) you eat local and help cut the import bill

4) you cut the carbon footprint

5) you cut packaging pollution

6) you have greater control over what you eat (talking to farmer can tell you how he farms and whether you want to buy his fare based on his practices)

Here’s what you should look for:

1)  Indigenous and wild crops –  they’re non-GMO, less pesticides – (some farmers spray their yams, etc) no growth retardants (all American potatoes sprayed with it from mass producers unless organic)

2) Leafy vegetables with holes in them (no or less pesticides which even insects don’t eat)

3) Buy Michael Fox’s & anybody else’s organic greens & foods (if there). In Jamaica though, not all organic is organic, the farmer just thinks so…

6) Find someone whose eggs are very little, the yolk is huge and nearly blood red & tastes like butter (lot’s of excellent fat) – these are mostly organic eggs

7) Buy New Zealand whole milk dairy – All American dairy has bovine growth hormone unless stated otherwise or 100% organic, better yet, buy raw whole milk if anyone is selling it and boil it yourself.  By the way, after age 5, all dairy you consume ought to be fermented.

8) Buy grape and ox heart tomatoes, most plummies are GMOed and pesticide sprayed

9) buy coconut oil that ‘sleeps’ –  best for your brains, frying and your gut – very virgin burns easier though, don’t let it, all burnt oil carcinogenic.

10) Buy Heritage/heritage (a brand and also all non-GMO generic) seed and create/grow your own from heritage stock you grow

11) Find non-GMO big, smellie pawpaws and pines, full nutrient complement – all small pawpaws and the new Jamaica Producers pines GMOed

12) Don’t waste your money – Buy your alkaline water from the Roquefort Bath head spring, 300 dollars to go in and fill all the bottles you like – one glass per day

13) Buy fish 2lbs and under in weight – above that heightens mercury exposure

Cautionary Tales:

1) Developing countries, including us are often recipient users of banned ‘gift’ pesticides from the States.

2) All Jamaican corn and soy is GMOed and sprayed by Monstertanto, we are the largest per capita consumer of soy on earth leading to male impotence, gynoecomastia, premature puberty, thyroid problems, calcium uptake interference, immune breakdown, etc. etc.  Fermented organic soy is good for you & eat organic soy beans only as often as you would eat any other bean.

3) Know that all commercial gourd fruits suck up pesticides, eat them as a calculated risk or find organic ones

4) GMO does not grow (the seeds are ‘mules’ & that’s the catch, Monstertanto enslaves the contracting farmers of other countries into repeatedly buying ‘demon seed’ and suicide is becoming well known among poor farmers in Asia.  Safe GMO – like grafting & hybridisation – can be reverted by nature, unsafe gene-spliced GMO cannot, what’s lost or added is so forever)

5) Pesticides are designed NOT to wash off so wash and rinse all fruits and veggies in pure liquid castile soap and rinse well…water alone removes NOTHING

Join THE OCCUPY MONSANTO & THE FOOD REVOLUTION MOVEMENTS  ON THE WEB- MONSTERTANTO, DOW ETC ARE DEATH TO THE ENTIRE WORLD BEE POPULATION WHICH IS BEING DECIMATED, NOT TO MENTION…US

Fruit, Veggies & Pesticides….Not a Love Triangle

Twenty-odd years ago while I was an Environmental Studies student at the U. of Waterloo, Canada; the faculty included Club of Rome types and consultants to the FAO.  They made predictions that have come true.  But they weren’t really predictions.  There was a pattern they realised was taking shape in an albeit philanthropic atmosphere.

After WWII, it became America’s personal mission to ensure all her people, and by extension the world, would not go hungry…the Great Depression had been replaced by the new wealth of massive creation of armaments.  The best brains on earth amassed from among former and new immigrants got together to turn ‘agro’ into ‘industry’ providing huge quantities of good inexpensive food for the baby boom.  Doing something Man has always done – fiddled with his environment – the first crops were engineered to bear in hardier climes and in shorter seasons & pesticides were proudly engineered from massive and relatively inexpensive crude oil stocks.  Remember that Dutch company, Shell’s fabulous ad with booming industry, populations and crop spraying aircraft swooping over vast plantations?  Wellllllllll… things are not so rosy now…

Having supplied themselves and the entire world with quite high quality cheap food and the model for creating it…a kind of addiction has set in … in America…food and the power you can wield with it has become a mega billion dollar business and whole populations and the health of all 7 billion of us is now at stake.  Quality and plenty for all is no longer the driving force behind agro-industry… power and wealth are the new drivers.  ‘Plenty’ has to do with filling coffers regardless of filling stomachs.  Between soil depletion, over-selection of given crop gene pools and the organo-chemicals of fertilisers and pesticides, it is estimated that the nutritive value of our food has dropped about 50% since the 1800s.

Grains are the simplest of our foods and therefore the easiest to engineer.  We now have Monsanto creating Roundup weed killer and engineering the grains to match!  This new grain’s sales manifesto calls it ‘Roundup ready’ because it has been genetically engineered to withstand the pesticide that would ordinarily kill/damage all growing things.  Monsanto has had no care about how these crops intermingle with non-roundup ready ones via winds, insects, etc., and when autonomous farmers raise objections they are silenced.

Fruits and veggies are a more difficult prospect for GMO engineering, it’s easier to handle them from the pesticide end.  These chemicals are largely organic chemicals designed not to wash off and have high soil and root penetration.  Therefore merely rinsing fruit and veggies is no longer going to help us get rid of these poisons, the wash must be a gentle natural solvent (some specially made for the job …or soap…yes, soap…like Dr. Bonner’s) on whichever has the type of surface that can be washed, & some scrubbed, followed by a thorough rinsing.  Not only do the pesticides directly affect us and the fruit – as faux estrogens, there is now evidence they are involved in the wave of obesity sweeping many countries – other victims include bees which are dying in worldwide droves.  These insects are being decimated by bacteria, viruses and pesticides that directly kill them or weaken their immunity to the microbes. You therefore get less and less healthy food crops with decreased biodiversity due to less pollenation. Keep in mind too that there is a grey area with potatoes and some sprouting crops which, even if not sprayed with pesticides, have growth retardant applied.

So what to do?  Know, for example, that some foods are pesticide reservoirs, like raisins and ground gourd fruits, e.g., melons and pumpkins.  Try to buy organic versions of these comestibles.  Buy green leafy stuff with holes in the leaves.  There is either less or no pesticide on them so the bugs can eat them too; perfect leaves often mean pesticide application.  As far as possible grow and buy organic.  You help yourselves and the environment.  Keep in mind that as the ‘developed’ countries discover the dangers, both personal and global, of some really dangerous pesticides, they get dumped in the ‘developing’ world to minimise profit loss.  Get with the SLOW Food Movement…organic, fair trade, reduced carbon footprint…