FOOD PANTRY TYPE TIPS

TOMATO SOUP ADDED TO TOMATO SAUCE

One of the things you will get A LOT of from the Food Pantry is canned soup. And while you might not love tomato soup (you can combine it with vegetable soup and American cheese if you have those and it makes a great lunch), you CAN use it to give yourself MORE spaghetti sauce if you don't have a lot of sauce.

Try it.


ADD TO YOUR TUNAFISH SALAD

If you make tuna salad like we do, with a little onion and maybe celery, mayo, salt and pepper - try also adding chopped lettuce, carrot, and spinach. It will stretch the one can of tuna to many more sandwiches and nobody minds because all the veggies taste good!


USE ONION OR GARLIC BAGELS AS TOAST WITH SPAGHETTI


If you get more onion or garlic or dark bread or seeded bagels than you can possibly eat for breakfast, cut them into sandwich halves, butter and toast them and maybe augment with Romano or Parmesan cheese if you have it, shredded mozzarella, or just garlic salt.


AND THANKS TO THOSE OF YOU WITH GARDENS who donate your FRESH VEGGIES AND FRUITS, and canned jellies and sauces to the local food pantries. Pantries don't get much in the way of fresh - and you gardeners know how good it is to HAVE fresh. We who need pantries SALUTE YOU!


ONE LAST TIP - VITAMINS


If you must eat Food Pantry foods - you know they are HIT OR MISS in terms of truly nutritious stuff - so if you can afford it - GET A GOOD MULTI-VITAMIN as well as some extra Vitamin C and take them DAILY to help yourself with the sometimes not so nutritious pantry foods.

The Dirty Life - a book (seriously, it's not my title)

Sorry, it's been a while. Great book tip for you: "The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love" by Kristin Kimball, recently out, check your local library! Ms. Kimball makes growing local foods SEXUAL, intimately linked with her meeting her husband! and her appeal should be wide - she is a "back to the land" apprentice - representing all of us, that way, I think.

Be a city girl, wear the designer jeans, and get a sore crotch! hoe'ing (yes, I used the right one there) broccoli for a man you don't know. How can you resist a book that starts like this, and makes a case for good old-fashioned hard work and local, organically grown foods.

Ever heard of a CSA? (Community Supported Agriculture.) People sign up to come to your farm to pick up their fruits, veggies, meat, eggs, cheese, honey, maple syrup - whatever you can produce - for a fee, paid up front to the farmer! That is how Kristin and hubby Mark make their living!

Check out the book. And if you want to find CSA's in your area, or farmers' markets, so you can eat locally grown foods, Google, baby! They have websites - these are not your Grandfather's farms!

Lessons from Cuba

I had a real eye-opening last night, given to me by a friend's lecture on Cuba. For those of you who might be reading me Internationally, let me explain - Americans are not allowed to travel to Cuba. It's the only country in the world where we are not permitted to go, or in which we cannot spend money. This travel ban has been in place since 1961. The money ban, since the Reagan years. The idea is, if an American goes to Cuba, when they come back they get hassled by the police. They get fined. Some get arrested.

The United States has been blockading Cuba since the Kennedy years. This means we have boats in the water - RIGHT NOW - preventing all imports to Cuba (if there are materials that are allowed, I'd like to hear about what they are... please send comments). So the Cuban people have been driving 1940 Buicks and 1970 Russian-made cars and trucks for all of this time. I don't know how they get spare parts for them. I don't know why our Navy has to make sure they can't...

The people of Cuba have had a rough time of it, because of what HAS TO BE an illegal blockade (we're not at War with Cuba - why are we surrounding them with the Navy?). But they have managed to do remarkable things - with no help from us, and almost no help from anywhere else.

Here are some lessons we might learn from Cuba...

They have ration books for every man, woman, and child on the island. These are supposed to ensure that each person gets at least the basics to eat - every day. Even in the US we don't have anything like that. I'm not saying it's A LOT or always what they might CHOOSE, but it's something. For those of us going hungry in other countries and in the US, we know that something beats the crud out of NOTHING AT ALL.

Their workforce is comprised of 35% women - the women have unions to protect them - and they hold positions at EVERY LEVEL of work, from maid to CEO. Men there GAVE UP THEIR HIGH POSITIONS to women who were qualified in order to make sure this would get started! Imagine doing that HERE!!!

Most of their doctors are women. All areas, even the rural ones, have local doctors and free clinics.

There is a Medical School there - the Latin American Medical School - that educates doctors in Cuba, from all over the world! Their program runs 6 years, and the education is FREE. The deal is, when the doctors graduate and return to their countries, they are supposed to work in areas that are under-served, and they are supposed to promote public health-building and education. So in other words, when they go home, they're supposed to teach sexual health, nutritional health, basic exercise, and make people aware of vaccination information, vitamin information, etc.

