Anyone know if chicken soup cures the bird flu? 😉😉😉
PANDEMICsteria: Best Bird Flu Memes (Its COMING!)
The dancing nurses, ballot counters, vaccines, dissidents, media, birds & a certain portion of the public are ready. Will chicken soup help or hurt? Big Bird better be careful & more bird flu memes!
“its a way to create an intimate relationship with the people who feed us, cutting out the industrial processors who have nothing but profits in mind” . Thanks for your article in support of Raw milk , which I love & helps keep me healthy .
If you're not already following Dr. Will Falconer (https://substack.com/@willfalconerdvm) get on it before Sunday - he's promising more information on the health benefits of raw milk, including how it can help with allergies. Dr. Falconer and Collapse Life are also cooking up a fun workshop on holistic pet health coming soon, so stay tuned!
This week's Vital Animal News (coming Sunday 26 May) will share your article and some very positive research on raw milk, showing a long lasting positive effect on allergies, which now run amok in both people and their pets. Common denominator for allergies: vaccination. It's posited that gut microbiome benefits of raw milk may be the key factor.
Those who fear raw milk and germs will want to read that. Better yet, you'll want to read about and visit the Amish and Mennonite communities and witness the notable lack of allergies and other chronic diseases. Raw milk and early barn exposure of infants gets the credit there.
Besides the dislike of the fear mongering by the media, I have mixed emotions on this.
We have the most successful production and safest availability of food that the world has ever seen. Outside of the influence of war, we have basically eliminated famine. Food borne illnesses are just freak occurrences.
This has come at a cost as well. We have just traded famine for obesity, heart disease, and a host of other negative side effects of our abundance. Whether it is raw or pasteurized, we don't need to drink milk. We just like it. It is a luxury, unless of course you are a baby cow.
Modern food production methods are an incubator for widespread disease. Any time you have a concentrated population of one type of organisim, it becomes a pathway for pathogens to mutate. The bigger the population, the higher the risk of a mutation that can jump between species. It also makes us more susceptible to the risk of disaster if any one of the limited variety of food sources fails. The faster you transport the products, the faster it spreads. Factory farms and modern food transportation are perfect way for it to create problems.
That said, we can never return to small scale food production without mass starvation. It just isn't feasible given the population density of modern civilization and it will only get worse.
Those of us lucky enough to have grown up with the riches that we have have lost sight of the problems of the rest of the world. It is easy, when you have cheap and abundant food, to say that we want to preserve the wilderness. We have no problem saying that we want to stop ranchers from grazing our public lands when they can rely on Argentina and Brazil to do it on the other side of the world where we don't have to see it. Much like people have no problem feeling good about themselves for protecting the environment when they go buy electric cars when they don't have to see the effects created from the production and the power generation up close.
I don't agree that we can never return to small scale farming. If big agriculture continues, with monocrops, chemical sprays, GMO's etc., the soil will become diseased and infertile, and so will humanity. The population will be sicker and good food will disappear. The population may then decrease enough that the survivors will embrace regenerative farming.
For some food, indeed you can get a lot of productivity in a small space. Aquaculture is a really good example.
Where the problem lies is with grain production: Wheat, corn, and rice. Both for direct human consumption and for feeding animals. In most of the world, that accounts for the vast majority of daily nutrition. There is a fixed limit of suitable land for those crops and a large part of it has been through the development of more hardy strains that permit use of marginally acceptable land. The cultivation and processes rely on equipment and facilities that are beyond what small scale farming can sustain.
Our agriculture is not about just sustaining ourselves. We feed the world. The majority of our production is shipped abroad. It is the cause of the "relatively peaceful" state of the world.
I agree that there are problems associated with monoculture, GMOs, and chemical usage. There are also problems associated with having tens and hundreds of millions of people on the brink of starvation.
You are correct. The mechanization and industrialization of food production is an incredible achievement that makes all of this possible. Drawbacks be damned. Our ancestors of the last 5000 years would gladly risk a little cancer at age 70 if it meant not being hungry for a month or two at a time. The key takeaway from what I can tell, is to keep the state out of the individuals choices. If one wants to pay a little more and drink the infected bacteria ridden raw milk, then let them do so. Let the free market work
That is complicated as well. If anything, I would prefer more independent inspection of products and facilities. Especially when products are being imported from parts of the world with less, shall we say fastidious, views of being fit for human consumption.
With more problematic products, there really is an opportunity for independent inspection and testing. That could be made into a value added source of product differentiation. All it would take would be for one producer to prominently display their inspections and certifications to force the entire market to fall in line.
It already works for observant Jews and Muslims with certifications for being kosher or halal.
That said, there is little stopping people from deceptive product labeling with their meaningless "Non-GMO", "Gluten Free", and probably the most abused of all "Organic" labeling that really have no meaning even hidden in fine print.
Along with the freedom to put whatever they want into their bodies, we all deserve the right to actually know and verify that what we are being sold is as advertised. I don't see how that can be enforced without us deciding that it should be a designated function of government free from the influence of the industry. As the saying goes, "Trust, but verify."
Of course we have issues with regulation and the markets they are supposed to be regulating but that is a different can of worms.
I think it is impressive that the Amish can bring that to market for only about double the cost of large scale production. Especially considering the shelf life. That's why most goes to producing butter, yogurt, and cheese.
I don't think that people looking at the viability of small scale farming have a good grasp of the magnitude of the changes in agriculture. Industrialization has taken corn for instance from around 20-30 bushels/acre up to nearly 200 bushels/acre.
Anyone know if chicken soup cures the bird flu? 😉😉😉
PANDEMICsteria: Best Bird Flu Memes (Its COMING!)
