Originally Posted by bluray
I have been trying to find a source of “raw” milk and apparently the government doesn’t even want us to have it! That is so insane seeing how pasteurization totally destroys it.
Though very nice post JohnnyIce almost thought I was alone in this way of thinking. They really are killing cows with what they feed them they have to time when to slaughter them because they can only live so many months eating the unnatural feed and often they slaughter them as their dying from the stuff.Tell me Johnny do you have trouble shopping where you live? I try to buy only groceries with no soy, preservatives, and added sugar-corn syrup but the shit is in absolutely everything I even gave up bread since it has soy sugar and corn syrup added into it.
How do you feel about soy? It would really suck if you was allergic to soy because you would not be able to get away from it in America. I talked to my girlfriends family about soy a few weeks back and they actually believed they was not consuming any soy and this conversation was going on as her mother was cooking and just as she was using Vegetable oil putting into a skillet I said heck check that I am sure it has soy in it too. The vegetable oil was actually pure soy oil!! I had no idea I came home and looked at my old bottle of vegetable oil and it was pure soy. Though I haven’t used anything other than olive oil in over a year.
I avoid soy but I haven’t done enough research on it, which can be tough waddling through what’s true and not. I commend people for being able to become vegetarian, though I believe that some animal meat in your diet is crucial, I commend them more for their intent to eat healthier and help the planet and in protest of the conditions of factory farms. Real animals, free-range and bred the way they used to, eating grass and salt-blocks and so on, I think should be an important part of one’s diet. The amount of agriculture and water among other things it takes to produce one pound of meat is astounding. Something like 5000 gallons and five times what you would otherwise be able to feed people with what goes into raising cattle. “Diet For A New America” is an interesting book, though it does contradict at points with Pollan and others. Again, it can be tough researching that which certain people believe blasphemously wrong and which certain people don’t want us to know. Namely the food industry which stands to profit from our eating choices, so I can’t guarantee everything I say. Take it with a grain and salt and conduct your own research.
Raw milk is definitely hard to come by. I’d suggest trying to find some local farms and asking around and making some connections. This’ll definitely seem strange but I personally think drinking human milk is better. I know, weird, at any age older than baby but we’re human goddamnit. We were meant to drink human milk right if I’m not mistaken? I haven’t personally since I was a baby. If you think finding raw cow’s milk is hard, try asking a large breasted woman for her milk. The hilarity involved.
I’d love to see a food revolution, where farmers and producers and consumers band together and start producing and eating and supporting local farmers and businesses and restaurants. I think one is starting with a little glimmer, much more so in Britain thanks to famous chefs like Gordon Ramsay. I think they just kick our asses in many ways in terms of food. Eating locally produced food I think is one of the most important things we can do as an organism upon this earth. I feel a little tree-huggerish now but I disagree on a lot of points with a lot of environmentalists. But I can agree on that. I go to a farmer’s market every week. Some of the food might seem of lower quality than you’d get from a massive industrial farm, fruits smaller in size and so on, but in reality they are better and grown with less chemicals in the soil and pesticides. Bigger does not necessarily mean better, in this case. Heh.
I don’t have too much of a problem shopping here in California. We do have some great product and great farmers, though there is always room for improvement of course. Grass-fed beef has a size-able premium, but you can definitely tell a difference in quality. You know, you just try and keep it simple and eat like your grandparents once ate. Drink filtered water by reverse osmosis or distillation. Eat nuts and beans and the seeds people normally would never eat like apricot cores. That’s a crazy one there and again, take what I say with a grain of salt and come up with your own conclusions. I’m still in the process of a few books and I’ll try and come back with anything I find interesting. You know there are of course massive contradictions everywhere. Between the popularly accepted beliefs on food and health today and the naturalists, and infighting and debates between the naturalists themselves. (By the way I’m sure they don’t call themselves naturalists but, I couldn’t think of a better description.) So it’s an ongoing battle, and so far we’re losing. We can’t take the food industry down overnight, but we can control what we choose to put into a bodies to a better extent. Bend yourself, and not the spoon a little bald psychic boy once said.
I’m a huge fan of butter and coconut oil and hemp oil and of course olive. I believe if you’re frying something you should use cold-pressed olive oil or butter or a mixture, and eat extra virgin raw. Overheating extra virgin destroys it I’ve been told. I like frozen vegetables too which seems blasphemous but they’re convenient and better than other things. Though really we should make it a point to try to eat things in season and locally. I’m a fan of fruit snacking. I try to avoid fruits and vegetables that have been found to have alarming levels of chemicals and pesticides but really, your main source of those things would be in meat.
Fish is a big thing, and I try to eat fresh-water fish and be responsible and avoid certain kinds that are endangered and being over-fished or have higher levels of mercury and definitely try to avoid farmed fish. If you’re alarmed by what they feed cows and pigs and chickens, you wouldn’t believe the shit they feed these fish. Cramped and disease-infested. This is a personal postulation of mine, but I don’t understand how so many fish can have dangerous levels of mercury. When you think about the size of the ocean, how the hell does mercury contamination happen at the level they say it is? The Japanese for God’s sake, consume ungodly amounts of fish and they are incredibly healthy with one of the world’s highest life expectancies. Their babies for the most part are born in great health what with their tuna and swordfish eating mothers. So common-sense wise it doesn’t add up for me personally but maybe I’m just stupid.
There’s a whole other sub-genre if you will that I won’t get into, of natural remedies and ‘cures’ and so on. But many of the same common sense type of approaches to food can be applied to medicine and pharmaceuticals as well. Tough to make money selling a cure that grows wildly in your backyard and so on. All I’ll say on the matter is if I ever came down with cancer personally, I’d avoid chemo like the plague and take my own routes. You’d find better odds of recovery in a Los Angeles rehab facility. But for the love of God I am not a doctor, most likely just a dumbass, and nothing is meant as advice or recommendation in any way. Shall we get into Marijuana? Oh man, that’s a whole other thing all it’s own.
So I’d end by saying.. Y’know, eat food. Real food. Not too much. And mostly plants, which is a big umbrella. Start a local movement where it is that you are. Start a meet-up group. Talk to your farmers. Big thing you can do is start your own backyard garden and control directly what it is that you’re eating. Can be a very fun, rewarding experience. With our farmers - if enough of us ask for it, they will produce it. Even the big man with thousands of acres with a million dollar corn and cattle business in “King Korn” said that hey, if people want free-range grass-fed beef, they’ll produce it. We just need the demand. And that’s where it starts, with us. God bless you guys, keep on the good fight, and eat well.
