(This is under construction, much more to come soon. But gardening done God’s way, NOT the way of materialistic, chemical based corporations has over 25 benefits for humanity. I will update this with more of these reasons as I have time.)
COMPELLING THOUGHTS
- “God looked over all he had made [the Garden of Eden], and He saw that it was very good!” Gen 1:31
- “During the lifetime of Solomon, all of Judah and Israel lived in peace and safety. And from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, each family had its own home and garden.” 1 Kings 4:25
- “The Garden of Eden was a representation of what God desired the whole earth to become.” Ellen White, Education p. 22
- “The more nearly we come into harmony with God’s original plan, the more favorable will be our position to secure health of body and mind and soul.” Ellen White, Adventist Home p. 135
- “You can trace every sickness, every disease, and every ailment to a mineral deficiency.” Dr. Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel prize winner
Would you like to eat healthier food for the highest possible performance and solving/preventing crises in the various challenges and opportunities in life? A very simple solution is to eat local food grown by following the best principles from God and science…either grow it yourself or buy it from local gardeners/farmers!
As you may recall, God created people to live in a garden in harmony with nature, growing and eating local food. Even though many no longer live in an agricultural setting, a great deal of science is showing that there are over a dozen very significant benefits to getting your food this way even now, ranging from it being far healthier to reducing exploitation and injustice of commercial farming to reducing dependence on corporations and others (a few reasons are listed below with academic/scientific references). Many insightful thinkers/experts have said things like this:
- “All the world’s problems can be solved in a garden.” Geoff Lawton ( https://permaculturenews.org/2008/08/30/geoff-lawton-all-the-worlds-problems-can-be-solved-in-a-garden/)
- “The best way of reducing poverty and increasing equality is going local.” Michael Shuman (an economist, attorney, author, and entrepreneur) at the 2018 Economics of Localising Finance,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PozpjriZXg, http://bit.ly/2HfTRyO
These two documentaries are probably the best short overviews of the permaculture ideas that Geoff Lawton and others have used to change deserts to lush gardens and improve economies by 2, 3, 5 or even 10 times.
The Forested Garden: What is a Food Forest?
https://youtu.be/hCJfSYZqZ0Y
Regreening the desert with John D. Liu | VPRO Documentary | 2012
John Liu and Lawton change deserts to lush valleys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgDWbQtlKI
https://youtu.be/IDgDWbQtlKI
Check these talks and videos out as well.
This master gardener spent much time learning God’s principles of gardening in the Bible and learned how to live much more simply, much better and with much less stress.
www.filmsforaction.org/watch/back-to-eden-2011/
God gave more insights on some aspects of gardening through Ellen White. And they can produce over 5-10 times more vegetables and fruits than regular chemical farming methods can.
Planting by the Blueprint
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu8KrP6U9fw&t=26s
Planting by the Blueprint – 18min Sample
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1pNFOTFwqU&t=3s
More and more Adventist churches and others are starting church/community gardens as a ministry.
https://www.victoriaadventist.org/garden
http://www.cityofperris.org/news/2018/stories/08-30-18_seventh_day_adventist_garden.html
This church of Davis, Calif., created Grace Garden, where they grow vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers on 5/8 acre at the back of their campus. In 2012 over 1200 pounds of tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, green beans and cantaloupes were distributed to hungry people through their partnership with the Davis Korean Baptist Church’s Friday Harvest Food program. www.umcom.org/learn/draw-more-than-bees-with-a-community-garden
The Church Sponsored Garden, by Lynn Hoag (farm manager at Weimar) https://www.audioverse.org/english/sermons/recordings/15947/the-church-sponsored-garden.html
Why Every Church Should Plant a Garden:
https://arocha.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/GardenManual.pdf
A really insightful documentary, “The Economics of Happiness” that shows how localizing, buying and growing things locally, is a very incredible solution to many major world problems/challenges/crises is summarized on this page with links to the documentary and subtitles in several languages).
