Green potatoes

[Todd]

Hi Drew,

Excellent point. You are entirely correct.

I say let the market dictate what we buy. We vote with our dollar for who we want to succeed.

As more and more of us get Diabetes, the demand will shift. Your odds are now one out of six you will get diabetes -- perhaps one out of three in the near future.

Also, the diet industry has discovered that carbs are what makes you fat. (You piss and blow out excess keytones [fat]. They are use or lose.)

So, the market will eventually do its magic. There will be a lot of kicking and screaming though.

"Healthy carbs", my ass. You should see the crap those scoundrel's at the American Diabetes Association wants you to eat -- you'd be diabetic forever!

Carbs are so addictive that I know of one diabetic man who killed himself rather than stop eating them. He was eventually crippled to the point were his wife had to give him his insulin injections.

I know of another man who has lost both his legs, both his kidneys (he is on the transplant list), has had a major heart attack, is on oxygen, and who know what else. He won't stop eating carbs.

Amaranth is still a grain by the way. Feed all the the grain producing plants (the whole plant) to cows. I will eat the cows.

I vote for good tasting produce and meat.

As long as freedom is allowed to prevail, the market will provide what we demand. I see both being around for a very long time. If you are in the five out of six that won't get diabetes, then by all means, have fun.

-T

[Todd]

You are still missing what I said. Were the land won't support other things, grow grass for livestock. I thought I was pretty clear on that point. Don't use the good farm land for livestock!

Where are you getting that I want people to starve? I don't want anyone to starve! This is one of those arguments where the news reporter asks, "So, when was the last time you beat your wife?"

By the way, I think sustainable crops produce higher yields on the same real estate. Meaning more food. (Tastes better too.) And, if argibusiness is not careful, all that land they are currently using right now will go dead and not be able to produce anything.

By the way, sustainable farmers take that burned out land (soil) and nurture it back to health. It takes years. Songbird can probably fill you in on the details. In the mean time, the land is not producing.

So, you are in favor of burning out all our soil? Why is it again that you want people to starve? (Just pointing out the fallacy of your argument. I know you don't.)

My suggestion is that we cut back on the things that cause T2 Diabetes and substitute them with safer things.

The things I eat work fine. Do you need a list? You will find them at any grocery store's produce section. Some you have to go to specialty stores, like Mexican Supermarkets.

I think we need to deliberately try to hybridize towards fat and away from carbs. In the mean time, you can grow all kinds of other things on land that wheat grows on. Let a free and open market dictate what.

In the Philippines, where they are not fat, exercise A LOT, eat rice, and consequently have a T2 Diabetes problem, they are trying to transition to a special type of corn.

By the way, I asked, and that variety of corn is not available in the United States.

And, I am not trying to rip that piece of pizza out of your mouth. I am trying to keep your feet from falling off. T2 Diabetes will come under control when we get the carbs back to a natural level.

-T

[Drew Lawson]

Sure, a list would be great. List the foods that will take the place of grain in the global food system. Remember that grain is essentially non-perishable. It can be shipped on slow-moving ships, and handle long, unrefrigerated, transit to where the people are.

If you can't do that, then people will starve.

What are these "all kinds" of food? They need to grow in the same climates as grain, and handle the same soil types and water requirements. They also need to produce on average the same calories/acre as grain. Otherwise, you cannot meet the current food demand, and people will starve.

The market does not decide what will grow where.

That article says nothing about "a special type of corn," unless you consider white corn to be special. The article is about switching from rice to corn.

Asked who? Which variety?

[Todd]

Off the top of my head: tomatoes (love the heirlooms), avocados, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, broccoli, pruslane, summer squash (zukes), eggplant, jicama, nopalas, peppers (all kinds), blueberries, raspberries, boysenberries (if I can find them), lemons, onions, garlic, shallots. Probably more.

I am trying to grow tomantillos. (I probably misspelled half of the above.)

