Thursday, May 13, 2010

Wishing I was Sally Hemmings....

Seriously - if I could be anyone, I would be Sally Hemmings cause she cooked for a living and her man was Thomas Jefferson...

I love him - I. REALLY. LOVE. HIM.

This quote hit me in the face the other day:

"If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls who live under tyranny."


This man was so brilliant. He is almost prophetic in so many of his writings!

So - the Government now controls our medicine....they will now come after our food. They have already started....

First the USDA (Damn you, Upton Sinclair - the free market would have cleaned up slaughter houses....sorry - I digress)

Next the EPA....

Next the NAIS....

Next CODEX....

Now in conjunction with Obamacare, the Government will track what you eat - they will do so with your credit cards - they will do so through the school systems - they will do so through your primary care doctor.

There is shortly going to be a strangle hold on being able to get food. Food for years has been kept artificially low. Unless most of the food you purchase comes directly from the farm, coops, or farmers markets, you do not pay "real" food prices.

If you do buy at these mentioned spots - you know how much it costs for a tomato. You know what it costs for wheatberries and if you have it already ground, you know that you paid for that too.... You know that eggs arent $.99 a dozen and milk isnt cheap. You know that not everything is available all year long and that there are ways to save foods you want in "off" seasons.

This new "Energy Bill" - Power Bill, I believe its called - will also raise the prices of food. If gas currently is $3.00 a gallon and your bread is $1.25 a loaf, how much will your bread be when gas costs $10.00 a gallon. Are you prepared to pay more than 3x what you currently pay for food? Is that cheap boxed stuff that tastes a little better than cardboard really worth the price?

There is an "out". Start now paying what real food costs. Get used to paying more for your eggs, your bread, your meat, your greens. Learn how to off-set these costs by growing something. Grow tomatoes and beans. Start with 2 things that will give you copious amounts of food to freeze, can, dry and eat. These two things will make you feel like you can grow anything - throw in some kind of squash and you will think you were born with a green thumb. These plants are almost fool proof ;)

Start now buying locally. Rising gas prices hurt less when there is less ground to cover. If your fruit comes from California it will have to cost more just because of the transportation than the man who has a couple acres that he plants strawberries on down the road. Unless you are in California, then my OK strawberries are cost prohibitive ;)

Something will also happen when you start buying locally. You are now engaging in direct commerce with people who have opted out of the industrial food system. They dont sell their chickens to Pilgrims. They sell it to you. They arent beholding to some huge conglomerate that doesnt care about you, but only cares about profit. Local farms care about you. They exist to make you happy so that you will come back.

You get to know the face of the man that sells your food. China, Latin America, Mexican farmers dont care about you and if they can do something to make an extra buck and get away with it, even if it will harm your family, they will probably do it - its about the money - not the relationship. They may not even know where the food is headed....

Local Farmers are all about the food and all about the relationship. Its what their livelihood is about.

The cherry on top of buying locally is that it tastes better. You get an apple that was made for taste! TASTE! And not because it just doesnt bruise easy and therefore can be transported across country easy or it lasts longer and therefore is still "fresh" when it has gone from Washington to Florida.

Real food is better for you - tastes better - and honestly, is a way to kick the Government a little out of my life.

Find a local farmer or two - make friends - eat well.

Pray - Praise - Prepare

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pearls

The ability to produce and preserve food ranks at or near the top of the list.

It is more healthy and provides a sense of independence that is difficult for the Obamanistas to quell.

blackfedora

Mayberry said...

Grow it, raise it, can it. Cash only for the rest. Starve the beast...

Brad K. said...

Mayberry,

Funny thing about plastic. When you use plastic, you siphon off another 3% tax out of the local economy. Visa/MasterCard collect 3-4% of sales, plus $0.50 to $2.00 per transaction, each time you make a credit purchase.

In case you wondered - most of the banks here in Ponca City have surrendered to Visa. Their "debit" cards are not direct debit from checking accounts - but aren't enabled for a debit transaction at the merchant end. That is why you so seldom get to use your PIN number at the register - Visa gets 3% or more of the merchant's sales price on credit purchases. On a true debit sale, the merchant gets full value for the sale (the bank pays the fees).

That is also why most merchants stopped taking checks. Visa got the banks to agree to process checks as if they were credit cards, only with a higher fee.

Yet no one wants to look at Visa/MasterCard business practices, and their drain on the local economy.

Good luck on the cash-only approach. The IRS is compelling employers to pay by direct-deposit only. Paying labor, contractors, part time and occasional help with cash is about to become illegal. The feds just really, really want to be able to use your banking records to catch bad guys . . and intercept campaign contributions to opponents, those opposed to unions, etc.

Pearls,

John Michael Greer has been writing in the ArchdruidReport, about primary (produce and use natural resources, like wood, gardens, oil), secondary (sell such goods for money) and tertiary (buy and sell stocks, money agglomerations). That seems like a good overall terminology.

I find Sharon Astyk's (Casaubon's Book) terms of formal (measured in dollars) and informal (exchanges of relationships and goods, including stay at home moms, gardening for the table and pantry, exchanging food and help with neighbors, giving food to the needy [instead of $$s]) a bit simpler to apply. But then, I have been reading Sharon's writing longer, so that may just be a matter of familiarity.

What scares me about all the government red tape and tightened regulations, is that historically this creates black markets, smuggling, piracy, and organized crime. There is a real chance of losing America as the lawless element becomes more livable than what the "legal" citizen endures.

I drive my tractor in pearls... said...

Brad - When Mexico's currency was devalued, it never recovered - still hasnt.... Your last comment about the lawlessness sent chills as I can see this becoming truth on the border and it will increasingly creep Northward until we have a Mexico-like state in regards to failed currency, corruption and illegalities.

I currently am cash only. I deposit the check and immediately cash out my allowance. I dont want anyone tracking what I purchase - the store - the bank - the Government.

And it does something else. When you have to break $100 it makes me think twice and therefore I actually save a good amount of money. Not to mention there are places that will not break it - which does totally tick me off, but that is for another post ;)

Dana said...

Couldn't agree more. And what's worse, they "say" it is to help "regulate" the industry. But the bigger the industry, the easier it is to survive the regulations.

The best way for "Big Ag" to compete with the growing local food movement is to ask for greater regulations. It sounds nice to the uneducated, but in the end it does nothing but benefit the major producers while doing nothing to improve consumer safety.

Michael Patrick McCarty said...

I too love Thomas Jefferson, and like so many things, he loved his food.

It is quite obvious to me that government is making a move to control our ability to grow and supply our own food.

Food, or lack of it, can be a weapon used against the people. It's been that way for centuries.

I wish I was wrong.

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