The dancing nurses, ballot counters, vaccines, dissidents, media, birds & a certain portion of the public are ready. Will chicken soup help or hurt? Big Bird better be careful & more bird flu memes!
https://covidsteria.substack.com/p/pandemicsteria-best-bird-flu-memes-its-coming
“its a way to create an intimate relationship with the people who feed us, cutting out the industrial processors who have nothing but profits in mind” . Thanks for your article in support of Raw milk , which I love & helps keep me healthy .
If you're not already following Dr. Will Falconer (https://substack.com/@willfalconerdvm) get on it before Sunday - he's promising more information on the health benefits of raw milk, including how it can help with allergies. Dr. Falconer and Collapse Life are also cooking up a fun workshop on holistic pet health coming soon, so stay tuned!
Thanks I will, as this is on my list of subjects to write about. Good luck with the pet health, that will be popular.
This week's Vital Animal News (coming Sunday 26 May) will share your article and some very positive research on raw milk, showing a long lasting positive effect on allergies, which now run amok in both people and their pets. Common denominator for allergies: vaccination. It's posited that gut microbiome benefits of raw milk may be the key factor.
Those who fear raw milk and germs will want to read that. Better yet, you'll want to read about and visit the Amish and Mennonite communities and witness the notable lack of allergies and other chronic diseases. Raw milk and early barn exposure of infants gets the credit there.
Besides the dislike of the fear mongering by the media, I have mixed emotions on this.
We have the most successful production and safest availability of food that the world has ever seen. Outside of the influence of war, we have basically eliminated famine. Food borne illnesses are just freak occurrences.
This has come at a cost as well. We have just traded famine for obesity, heart disease, and a host of other negative side effects of our abundance. Whether it is raw or pasteurized, we don't need to drink milk. We just like it. It is a luxury, unless of course you are a baby cow.
Modern food production methods are an incubator for widespread disease. Any time you have a concentrated population of one type of organisim, it becomes a pathway for pathogens to mutate. The bigger the population, the higher the risk of a mutation that can jump between species. It also makes us more susceptible to the risk of disaster if any one of the limited variety of food sources fails. The faster you transport the products, the faster it spreads. Factory farms and modern food transportation are perfect way for it to create problems.
That said, we can never return to small scale food production without mass starvation. It just isn't feasible given the population density of modern civilization and it will only get worse.
Those of us lucky enough to have grown up with the riches that we have have lost sight of the problems of the rest of the world. It is easy, when you have cheap and abundant food, to say that we want to preserve the wilderness. We have no problem saying that we want to stop ranchers from grazing our public lands when they can rely on Argentina and Brazil to do it on the other side of the world where we don't have to see it. Much like people have no problem feeling good about themselves for protecting the environment when they go buy electric cars when they don't have to see the effects created from the production and the power generation up close.
I don't agree that we can never return to small scale farming. If big agriculture continues, with monocrops, chemical sprays, GMO's etc., the soil will become diseased and infertile, and so will humanity. The population will be sicker and good food will disappear. The population may then decrease enough that the survivors will embrace regenerative farming.
For some food, indeed you can get a lot of productivity in a small space. Aquaculture is a really good example.
Where the problem lies is with grain production: Wheat, corn, and rice. Both for direct human consumption and for feeding animals. In most of the world, that accounts for the vast majority of daily nutrition. There is a fixed limit of suitable land for those crops and a large part of it has been through the development of more hardy strains that permit use of marginally acceptable land. The cultivation and processes rely on equipment and facilities that are beyond what small scale farming can sustain.
Our agriculture is not about just sustaining ourselves. We feed the world. The majority of our production is shipped abroad. It is the cause of the "relatively peaceful" state of the world.
I agree that there are problems associated with monoculture, GMOs, and chemical usage. There are also problems associated with having tens and hundreds of millions of people on the brink of starvation.
You are correct. The mechanization and industrialization of food production is an incredible achievement that makes all of this possible. Drawbacks be damned. Our ancestors of the last 5000 years would gladly risk a little cancer at age 70 if it meant not being hungry for a month or two at a time. The key takeaway from what I can tell, is to keep the state out of the individuals choices. If one wants to pay a little more and drink the infected bacteria ridden raw milk, then let them do so. Let the free market work
That is complicated as well. If anything, I would prefer more independent inspection of products and facilities. Especially when products are being imported from parts of the world with less, shall we say fastidious, views of being fit for human consumption.
With more problematic products, there really is an opportunity for independent inspection and testing. That could be made into a value added source of product differentiation. All it would take would be for one producer to prominently display their inspections and certifications to force the entire market to fall in line.
It already works for observant Jews and Muslims with certifications for being kosher or halal.
That said, there is little stopping people from deceptive product labeling with their meaningless "Non-GMO", "Gluten Free", and probably the most abused of all "Organic" labeling that really have no meaning even hidden in fine print.
Along with the freedom to put whatever they want into their bodies, we all deserve the right to actually know and verify that what we are being sold is as advertised. I don't see how that can be enforced without us deciding that it should be a designated function of government free from the influence of the industry. As the saying goes, "Trust, but verify."
Of course we have issues with regulation and the markets they are supposed to be regulating but that is a different can of worms.
I think it is impressive that the Amish can bring that to market for only about double the cost of large scale production. Especially considering the shelf life. That's why most goes to producing butter, yogurt, and cheese.
I don't think that people looking at the viability of small scale farming have a good grasp of the magnitude of the changes in agriculture. Industrialization has taken corn for instance from around 20-30 bushels/acre up to nearly 200 bushels/acre.