Scientists say most commercial food has lost ~20-90% of its nutrients due to soil having lost ~85% of its minerals, being transported an average of 1,000 miles, environmental damage from fuel and plastics (which break down into microplastics), days of travel from farm to table, etc. This contributes to ~13 million deaths around the world due to pollution every year (~1 million deaths due just to use of plastic) and more.
There are over a dozen major benefits from buying food from local farms and gardens with healthy soil. These are just some:
• Much better nutrition for health and brain. Chemicals/pesticides like glyphosate, “2,4-D” and dicamba are sprayed on many crops and are in up to 90% of foods in corporate supermarkets. They get inside plants, can’t be washed off before eating and nutrients in many foods are lowered. Scientific evidence shows they can lead to cancer and many other health issues. Thus, food writer Mark Bittman has argued that…“much of what is produced by industrial agriculture is, quite literally, not food but poison.” Science also shows that growing food naturally [esp. like God instructed], not disrupting the natural food web with chemicals and destructive machines, but instead using the trillions of beneficial microorganisms, can do much to fix these problems. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/long-live-microbiomes/
https://www.ecofarmingdaily.com/build-soil/soil-restoration-5-core-principles/
• Other reports show that “The level of nutrients in almost every kind of food has fallen between 10 and 100 percent in the past 70 years. [You] would need to consume…three times as much fruit, and four to five times as many vegetables to obtain the same amount of minerals and trace elements available in those same foods in 1940.”
https://www.ecofarmingdaily.com/build-soil/soil-restoration-5-core-principles/
• improves witnessing opportunities, creates ~10x more conversations between people in markets.
• Helps protect the environment (since most food at corporations uses a lot of plastic packaging and gas to get it to you).
• Reduces injustice. Buying or growing local also can prevent much injustice and exploitation done to farm workers worldwide. Please at least watch this 15 minute expose by former war correspondent/journalist and current pastor Chris Hedges on “What Greed Has Done” (esp. ~8:30+ on how many agricultural workers are exploited).
Research from the Christian aid organization Oxfam shows that agricultural workers often only get ~1-10% of the profit from crops, many miss meals and many are subjected to abuse and harmful/dangerous working conditions. 1
1Willoughby, Robin and Tim Gore. “Ripe for change: Ending human suffering in supermarket supply chains.” June 21, 2018. https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/ripe-change. (see a short summary here: https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2018-06-21/poverty-and-inequality-major-ingredients-supermarket-supply.)
• Reduces damaged/ruined families due to people having to drive for days to deliver food to corporate markets.
• makes you smarter!, improves science understanding, test scores, learning (Mycobacterium Vaccae – found in the soil helps thinking). A person can earn ~$42,000 in their career life long for every A they earn in university according to scientists***
• improves emotional and mental health, reduces depression, lowers stress and anxiety
• improves lung health, boosts the immune system, fights cancer, strengthens the digestive system
• treats arthritis, reduces allergies
• improves self-confidence, self-esteem, patience, persevering
https://lifecentre.health/a-thinking-generation-notes-photos/
• Various crises come into people’ s lives every few years and economic crashes hit countries every 10 years or so according to research. When families, churches and schools have gardens grown God’s way, this can be a very valuable solution to crises. It’s one that even universities like Yale are using…and Christians have been told about in the Bible and SDAs were given wisdom on this long ago from God as well. See this link for more research on the crises and solutions.
http://blog.truth-is-life.org/real-independence/crises-solutions/
One very insightful documentary on the serious problems globalization is causing and how localization/gardening solves them with some highlights and other links is here:
http://blog.truth-is-life.org/docu/econ/economics-of-happiness/
Healthy food with all necessary minerals in it is an incredibly valuable choice to make for families now and future generations.
You can also save and/or make quite a bit of money doing so . Many people are earning/making hundreds or thousands of dollars a month from growing food locally and you can too. Some people are growing gardens on less than 1/2 an acre and making up to $100,000 a year doing so. At the very least you can greatly reduce the ~$400 dollars a month that most families spend on food, and if you make good connections in the local area, with neighbors, etc. it can become quite profitable too…and avoid all the numerous harmful effects of commercial food that has lost most of its nutrients.
