Check and balance

Organic farms, biodynamic farms, conventional farms, they are all the same!

Overworked farmers and farm hands, full of diesel guzzling tractors and machineries all aiming to increase crop and livestock yield, so that they can feed this ever growing and very demanding world. And in parts of developed society you have groups of people using their strength and energy perform activities like crossfit, or running on a treadmill in an air conditioned gym when they could be contributing their strength to pulling a plough, hoeing the land or simply weeding.

Sometimes this warped and misguided part of society just do not deserve the food they eat to just expend it on something mindless like this. Where is the balance?? Where are the checks and measures.

Oh wait, we do have one very bias measure: money

The farmers are tired, the people working on the farms are worn out, the machineries keep breaking down and the animals looks lost. Maybe it's just today, or maybe it's the weather, winter is setting in and now comes the time for self reflection and thinking, and so I conclude with this:

If everyone takes charge of growing their own food, and manage their calorie intake in accordance to energy expended on food production perhaps achieving a close looped system, the world may yet become a more balanced one, and you will get fit in the process of doing it ;-)

Products Of Mother Earth

Interesting fact I learnt this week.

'We're all connected' humans, plants and animals, just look at the chemical makeup of hemoglobin and chlorophyll, the structure of the cells are the same, the only diffrence comes from the core of iron and magnesium.

If you put chlorophyll under UV light it will give off a red glow and vice versa for blood.

Uncanny isn't it.

Think about this when you drink your next glass of milk

We go by everyday consuming food not being aware of what it takes to produce that piece of cheese or that glass of milk. What goes on in a dairy industry is away from many peoples general awareness, it's a ugly ugly industry and dairy farms are generally a very depressing place to be.

I spent the last 3 days working on an organic dairy farm, 200 cows cross bred between the holstein and freesia, this create a breed that is able to produce up to 7000 liters of milk a year from one cow! These cows are not the work of nature but a manipulation of humans growing demand for milk and milk related products, and the ultimate victims are the cows themselves. Most cows have lots of trouble carrying their huge udders around something whic was bred into them, they're more prone to injury due to the disproportionate body frames, many sprained ankles, tumor on legs and broken backs. They don't lead a particularly good life being forced through the milk production line twice a day they hardly ever get time out at the fields. The calves spend their first 4 days with the mother and are weaned off, this cause great stress for both calf and mother. The cows kept in a concrete floored barn literally swim in their own piss and poo.

I'm depressed, and very saddened by this whole experience, but very glad I was able to see and work for a couple of days in this dairy farm. If I do consider to continue drinking milk in the future I will be more aware of where my milk comes from before buying, but i'm leaning towards dropping dairy from my diet altogether.