Saturday Linkages: Dérive!

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  1. hhhmmm…kept checking to see if anyone would remark on the kale article…….it was rather unsettling for me since kale has been such a good friend to me in my garden. i can always depend on it and now here seems to be such bad news. i eat so much of it – it has replaced lettuce for me – as well as using it in soups, as chips, etc – freeze it for winter use – on and on. i really rely on my kale. i work long hours with a long drive so as much as i love gardening, i cant devote much time so i need plants that don’t need to be babied – kale, radishes, lambs quarter don’t seem to mind neglect and still are always there in abundance for me. i thought this article would cause a commotion – this really made my stomach do flips. i don’t think i can just give it up so maybe i wish i hadn’t read it 🙁

    • It is upsetting. I think as a whole, the article really highlights what a mess we’ve made of the soil and water, and we’re living with the consequences of that. It also shows that we know so little about plants, and soil, and our own bodies. This all came clear to us when we discovered that our own soil was contaminated, and we began to realize that there is no “clean” place anymore.

      In practical terms, the way I figure it is that it’s best to eat across a wide spectrum of foods.

      This can be hard, because we have our favorites, and we get into ruts and fads, and if we have a garden, we can end up with lots of the same thing. I read somewhere that aboriginal peoples regularly ate from something like more than 200 food sources, while industrial peoples eat something like 30. Hunter-gatherers eat a lot of different types of things because they’re grabbing what they can get, wherever they can get it–but it makes for a healthy diet. In our polluted world, it makes sense to eat more like our ancestors, to keep the roulette wheel spinning, as it were. Eat a little of many things, to avoid overloading on one particular contaminate. It think our bodies can adjust to and accommodate a lot–as long as we don’t overload them by eating tons of the same thing all the time.

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