RESEARCH
Here is a little longer overview of some of the research and why buying, growing and eating food with healthy minerals/soils, is very important. More research and links to various pages will be coming in time. But start with this.
1) HEALTHY FOOD REDUCES DISEASES
Various scientists have said that the soil in America has been depleted of natural minerals by an average of 85% over the past 100 years, worse than any country in the world. A number of scientists have said that almost all health problems to lack of mineral in food.
“You can trace every sickness, every disease, and every ailment to a mineral deficiency.” Dr. Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel prize winner.
“The lack of minerals is the root of all disease.” Dr. Gary Price Todd https://www.ag-usa.net/organicseaminerals.php
“Dr. Maynard Murray…injected carcinogens into 400 white lab mice. 200 got cancer, and 200 didn’t. What made the difference? The 200 that didn’t get cancer were fed a diet grown with sea minerals. Dr. Murray did numerous other animal experiments where he fed them crops grown with sea minerals. Rats didn’t get eye disease (the control group did) Rabbits didn’t get hyper tension (the control group did)…”
https://ag-usa.net/oceantrace.php
So it’s very important to buy healthy food with lots of minerals in it. Eating many colorful foods is another very good way to improve your diet and health.
2) HEALTHY FOOD MAKES BETTER BRAIN FUNCTION
Eating food from healthy plants with all their minerals is especially important because our brains use more oxygen than almost any other organ. Pollution has also been shown to reduce brain intelligence, grades and function quite a lot unfortunately. These are a few studies on that.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/08/air-pollution-is-damaging-your-brain-concludes-new-study
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/27/air-pollution-causes-huge-reduction-in-intelligence-study-reveals
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/27/health/air-pollution-cognitive-abilities-intl/index.html
https://futurism.com/air-pollution-massive-impact-early-brain-development.
I am about to publish a book of ~20 habits that help students get score 10-50%+ higher grades (depending on what their current grade is). And that means a lot better financial stability. Research shows that:
“a college grad will earn nearly $600 for every lecture they attended, about $25,000 for every C or D, and about $42,000 for every A or B.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-college-impacts-earning-potential-2014-10
“for a one-point increase in a person’s high school GPA, average annual earnings in adulthood increased by about 12 percent for men and about 14 percent for women..”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/05/20/heres-how-much-your-high-school-grades-predict-how-much-you-make-today/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8a249b2ab639
Scientists have found that just eating a health breakfast with fruits and grains can increase grades ~25% (for kids), ~10% or so for college students. Just drinking water a few minutes before a test can increase grades ~5%. Going to church weekly increases grades 14.4%. There are ~20 habits like this.
3) COMMERCIAL FOOD HAS LOST ~20-50% OF ITS NUTRITION
“The commercially grown vegetables, fruits, and grains that we are eating today have significantly lower nutritional content than these foods had 100 years ago, or even just 30 years ago. We now have solid, scientific evidence of this troubling trend. For example:
**In wheat and barley, protein concentrations declined by 30 to 50 percent between the years 1938 and 1990.
**Likewise, a study of 45 corn varieties developed from 1920 to 2001, grown side by side, found that the concentrations of protein, oil, and three amino acids have all declined in the newer varieties.
**Six minerals have declined by 22 to 39 percent in 14 widely grown wheat varieties developed over the past 100 years.
**Official U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrient data shows that the calcium content of broccoli averaged 12.9 milligrams per gram of dry weight in 1950, but only 4.4 mg/g dry weight in 2003.