Our doctors (in the US) wait for you to go to them. They don't do much for free (there ARE exceptions, God bless them!), and they don't promote and teach public health. I think if more people knew basically how their bodies worked, if they knew about right foods and right portions and right storage and right cooking, if they knew about good exercise and good sleeping habits, if they knew about their sexuality and how to handle all involved with it, like protection from disease, or how to stay healthy while pregnant - they would USE THIS INFORMATION. And our doctors would have less to worry about when they DO see us.

The Cubans can only eat the food they grow themselves. So they have "gone organic" - completely! That makes, say, weeding, labor-intensive! And they DEAL WITH IT! There are few to no pesticides and only natural fertilizers. That has got to mean that their soil is better, their ground water is better and their air is better. And that their foods are healthier. There has GOT to be a lesson in THAT!

You might be thinking, "well, Cuba is a mixed bag at best", because they are supposedly Communist. (They call themselves Socialists.) I am not saying I know everything about how they are getting stuff done. I am not saying that living there is Paradise - probably not. But they have a lot of really great ideas and they are implementing them. We don't have to take EVERY LESSON from them, but we can take what is best. A good idea is a good idea no matter where it comes from, right?

Personally, I think the Cuban people are very brave, very hard-working, and very forward-thinking. Who could not learn from people like that?

Fellow Landless Peasants!

Cities that feed themselves and their neighbors...

Hello Fellow Landless Peasants! So you want a garden too? I don't blame you. I used to garden on my parents' property, but I have never owned land. Hard to keep a Green Thumb with no Brown Dirt of your own.

Lots of apartment dwellers and low-income housing renters are in the same boat. You can't exactly go sticking a shovel in the landlord's lawn. But you still want the advantages of home-grown, fresh fruits and vegetables - they're cheaper, you can control what goes into them and on them, and they are near to hand and fresh off the vine. You can't get that at the local supermarket!

But what can you do? There are lots of places you are not thinking about, just outside, and also inside, your little place.

People put flowers in window boxes, which attach with small metal arms, over any window frame. Instead of flowers, why not strawberry vines? If you are on the first floor, why not use the top of the air conditioner? (I say first floor, because I don't want second floor dwellers openning the window to water the plants and have the air conditioner fall out onto someone's head!)

Along the tops of cabinets or dressers in every room - any place where there is sun exposure - you can put an old pickle jar with potting soil or even just water - and grow tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, eggplant, etc. How about on top of the fridge?

Weirdly, you might also try saving large plastic juice jugs (clear ones are best) - cut them in half to make start-up trays - or cut just the tops off to make potato or onion growing tubs. (These don't even need as much sun exposure as some other plants.) You can try carrots and turnips in these too.

Think about the kinds of vegetable or fruits you would like to have and think you can grow. Only you know what kind of space you have, window exposure, etc. and also what your family likes to eat. Make a plan accordingly. Seeds and even some starter plants are cheap, and if you have gardening friends, they can be FREE!

As a side note - when your plants really take off, and you get all that you need - think about donating the extra stuff to your neighbors, or to the local food pantry or soup kitchen! Don't let anything go to waste.

Let me know how you make out! All stories welcome!

Your Extra Garden Vegetables

Every Summer, at every party, in every office, they come. You know the ones I mean: THE GARDENERS. Those people either in your family or in your office that grow about 5 times the number of tomatoes any family might need, and then try to give them to you.

It becomes almost a joke. But instead, it could be really helpful. Tell these Green-Thumb Do-Gooders they're giving their produce to the wrong people!

Recently, I have found out what it's like to have to ASK FOR HELP - as in, I became too poor to be able to buy enough food for myself and my family. And it is an education, let me tell you! People tend to donate the off-brands, dented cans, dry goods they can't use. And they almost never give fresh fruits and vegetables.

I am asking you - if you garden, but you get more corn, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers than you can use, consider donating them to the local soup kitchen or food pantry. There, the people won't smile politely and then look at your gift like it's a third arm. The people at soup kitchens and food pantries won't consider it "extra"; they'll consider themselves really really LUCKY.

You know that for your own family, fresh fruits and vegetables are a NECESSITY for good health. Don't forget the people who can't quite make it this Season. They would like for their families to stay healthy too.

And wouldn't it be nice to know that your gardening effort really helped someone?

From those of us on the Chow Lines, thank you.

Canada, eh? Nosher of the North!

I wanted to put you all onto another Blogger that writes on our topics! I think he's very good - give him a shot.

