Interesting conversation y'all were having and I wish that you would keep going...the topic of healthy (living) soil is vital...and it's best that I lurk rather than rant...however...
Missionaries certainly have created a lot of problems, but I see the 21st Century new religion of 'Science' as one of the most frightening problems today.
'They' did a study...
The doctor said...
Don't get me wrong, I am all for an appeal to the authority granted to both doctors and science, (and doctors backed by science) but the new religion of 'Science' has all but killed science.
Many of the best scientists of our generation are working as marketing mercenaries with closed datasets (proprietary). Here is but one example:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/RiceIs...
'Science' is agenda and profit driven. Predetermined conclusions are purchased; contrary conclusions are squelched. The Holy Wars are factions of 'Science' vs. 'Science' and today's evangelists are PR firms, marketing/sales personnel, lobbyists, activists, government officials, educators, journalists -in short, anyone with a political, economic and/or emotional dog in the fight.
In order to interpret anything one must identify the source of funding and then discern the economic and political outcomes or agendas of those providing the funding. Or, to predict what the 'Science' will say, just look who wrote the check.
The formerly common wisdom--
healthy soil > healthy plants > healthy herbivores and omnivores and carnivores aka you are what you eat
--is greatly suppressed by 'Science' funded to support the economies of scale currently controlling the vast majority of our food supply as well as the profitable treatments--not cures--for what ails us. Lots of scary stuff going on there, but that's fodder for another conversation. Likewise, the biofertility and probiotics industries will gladly tout the benefits of and profit from the sale of microorganisms to assist the intensive management of golf course turf, corn/soy rotations, or GI malfunctions, etc.
And it's like, duh,
Hazelnut said
...grow your own by setting up the right conditions ...Its not something you can buy in the store.
Rick said
...something like ten times as many microbial species living in soil than microbiologists can get to live in lab conditions... And they do it without scientific journals and planning meetings and budgets. I think soil is smarter than everybody!
On some level, this science is easy. Do your own experiment. (I wish everyone could and would) Cultivate and maintain some living soil, grow your own food, buy some from the store, blindfold yourself, and compare. Pay attention to everything--it's not just 'taste' nor can it be simply revealed in a chemical analysis (bioactive molecular isomers of significance don't show up there, for example). Grow more, keep eating it, you won't need the blindfold. How do you feel when you eat the food that you produced compared to many of the conventional Ag products...??? I'm fairly confident of the results...and I didn't even have to crack my checkbook.
Do we really need 'Science' to tell us what we already *know*, to prove and explain replicable results refuting equivalence before we can accept them?
Must we comprehend a treatise examining the forces of gravity and distortions in space-time to keep from jumping off cliffs?
Did anybody really think it was sound science or even a good idea to feed rendered ruminants back to ruminants...after all, we're only feeding the rumen microbes anyway... and is anyone really surprised this didn't work out very well? Currently, many of the scientifically formulated rations for rumen microbes still leave a lot to be desired--in terms of what the animals would eat given a choice (cutting edge technology or cutting corners in response to feed shortages and higher prices?).
In the big picture, our future is rife with many more opportunities for reckoning vis-à-vis Food 'Science'.
What is going to happen with so many genetic-genies let out of the bottle and the chemical war against superweeds and superbugs and the pharmacological manipulation of darn near everything else? I don't know.
But if ever there was a time to nurture that which sustains us, it might as well be now.
Please, don't report me to the thought police--
I am grateful for the grocery stores, the variety of food in them, as well as the sincere dedication of many of us to put it there and export it all over the world.
