Back to Eden

In the past several years, I've become increasingly convinced that our food-world has been changing.  I've noticed that certain foods have chemical or metallic tastes that I find extremely unpleasant.  At first, it was just one or two foods.  In the past several months, this phenomenon has extended to numerous foods.  In the beginning, no one else in my family could taste these odd tastes, but a couple of weeks ago, my older daughter bit into an apple, wrinkled her nose and said it tasted funny--like medicine.  We moved on, and she ate some melon instead.  Then last week, my little one, who has the constitution of a billy goat, tasted metal in some grapes.   I could taste it too.  We're getting to the point where it's hard to find any food (other than the heavily processed varieties that have so much salt and sugar that you can't taste anything else) that tastes edible. Fortunately, we have a couple of gardens that we work, where we can get some food that tastes like food, but like most people, we'd be hard-pressed to grow everything we eat, fruit and veggie wise, and the suburban powers that be would probably take a dim view of our raising chickens or a cow in the backyard. 

I've also been becoming aware that our food-delivery system is basically beginning to malnourish us.  Commercial agriculture has been yanking ever-faster-growing, ever-higher-yielding, ever-easier-transporting products from the ag system through the creative and constantly increasing use of chemicals and 'technology'--pesticides, herbicides, GMOs, chemical fertilizers, antibiotics, hormones and steroids.  Our food is being raised in test-tubes in a solution of chemical goo.  And, at the same time, food--even 'good' food--is becoming objectively less good for us, with modern food showing significant declines in the levels of  important nutrients like magnesium, zinc, vitamins A, B-6, C and E,  iron, potassium and calcium.  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss

All this has led me, a confirmed cheapskate of the highest order, to begin to buy organic produce and 'natural' meats, the expense of which is a stretch, but at least we can eat them.  I resent paying good money (even less of it) to buy food that I KNOW is at least not good for us, and may be actively bad.

A couple of days ago, I happened upon something that everyone should see.  In a full-length film, Back to Eden,  a gentleman from California lays out the facts about today's food, the reasons for the place we find ourselves, and a solution--a reasonable way that nearly anyone, gardener or not, can begin to grow some to much of their own food.  For those of you put off by the religious backdrop against which this information is presented, please muddle through.  It's well worth it.    You can view the website and the film at http://backtoedenfilm.com/.