Subject: Re: food waste

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 1 Nov 1997 11:25:45 -0500 (EST)

In a message dated 11/1/97 9:41:29 AM, [email-masked] wrote:

>I always had doubts about bringing into my orchard supermarkets waste
because
>I don't know how significant can be the effect of pesticides, transgenic
seeds,
>etc, that I could be introducing into my soil. I would be thankful for
>information.
>
>Nora

Hi Nora:

Well there are two schools of thought.  The pureist organic people do not
regard animals raised in this manner as organic.  I can go along with that.  

However there is the thought that this waste needs to be returned to proper
cycles.  Rather than feed rats at a dump, we feed animals that we can then
eat.  The animals are not perfectly organic and if someone has extreme
sensitivity to any contaminant, as many people unfortunately do nowadays,
s/he might want to avoid meat, eggs, etc. produced in this way.  However the
requirements limiting the amount of toxins in food for people are probably
more strict than those limiting contaminants in food for livestock.  

In my view, it is unquestionably more environmentally sound to use the food
that would be wasted.  I also don't eat only in organic restaurants or buy
only organic food when I buy groceries, though I tend to support organic
growers when the choice is there.  I also do not buy organic grain for my
chickens--nobody could afford the eggs if I paid that premium.  Since the
animals I'm talking about are all raised on range and all get food from an
unsprayed environment as well as the concentrates and leafy matter from
wasted food, I expect that the meat and eggs are a lot cleaner.  I do not
spray their environment for flies (that's what chickens are fore, in part, to
control flies) and I don't put disinfectants in the water.  When I would get
a new batch of chicks, maybe 5 percent would drop dead of some disease or
other and the remainder seemed to go on and on and on.  

I have a friend in Hawaii who brings in every kind of mineral and rock powder
from all over the world to raise food as wholesome and pure as anyone can
imagine.  He is at the other end of the spectrum.  I certainly appreciate his
food.  However he is ripping off other ecosystems without regard or
significant concern or any particular consideration to get what he needs for
his pure organic produce.  He is aware of this choice, of course, but this is
the path he feels called to follow.  That's another way to go.

Personally, I'm happy to get all the supermarket, restaurant, and school
lunch wastes I can get and return these nutrients to their proper cycles.  I
also make damn sure that I bring in at least as many nutrients as I export as
eggs, meat and vegetables for sale.  Either I rip off other ecosystems to get
their nutrients or I take nutrients from waste streams where they would
otherwise do no good, except, as I mentioned, to rats.  It seems to me that
it is important to have food that is ultra-pure for people who require it and
it is also important to have food that is enviornmentally sound for those of
us who see that as a paramount concern.  If a farmer causes, say, typically
20 tons of erosion per acre with tillage practices and half the results are
wasted, that is awful.  If by absorbing the waste, we eliminate the need for
some of that kind of farming, that is better.  Perfect doesn't exist, except
as a fanciful notion without a corresponding reality.

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since
1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and now correspondence
courses via email.  Next live training:  Paraguay, Sept. 1998. Internships
available. Copyright, 1997, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52, Sparr FL
32192 USA  [email-masked]  

We don't have time to rush.