The Ethicurean - http://www.ethicurean.com/

At the Ethicurean site - see Peter, the Nosher of the North! http://www.ethicurean.com/2007/01/28/winter-realities-in-montreal-canada/#comment-91216

Peter lives in the Montreal, Canada area and is currently experimenting with local cheeses! Check him out.

God bless the creative!

I just wanted to say thank you to my dear friends who have responded to my ramblings!
and have generously added their own! If once we START the discussion, who knows where
it may lead? Any and all information welcomed at any time... More when I have it!

And Mal, you evil man! Send the joke!

Alternative Work

I am throwing this out there at you half-baked, but come on folks, I can't do ALL the thinking!

I have been looking at the idea of Alternative Work, as in, something different from what we have now.

This all started for me with the idea that Factory Work as done by Machines was supposed to give the Average Joe or Jane more "leisure time" and spare them the drudgery of boring, repetitive work, save them from the injury of dangerous or toxic work (like coal mining, just as one example), and even heavy physical labor.

Machines REPLACED us, alright, but that created unskilled unemployment instead of leisure time - for two reasons. It did not lend itself to "re-distribution of wealth" (owners did not re-invest saved labor costs into the neighborhoods, etc.) and we did not invent Next Level Work or Alternative Work.

Please understand me - I am not saying Machines are "bad" or that technology is to blame. Getting human beings out of the worst types of labor was/is a GOOD THING. But the Ethics of Ownership did not change, and the idea of WORK did not change. Ripping the machines out and going back to more manual forms of the same old labor will not work - and really, no one would DO it.

Factories produce cheap (as in low-cost to you) mass-produced products, that, you will notice, have become CHEAP the other way - as in made poorly and not lasting. We have become a Disposable Society. And this is a waste of resources. (And causes land-fills and garbage heaps.) We could, and should, demand BETTER PRODUCTS, and make the machine-worked factories better quality.

Also, we might take our new-found leisure time/unemployment, to learn to be craftsmen/women again - to become truly good at hand-making items of the HIGHEST quality, which might be sold to the rich and/or bartered for among the poor.

We might (those of us who are intellectually capable) return to school for higher and higher levels of education, which would include the Arts and Sciences more than it does now.

We might learn a better level of Customer Service psychology as well.

And the Business Owners would want to INVEST in this - provide stipends, living wages, while people are learning a Trade - because ultimately it would benefit them as well.

Certainly the Governments could do more - instead of spending 70 cents out of every tax dollar on the Military, they could re-invest in their PEOPLE and in the Infrastructure.

What kinds of work could I mean?

What does Society need? We have a terrible level of Homelessness in all countries now. Can we make relatively inexpensive homes? Provided to the most poor for free (paid for by Govt.), and available in ever-improving units to the people who could afford it. Perhaps they could be homes that re-cycled "grey water" (soapy bath water, dish water). Perhaps they could be fire-proof, flood-proof homes, run "off the grid" by alternative energy. Perhaps food could be grown on the roofs, and vehicles could be parked underneath, freeing up more dirt for food growing.

We need cleaner, safer transportation methods - for people and for goods. Something that might have no emissions. Some way that could eliminate accidents. Perhaps small "pods" with seats in them that run along rails... Perhaps transportation underground, to free up living and growing space ABOVE ground.

And what about that Infrastructure? Re-surfacing roads with gravel and half-melted asphalt chips lasts about one Winter. How about a better road surface? or at least replaced road surfaces? We have SEEN what is happening to our overpasses and bridges. (God bless the people of Minnesota recently, with the collapse of that I-35W bridge...) How about replacing the entire Electrical Grid, and placing the wires UNDERGROUND like they do in Europe, eliminating exposure of people to the harm caused by them, and protecting the wires themselves from the weather, car accidents, and sabotage? (And getting rid of those unsightly tar-painted poles...)

I would not be interested in inventing new toys for the rich or for the military. I would want to see products and services that make the lives of ALL people better - like vitamins did, for instance.

Inventors! I KNOW you are out there! Come on!

What would these types of work do for people? Well, right now, Society is "carrying" non-working people (and doing it poorly, I might add). We expect to provide for infants and school-age children. We are learning to expect to pay for elderly, retired people (we could do this better). We will have a whole new generation of disabled and ill people from the Wars. We do not much at all help the mentally ill. And we tolerate and barely help pregnant women and new parents, who have to drop in and out of work for the baby's health and education needs.

