Farming in America
American’s today are so disconnected from their food supply.
Back during the world wars, specifically 2, when food gasoline and
rubber bands were rationed for the war effort, people would grow themselves
gardens to supplement what was scare to find. Freedom gardening; the act of
planting a seed, giving it water, a little love and keeping pests from it
resulted in rows of beans, fat juicy tomatoes, even broccoli and carrots going
on into the winter seasons. Food, you eat it, I eat it. Fuel.
I might know a half dozen people who care about their bodies enough to
grow any produce. Why is that? I eat a lot, love spending less money for
something that grows all by itself, and really enjoy the taste of a tomato
fresh from the vine. It’s almost a thing of ecstasy, just tasting what grew
from the soil there.
Now back in the 40’s, so far as I can find, at least 18% of the American
population farmed. Commercial agriculture, feeding the town up the road for
income. I’m not sure if it’s the culmination of successes in chemical nutrient
manufacturing, advancing technology surpassing human labor or the swelling of
cities and industries that aren’t reliant on people growing their own food
anymore, but that scares me in a small way.
There are under 5 million farmers today, marked by the census, in
America. There’s 318.9 million people living here today (preach 318), but for a
country so big why are there so many people disconnected from what they eat?
That’s shocking as somebody who loves to dig, plant trees, and water the grass.
Yeah,
My grandmother grew up in the depression era down in south Louisiana,
she grew up on a farm/plantation, but she’s from the generation with the necessity to grow and raise what you could; without growing food, trapping, or hunting you starved.
Before there was a mcdonalds on every third street. Way before the line of
production changed, and stopping at the grocery store to buy apple’s that came
off the tree 12 months ago. I’m concerned for the diet of your average American,
we have a rising obesity rate and let’s not even talk about the incoming wave
of type 2 diabetics flooding the healthcare system. When CORN is so cheap that
farmer’s gete paid not to grow it to prevent a collapse of market price, why?
When everything’s made of it, and when the right doctor can test your muscle
cells and visually see the corn you’ve eaten so much of for so long, there’s a
nutrition problem. I’m a little overweight and would love to lose 20 pounds,
but hot fucking damn when Oklahoma city sets a goal to collectively lose 1
million pounds and does it, why is that a problem?
(OKC losing weight, great TED talk. Watch it. https://www.ted.com/talks/mick_cornett_how_an_obese_town_lost_a_million_pounds
)
Why worry about what you eat when you can visit any store down the
road to order fried chicken, a burger, or any walmart to buy already frozen
food or a bag of cheetos? Do you like Subway? Maybe snag a swiss and turkey
with mustard foot long on Italian bread for lunch? Were you aware the
regulation for Subway’s meat says it only needs to be at most 48% meat? (Link
to a story: https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/603mge/subway_has_announced_its_intention_to_sue_the/df3j9ph/?sh=d0ad5a00&st=1Z141Z3
)
I’ve seen enough videos of inhumane acts in a slaughter houses and
commercial food production to ward me off of wanting to buy meat in the store. That
reddit comment shares concern for meat bought from Walmart, and my best friend
is earning a degree in cow agriculture from LSU, but damn (call Rikky on an
afternoon while he’s werkin in the lab and just listen to that white trash
encyclopedia talk about what ruins commercial food animals). The antibiotics
fed to those poor, decrepid animals in the feed lots so they don’t get sick
from standing in their shit all day abhors me. Not only that, but we could talk
about the egg production of laying hens and talk. Those eggs, before the ever
hit the store are more than a month old. Trying to boil some, they float,
because enough time has passed for them to lose water through that porous
shell.
Crack a white shelled egg in the same bowl as something with a brown
shell, and it’s not hard to see a difference in the yellow yolk of one and the
gold of another. But hey, agriculture, and with a single farmer being
responsible for feeding 65 ignorant people I see an issue.
Those laying hens are
stacked on top of each other, and their sole purpose to pop out an egg every
day. Just living hurdled like slaves on a ship. Commercial meat production? Chickens
are similar, cows spend maybe 18 months in a pasture before being sold to a
kill lot that gives them a regimen of corn all the time to throw weight on
them. The same with pigs, and I won’t even talk about how much smarter they are
than man’s best friend. That corn you can find in your cells? The same indicators
appear with people who eat steaks and burgers. Six months of corn only is atrocious.
Me, to go out and eat a meal it’s got to be a special occasion or your
treat. Having worked in a couple kitchens, no I do not trust most sit down-and-eat
restaurants. Just the way it is, I enjoy cooking enough that having no plan of
what to make always turns into an adventure.
I’ve had to teach friends how to shop for food in grocery stores. Not
knowing what you want in apples, peppers, or any other vegetable. That’s no
problem at all, I’m probably the best amateur chef you don’t know too much
about, but hell let’s make something weird and make a mess doing it. I dislike
the coddling so many people experienced growing up. I know some guys who were
it not for my outgoing personality wouldn’t have a tenth of the stories we’ve
grown to experience. But if you lived a young life tied to a computer not
seeing daylight, I pity you.
Tying back to food, there are too few people who buy food without
knowing what’s in it. Who never touch the stove, an oven, and who’s sources of
hot food comes from the microwave. Hell let’s talk about how red 40, the food
dye, plays inside the endocrine system and how much of it takes for the
chemical to be noticeable in your health.
Final knot to tie in~~~~
I’m helping a friends father get a commercial rabbit farm up and
running. Mr P’s an old cantankerous son of a bitch, but hell spending eight
hours flipping his soil is so satisfying. (Ask me about rabbits someday)
This morning, April the first, I plopped on over to his back porch to
drink coffee and talk about aliens, politics, and get an idea of what needed to
be done that day. This morning we slaughtered nine beautiful bucks. Catching
them by the ears, stringing them up on a board to knock them out and slit their
throats and drain the blood. De-skinning a rabbit takes two steady people to
pull from each end. (Dead rabbits are a lot like dead rabbits. They make a
serious effort to piss on you.)
Grabbing the first bunny of the day I felt a little queezy, just not
wanting to pull something from a cage to kill it, but by the time I was
grabbing #3 and #4, those negative feelings vanished. It was a job to do,
everybody has their spot during kill time, but being able to see your work at
the end of it feels so good. I might never be a long term farmer like Paul, but
fuck at this age it feels good to slaughter and eat something that you raised.
WANNA EAT A RABBIT? HOLLA ATCHA BOIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
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