Food is something we all need to survive, and it’s a frequent topic of conversation at the moment. I know many who have never planted a garden but have started one this year, and yet others have gone back to gardening after years without. You’ll all remember my earlier blogs about planting a garden, which I’ve done, and this year, I have quite a bounty. I also know many local small farms where I can go to pick up extra, such as cases of organic unsprayed tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce, salsa, and ketchup (yes, I really make my own). I’ve canned diced tomatoes, small pickling cucumbers, beets, and everything else I grow, including relishes, apple sauce, turnips, jams, beans, soups, and meats, just to name a few. Sure, I freeze some, but I can a lot more than I freeze. One thing to note is that everything I’m canning is free of chemical pesticides, which are basically a poison you’re eating. You all know this, right?
Now, to be clear, when my children were young, before my daughter was born, I started seeing a naturopathic doctor because of the agony my autistic son was in from his stomach. His behavior and screaming were off the charts. Let’s face it: The mainstream medical system completely failed him. It was only then that I started doing my own research and learned that the cabal of doctors trained by big pharma have no education on what keeps you healthy. The food you eat, the chemicals you put in and on your body, and the water you drink are all laced with who knows what. Then there’s the ongoing push to have people taking endless pharmaceuticals, all the while watching their health go down the toilet.
But back to food. One of the things I learned was about buying local—and not just local but fresh, from small farmers who aren’t mass producing and are not using chemical fertilizers and sprays. I buy only from organic small farms, and I get to know these people. I buy direct because nutrition, believe it or not, actually comes from fresh food. As for milk and cheese, yup, I buy local unprocessed.
Now, having said that, I grew up during what I like to call the chemical revolution. I remember refined white sugar-coated cereals such as Cap’n Crunch and cornflakes, Nestlé powdered chocolate milk, Pop-Tarts, Campbell’s canned soups, pasteurized homogenized milk, which is basically a poison, Wonder Bread, which is plastic, Tang, Jell-O, packaged storebought cookies, Oreos, Kraft Dinner, margarine, Cheez Whiz, and American cheese (cheese slices), which everyone knows isn’t cheese, right? We microwaved everything, and I never understood why I was always at the doctor, always had the flu, some ear infection, a sore throat, brain fog, headaches too often, and stomach aches. Basically, I didn’t understand as a kid what being super healthy felt like.
Both my parents had grown up in farm communities but moved to the big city, and they became, as I like to say, citified. My mother came from a large family who grew all their own food, and my grandmother canned everything—and I mean everything. They had a cow for milk and butter, and chickens and pigs, and they slaughtered their own meat. But not one of them stayed on the farm. I know my mother hated the fact that the butter Grandma made wasn’t bright yellow like the storebought stuff, but that’s coloring, again a poison. My mother bought pounds and pounds of white sugar for us when we were growing up because they hadn’t had that on the farm. It seems a generation in my family revolted against small farming and buying anything homemade. In fact, my mother was once horrified that I would consider making something with my two hands as a Christmas gift for someone while growing up, as that was all she and her siblings had had.
I did not grow up in a house where my mother canned. Everything was bought from the big-city grocery store, and no one understood how important nutrition was. No one would ever have thought to read the labels on what they were buying. I do remember once that my father insisted we have a de-wormer, or some form of it, but that happened only a few times before I was six and then never again. I’ve been told that on the farm, before the chemical revolution, families used to do that because they understood that we all get worms and parasites. And what do parasites thrive in now? Processed foods such as white sugar, white flour, and fast foods, which make you sick.
But back to canning and preserves. I learned the process from my grandmother, and I started canning when my kids were small. I learned all about food, the chemicals in everything, and I took our health back. I buy local, and all my meat comes from small organic farms. I do not eat storebought processed meat or meat from large feedlots. I buy any extra produce I need from small farms, which, again, grow only organic produce without spraying the crap out of everything. I know what’s in my cans, with no chemical additives. I never use refined white sugar or artificial sweeteners, and if I do buy something in the grocery store, I aways read the label. Having said that, we do go out to restaurants, though I’m well aware that what I’m eating there isn’t going to be organic or healthy, and at times I feel it.
If I can leave you with one thing, the next time you buy a block of cheese, turn the package over and read the ingredients. Anyone know what a “modified milk ingredient” is? Well, it’s not milk.
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The Sacrifice
Chief Mark Friessen is about to be a family man, with a baby on the way. However, he faces a choice: Either he breaks his word to his wife by taking on a job that will put him in danger, or he stays silent, which would haunt him forever.
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