If there were light, clean, safe work that anyone in these groups COULD or WOULD WANT to do, that would make them employable again; it would make them re-enfranchised. I am not talking about BORING BUSY WORK. But the re-tooling of NEEDED work, that cannot be done by machines, and MIGHT be done by people who were not intellectually capable of higher level work, as well as the people I have mentioned in these other groups (leaving out infants).

Before you start screaming "exploitation!", ASK PEOPLE if they wouldn't rather earn their own money and do something productive, rather than feel "tolerated and carried".

If more of us worked - we might ALL work less hours, at better work - we'd make better products and give better service. And we could create a level of living that is HIGHER for all, a level of material wealth that we have not yet seen - for EVERYONE. If we had to, we could STILL "carry" folks that could not work, and even they would live at a standard that is better than what they have now.

Please imagine a time when even the poorest person could live in a clean, lit, warm/cooled home with clean water and a basic diet and clean, fitted clothing. He or she might have the Health Care they lack now, there would be a community to which they would belong... They could travel anywhere safely as they needed to...

HELP ME. Think of ways we might DO this. Why should we not? At other times in History, success was measured in how well even the poorest person lived and was treated. As part of our Vice-Gerency on the Planet, we owe some thought and work time to the People too. When you have everything that you NEED, and can work to get the things that you WANT, when you can be CREATIVE and productive at all stages of your life, when you can SEE the help that you are being - you become GENEROUS. It's EASY to want to give back...

So let's DO it.

Why grass?

First, let me answer the question about Solar Energy that was asked.

At the present time, the solar panels are expensive, physically large, and heavy (people have to have their rooves re-enforced to hold the weight), so they are not yet practical for most people.

Secondly, we have yet to solve the intermittent sun problem, particularly in the Northern areas of our countries, which get significant cloud-cover and also snow. The sunlight would have to be able to get to the panels and the panels would have to be free of any surface debris in order to receive it.

Ok now something new for you all to consider.

A quote from Freeman Dyson's recent book - page 60 - "A field of corn growing in full sunlight in the middle of the day uses up all the carbon dioxide within a meter of the ground in about 5 MINUTES (emphasis mine). If the air were not constantly stirred by convection currents and winds, the corn would not be able to grow."

So here is my question to you - why don't we plant CORN along our ROADS? Not the type we might want to EAT afterward, but perhaps the type we could make bio-diesel out of, or let the animals eat and nest in freely.

It has been shown that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere makes plant leaves small-pored (less water loss) and makes plants grow a larger root base. Roots hold topsoil, so that water and wind would not be able to take it away as quickly. And in Winter, molds and fungi live on the roots, creating more topsoil. If we increased the topsoil in JUST THE USA by 1/2 an inch, we might ELMINATE, world-wide, the current carbon dioxide imbalance caused by industry and car exhaust.

So why are we growing GRASS instead?

I am asking these as serious questions. If you know something more than I do, please, share it. But does it not seem to you that this might WORK?

Freeman Dyson's (inventor of the Dyson Sphere - Google it, folks - get smarter!) book is called "The Scientist as Rebel" c 2006.

I would also recommend we read two Russian authors that he mentions - I can't wait to get these myself! The first is "The Earth's Biosphere" by Vaclav Smil c 2002, and the second, and possibly more important, is "The Biosphere" by V.I. Vernadsky, published in English translation for the first time in 1998. Dr. Vernadsky is the inventor of the term "biosphere", from the late 1920's/early 1930's, and his book is said to contain a HUGE Bibliography of source material. That sounds worth a look to me.

Happy reading!

An Invitation to the End of the Party

Yes, it would be odd to get an invitation that says, "the party's over". Actually, my invitation is to read a book by that title, "The Party's Over" by Richard Heinberg.

There is a growing body of literature regarding the END of non-renewable fossil fuels, and what that will mean. A broad heading I have seen is the "Olduvai Theory" which you can Google for yourself. If you "believe in" the evidence that Oil and Natural Gas have reached their peaks (all sources having been discovered, though not all have been extracted), then you know, we have less than 20 years left of Industrial Society as we know it.

Why should that concern you?

We are all in competition for "energy" on this planet, in various forms. You and I might eat food, for instance, or need the Sun on our skins (to use our Vitamin D). That is the small end of needing it. The large end is - that there are 6 billion of us - and that's just the HUMAN population - that need this energy.

We (Humans) have so far been the most clever trappers and users of all sorts of energy on Earth, but we haven't been paying attention. There is a SPIKE in Human Population, that I know many are familiar with - it coincides with Industrialization - which came right after we invented engines and machines to do heavy work FOR us. And this was helped along by the discovery of oil and natural gas and coal, etc.

Do you know why we spiked? BEFORE we had Industry, we used MAN POWER and animal power, maybe a little water power, to get food, get housing materials, to transport goods and people. That tended to wear us out, kill us off early - all that work.