All of this evidence has been assembled and rigorously reviewed by Dr. Donald R. Davis, a now (mostly) retired chemist from the University of Texas.”
https://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/nutritional-content-zmaz09jjzraw
Harvard Medical School Center for Health and the Global Environment, total vitamin C has been shown to be higher when the tomato is picked ripe from the vine….The Center for Health and the Global Environment recommends choosing produce that is as fresh as possible.
https://www.livestrong.com/article/447449-how-do-fruits-and-vegetables-lose-their-nutrients-after-picking/
Dr. Axe says,
“Most food has a fraction of the nutrition density that it used to have, and with each generation of produce, the soil is becoming more depleted and nutrient deficient. ..The big agricultural companies sustain their businesses by harvesting early before the produce has really received all the possible nutrients from the soil.”
https://draxe.com/top-5-skin-cancer-symptoms-natural-treatments/
Another site reports this:
“According to US senate document No. 264 and the 1992 Earth Summit report, the mineral values in farm and range soils have declined 85% in North America, 76% in South America, 74% in Africa, 72% in Europe, 76% in Asia and 55% in Australia over the past 100 years…Commercializing the growth of our food supply, so that 98% of the men in this country could do something else other than grow their families food, is possibly the greatest blunder of human existence.”https://www.littlelightstudios.tv/whats-the-condition-of-your-soil/
“Because of soil depletion, crops grown decades ago were much richer in vitamins and minerals than the varieties most of us get today. A Kushi Institute analysis of nutrient data from 1975 to 1997 found that average calcium levels in 12 fresh vegetables dropped 27 percent; iron levels 37 percent; vitamin A levels 21 percent, and vitamin C levels 30 percent.
Yet another study concluded that one would have to eat eight oranges today to derive the same amount of Vitamin A as our grandparents would have gotten from one…The key to healthier produce is healthier soil.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/
See also:
https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/sustainag/news/articles/V16-Watters-BenefitsLocalFood.pdf
“In 2004, Donald Davis, PhD, a former researcher with the Biochemical Institute at the University of Texas, Austin, led a team that analyzed 43 fruits and vegetables from 1950 to 1999 and reported reductions in vitamins, minerals, and protein. Using USDA data, he found that broccoli, for example, had 130 mg of calcium in 1950. Today, that number is only 48 mg.”…
Alyson Mitchell, PhD, a professor of nutrition science at the University of California, Davis, did a 10-year study, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry and showed that organic tomatoes can have as much as 30 percent more phytochemicals than conventional ones.
Nutritional Value of Fruits and Veggies is Dwindling
www.nbcnews.com/id/37396355/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/nutritional-value-fruits-veggies-dwindling/#.XG3NYZNKhPY
4) POLLUTION KILLS ~12 MILLION PEOPLE PER YEAR OVERALL
(and commercial farming is one big cause)
Ocean and Industrial factory smoke from smokestacks
Another reason to grow/buy local is that pollution is now the 3rd biggest killer in the world (after poverty and bad health habits), killing 12 million a year (1.8 million in China alone, another 2.5 million in India). But it also seems to be causing a major nutrient collapse. According to scientists working in Korea the higher CO2 levels are causing major reductions in nutrients in foods we buy.
“Across nearly 130 varieties of plants and more than 15,000 samples collected from experiments over the past three decades, the overall concentration of minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc and iron had dropped by 8 percent on average. The ratio of carbohydrates to minerals was going up. The plants, like the algae, were becoming junk food.” [2]
[2] The great nutrient collapse–The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention.
www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511
5) PLASTIC POLLUTION KILLS UP TO
1 MILLION PEOPLE OVERALL EVERY YEAR
A report on the impact of plastic pollution, one of the first to document the impact of discarded plastic on the health of the poorest people in the world, estimates that between 400,000 and one million people die every year because of diseases and accidents linked to poorly managed waste in developing countries
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/plastics-killing-million-people-year-warns-sir-david-attenborough/ https://learn.tearfund.org/~/media/files/tilz/circular_economy/2019-tearfund-consortium-no-time-to-waste-en.pdf?la=en
https://learn.tearfund.org/en/resources/publications/footsteps/footsteps_101-110/footsteps_107/the_problem_with_plastic/
MORE REFERENCES
See also these links for more facts on the importance of minerals on food.
!! https://ag-usa.net/oceantrace.php
This is a long interview with a specialist on some of these issues, Dr. Christine Jones. But it’s quite good.
https://www.ag-usa.net/DrChristineAcresInterviewAbbre.php