Food ~eating for the environment
Feb 21 · 4 min read
Why loving your food makes microbial balance and can give you overall happiness and health!
I am an artist so aesthetics have long been my driving energy when creating and eating food.
my lunch…I know right… more food shots… sorry lol!
We all can get so hungry we could eat… well just about anything! But if you can actually get out ahead of that hunger, by having a small selection of even the simplest foods like a raw carrot or a handful of your favourite nuts, some cubes of yummy cheese or whatever live food you love you can travel easily with in a little container in your bag or briefcase, keeping in the front of your mind the sensation of pleasure when you pack them, the results can be simply extraordinary! Just thanking yourself for self care and the mind to have live food available and not have to eat that processed muck we call food that could withstand a radiation fallout your body will thank you and your sensation of happiness will abound! Just letting yourself really feel into why you are attracted to some foods, especially when you are NOT hungry, you might be interested to learn just what your body is trying to tell you! Because not all ‘sinful’ impulses are bad! Even dark chocolate is full of nutrients and minerals your body might just need?
Eating in season, means eating food that ripens with the weather and therefore it is also as close to being fresh and as alive with nourishing, supportive microbes for your gut and brain biomes as possible. Even food frozen in the field, as they do in some places, can suspend the death of the necessary live bacteria that make your body sing with happiness and balance.
But how does that relate to my topic heading?
Ok, so recently, Australia experienced a particularly ferocious fire season that shocked the world for its scale. Billions of plants and animals died with homes reduced to cinders. But what people dont talk about is that the heat was so intense in parts it has also destroyed many of the plant’s ability to re-germinate that have evolved to survive fire plus the deep soil microbes that cause life to germinate which has an effect like ‘salting the earth’.
thought id put this illustration to show the scale of the fires compared to the USA as people often dont get how big Australia is — it’s the same width as North America and only 388,440 square kilometres smaller.
Nature has evolved to burn in a certain way to keep the planet’s gases in equilibrium because oxygen (O2) is very flammable ie too much O2 and not enough CO2 has an equally devastating on the planet as scientist Walter Jehne points out in his article about the carboniferous period burning the forests that created our coal. But it is a balance we have disrupted so deeply the very soil is unable to absorb the rain (called hydrophobic — fear of water) causing water to run off in sheets, unable to penetrate the soil, causing flood and eventually famine as it dries the land to such a degree it can do nothing but burn without pause unable to keep moist or support healthy life. There are other factors like forest and animal management included in these fire storms but let’s focus on the microbes for they are the key thing that creates what is called a carbon sponge. They facilitate the exchange of minerals and gases we rely on for life
Microbes are vital to initiating life in our soils so that plants may grow. The vital point we are not discussing is the destruction of these microbes and the balance of gases and nutrients they create through our agricultural practises to create cheap food not only for us but the very atmosphere we rely on to survive.
Microbes survive with the delicate balance of animal waste feeding them that in turn feed the microbes, fungi and a richly diverse soil eco system that in turn creates plants and animals. We dont grow animals or us, our DNA does that part but we do grow food for animals (ie diverse grasses) and that balance is the base idea in this article. What you eat is not important, it is how it is grown that matters, for all of us.
Most agriculture is grown in isolation to life. Monocultures. But life abhors this as it creates weakness in the immune system and eventually the DNA of any organism kept robust with diversity and the introduction of things to challenge its survival much like a good game requires an opponent to exist.
The same is true of you, of a forest or any food source. Diversity is key.
So think of this when you shop or pack your lunchbox. Eat for the source of its diversity that feeds your existence and the diverse family of microbes that feed your immunity and health as well as the survival of the plants and nature itself.
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Climatefood a carbon drawdown validation service for farmers.
Advocate for microbial soil health restoring balance to the climate and human health since 1997. Now using blockchain and satellite tech to help fuel change.