But when the work became EASIER - when machines replaced us - we had easier access to food. We stored it, we shared it - makes sense - we would still do the same now. But if you are not worn down by work and thinned out by hunger, you POPULATE.

We have had an explosion of population - one that the planet cannot sustain indefinitely. Although Mother Earth is greatly self-healing, we have taxed her to a limit now, and we will have to PAY.

When there is no longer OIL, there will no longer be Electricity - not for you in your home, and not for businesses. The giant turbines that make our electricity don't need to RUN on oil, but they cannot be LUBRICATED any other way. Vegetable oils and animal fats burn up and break down much too quickly for turbines. Everything that uses Electricity will stop - period. Never to run again.

We will not be as able to extract other fuels (like coal) from the ground without oil to lubricate the engines and electricity. We will not be able to make or repair the machines that do this.

The life that we know now will NOT BE POSSIBLE.

I know - you think we Humans are clever. We have always solved problems before, and we can solve this one. But I am not so sure. We should have started 30 years ago, and no one is really on it NOW. Small pockets of people, small businesses maybe - but not Governments - not worldwide.

If you thought Global Warming was frightening - and it IS - this is even more frightening.

Without oil, gas, coal, electricity - manufactured goods would become rare. Something as simple as a plastic bottle, which you now throw away, would become property only of the very rich.

Without these energy sources, we will not be able to make enough food to feed 6 billion people.

Please read that again. We would not be able to FEED 6 billion people. In fact, if we went back to how we used to farm, before tractors, before Agri-Business, before importation of foods like bananas, etc. - we would TOPS only be able to feed 2 billion.

Can you guess what will happen to the OTHER 4 billion?

I'm not pulling these numbers out of my nether regions, go read the lit! We would have to drop back to Pre-Industrial living, go back and look at what it was like to live then! The world population then was only sustainable at 2 billion.

Now I want you to picture the PANIC that will ensue, the looting when the lights go off, the deaths of the very young and very old and very sickly.

Before you think I am all about the doom and gloom - I am asking you to imagine all this FOR A REASON. Panic happens because people are afraid of what they DON'T KNOW. While we still have the lights on, we can FIX some of that.

Learn a TRADE - something you can DO with your hands and tools that you can MAKE by hand. How many of you know how to hunt? to fish? to grow grains or fruits or vegetables? How many know how to weave cloth, or baskets, or make clothing and blankets?

While we still have the lights on, and the Libraries have not been looted - LEARN. Gather as much information as you can. Don't let it STAY in books! Begin NOW to try out what you read, and really hands-on KNOW it for when the lights go out.

Al Gore is one of the more famous Global Warming whistle-blowers. There are others. And they are helpful. They can teach us how to STEP DOWN from dependence on power. But move PAST them as soon as you can - and read the Olduvai Theorists.

I am not asking you to build a basement bunker. Don't run for the hills with your families. But be prudent. THINK! And learn.

And be ready to SHARE that learning. Because there is another thing I have learned from reading history - we (Humans) have always done better in co-operative GROUPS rather than in isolation. In a group, there is a large pool of talent and knowledge, there would be people with skills that you have (in case you get ill or grow old, as we all must), and skills that you might NEED but cannot MASTER.

For all our faults, as Human Beings, we are capable of tremendous GOOD. If we are great problem-solvers, let us TRY at least, to solve THIS one, and save as many people (and other creatures) as possible.

You can't leave this to someone else. It has to be YOU, right where you ARE, to the best of YOUR ABILITY. Help yourself. Help everyone you can. That is a much better invitation, don't you think?

THINGS TO LEARN:

Food growing, harvesting, storage
Soil enrichment, preservation
Irrigation
Animal raising, slaughtering (for food)
Cloth making
Basket-weaving
Sewing (of clothing), repairs
Baking, cooking over a fire (remember, no gas)
De-salination of water
Purification of water
Crocketing, knitting (of clothing and blankets)
First Aid
How to hunt and trap without guns or manufactured weapons or traps
Basic house construction (possibly not out of wood, since this might be depleted when people panic over fuel loss and use wood for fuel)

THINGS TO DO:

Plant fruit trees, shade trees
Plant food bushes
Practice what you are learning
Get in the habit of feeding other people
Feed local animals (where this will not attract rats and insects, which cause health problems)
Get in the habit of boiling drinking and cooking water
Teach your body to want raw vegetables and fruits and basic grains/cereals
Try to do without sugar, caffeine items like coffee and tea and (s0rry ladies) chocolate!

Out-think me, come up with MORE!