Hi Drew,

Googling that is like googling the word "it". Tons of hits on how to grow wheat, including in your own back yard. Not to waste too much time on it, I found various links. They are not real good, so I wouldn't spend too much time on them, if at all:

I am sure there are a lot of others hidden under how to grow wheat, whose hits are in the hundreds.

We grow onions for seed out here and are starting to grow garlic. Not sure if it is for seed. You could easily use that land for something else. Wonderful smell when you drive by those fields. They could grow wheat too, but then they'd probably go broke.

Let the market decide what is grown. Wheat allergies are becoming more of a pain in the ass for a lot of people, not just celiacs. And they are finding it is not only the glutin, but wheat in general.

Have you ever heard of crop rotation? If only wheat could grow on that land, how would you rotate? I mainly base my opinion on just looking over the fruited plains. All kinds of stuff mixed in with the wheat. Also, sustainable farmers take these burned out wheat fields and grow lots of other stuff on them.

You grow what you can sell. So, I have to disagree to an extent. There are obvious limitations of what you can grow where. But very few soils can only grow one thing. There is no such thing as soil that can only grow wheat.

I researched it months ago. I came up with the type of corn they wanted to switch to and called a few seed companies. I think Burpee was one, but I don't recall. Talked to some very nice people. Sorry for the lack of information. If you are interesting in growing the stuff, I am sure you could probably figure it out too.

Burpee's sweet corns taste like candy they are so sweet. I mean the ones I grew years ago were so, so sweet! I think most of Burpee's emphasis is on those varieties (Diabetes be damned).

-T

[Dan.Espen]

Uh, no.

It's not just David and Fran. I wonder how you can type and keep your bottom in the chair.

All that hand waving should have you airborne.

[Todd]

Two words: BUNJI CORDS!

Tried duct tape, but it is too hard to remove.

:-)

[Todd]

Ooops. Sorry David. Honest mistake. No offense intended. (Calling someone a "Californian" around these part is considered somewhat of an insult.)

-T

[Drew Lawson]

Glad to have the confirmation that you are a performance art performer. I was puzzled at how you could be so dense.

[Drew Lawson]

Thank you for at least admitting that you do not know anything.

If you need google, then you are just talking out your ass.

You have an interesting tendency to post links to one or two sites, and nothing else. Sounds like a "cult of personality" more with each iteration.

You have been asked what else to grow.

You avoid answering.

And yet, you cannot come up with a name to report.

You, sir (if I have the gender correct) are a liar.

Again, it is entertaining that an anti-GMO "person" would be dealing with Burpee.

I am, or was, interested in whether your claims were pulled out of your ass.

You have confirmed that they were.

David was correct. You aren't worth the bits to send replies.

I had hoped you had details, rather than being a windbag with assertions (and conspiracies) but no substance.

Much like the political party that I disagree with -- I keep hoping for a gadfly with substantial claims, to keep my side in-line. But all I ever get is hand-waving and vacuous claims -- just like you.

[Todd]

Did I call you any names? Manners.

[Fran Farmer]

A more idiotic response to what David wrote is hard to imagine.

[Fran Farmer]

:-)) Indeed. He never gets it or seemingly even tries.

His standard response is that it's our fault not his, just as his T2 diabetes is because of a conspiracy that made him and others eat carbs and he had no responsibility at all for what he put in his mouth over a lifetime of eating. I beginning to think that a plonk would be the best solution.

[Fran Farmer]

I too am not a fan of agribusiness as it supplies the big supermarkets and I don't think that many gardeners who grow vegetables for their own consumption would be.

I note your mention of WWII - I keep wondering why it is that there would be any need for anyone to 'go Paleo' given the history of food production and when populations in the first world were doing well due to access to good food but still had not seen the leap in numbers of those afflicted with the modern lifestyle diseases that are so abundant these days.

I've been debating whith myself whether that would date to between the wars of earlier. I suspect the timing would vary a bit according to which nation was under discussion because I know that WWII and it's rationing lead to better health amongst the general population. There's some interesting stuff on that around the web - or was last time I looked..

[David Hare-Scott]

Part of the problem with zealots is there are no nuances, no details, no shading, no compromises. You are either with them entirely or agin 'em.

I don't think that a food system based on broad acre farming with big inputs from fertiliser derived from fossil fuel is ideal in the long run either. However, the idea of quitting grains altogether for ideological reasons is mad.

The biggest danger to this world is not diet, climate-change, starvation, asteroid-strike, Murdock or Godlessness. Its Toddthink.

David

[Drew Lawson]

I'll let those older than me do the stronger comparisons of current lifestyles with those in the '40s. But even comparing with the '60s, when there were already grumblings about sedentary lifestyles, is pretty signifigant.

My memories of the late '60s, in US small cities and suburbs, have far more people walking. Households often only had a single car, and days were run accordngly. There was very little shuttling kids here and there. Kids walked or rode their bikes.

And other details that seem minor probably had a lot of effect. I don't recall elevators much, except in the taller or fancier buildings. Anything 2 story just had stairs.

The first shopping mall I dealt with was in 1973. Freshly opened, there was one escalator, and several sets of stairs. The only stairs in my local mall now are more for show than anything else. (They frame a central atrium.)

In my view, a lot of the trend toward obesity came in very small steps like those. That along with more convenience. I can park close to things now, so I walk less. Etc.

And, of course, cheaper bulk food helped drive our personal bulk.

The reason I referenced WW2 is that it seems to be a standard turning point, at least for US agriculture. All of the industrial build up and advancement of the war got turned to post-war use. We took improvements for tanks and made bigger tractors. The oil demand of the war drove expanding the supply, and an eventual outcome was expansion of the petrochemical industry.

I probably have some of that wrong, but that's my general impression.

[Todd]

Has a nice ring to it.

[Todd]

I was following what the special interests said. Whole grains, healthy carbs, low fat. Did a bunch of walking. Carbs good; fat bad. I thought I was doing what I was suppose to do.

I now know, except for the walking part, that it was total B*** S***. My "fault" was whom I chose to believe.

And apparently you will have to get injured yourself before you stop with the fat bigotry. Fat and lazy. That would explain all the skinny, active folks who also get injured. Also explains the third world, where they eat far less and move far more. Yup. Fat and Lazy. Nothing to do with carbs. Absolutely NOTHING! Fat and Lazy.

Excess carbs in are like the "elephant in the living room" no one wants acknowledge.

And I said "corruption" not "conspiracy".

"Healthy carbs" my ass.

[David Hare-Scott]

I think you are on the right track. One of the turning points in Oz was after WW2 when cars became cheap enough for nearly every family to own one. People stopped walking and riding bikes. Kids used to be so proud when they got their first bike now they wait for the car. If I went to visit my cousins as a boy (say 1960) during school holidays we were not allowed in the house during the day unless it was raining. We were expected to go out and run about, play a ball sport, build a fortress, explore the neighbourhood, ride billycarts. Then such a rule was not exceptional but reasonable common sense, try imposing that rule today.

D

[Higgs Boson]

We were so poor we never HAD a car. Once in a while the neighbors took us somewhere. I get every form of motion sickness.(Even got it while hang-gli ding in tandem with instructor. He said we're going down and I said NO NO NO He said "I've been thrown up on before and it's not going to happen aga in." Holy tamale; I was just a tad queasy!!!)

Anyway, I often disgraced myself; didn't always get to the window of neighb or's car in time...

Back to playtime: We also went out to play and came home when it got dark. Nobody worried about kidnapping or molesters back then. Maybe they exist ed, but we never heard about them.

Sigh!

HB

[Fran Farmer]

Nope, not with increasingly limited resources. The way I see most people driving I wonder if they've ever heard of 'peak oil' and what the downstream consequences are stemmign form that.

And you too would be conscious of all those years of applications of Super.......

However, the idea of quitting grains altogether for ideological

:-)) Conspiracy and paranoia can be great fun if it's done in jest but when it's expounded in a serious way then, IMO, there should at least be some sane or reasoned basis for it.