World Bee Day, May 20

 It's World Bee Day, May 20th. 

There are lots of people worried about bees, and rightly so. To mix a metaphor, bees are the canaries in the coal mine.

Composting Week & Food Waste

Compost Week 2021

Question: What Percentage of food goes to waste?

This question is appropriate because this is International Composting Week, May 2-8, 2021, with a theme: Grow, Eat…COMPOST…Repeat.

Some foods don’t make it out of the fields. Potatoes, corn, and tomatoes that are too small, or too ugly, may be left behind in the fields. In some cased, the farmers announce that the edible, but ugly, food is available for gleaning – all you have to do is drive over and gather it.

Corn that fertilizes itself with Nitrogen Fixing bacteria.

This is a cool article in Science by Ed Young about a giant corn varietal in Sierra Mixe Mexico that grows in very poor soil, but actually fertilizes itself. There's a bacteria that grows around the roots that absorbs nitrogen from the air and provides it to the corn. The team of researchers led by Alan Bennett from UC Davis referred to this a "Nitrogen Fixing" which works just like roots absorbing nitrogen from the soil.
In this case, the soil is very poor quality, so the corn actually gathers nitrogen from the air (78% nitrogen for dry air).
One major disadvantage of this corn is that it takes 8 months to mature.
The benefits are many. In a linear world of farming, row crops are raise on big farms and the crop shipped off to marked (cities), which deplete the soil. So fertilizers are needed to replenish the soil to grow the next crop. The fertilizers (mainly phosphate and nitrogen) end up running off into the water ways and result in massive ecological damage such as algae blooms and red tide.
Because fertilizers are expensive to buy, and expensive to apply, farmers continue to do a better job with fertilizers. (Other factors like urbanization, turf grass and golf course are taking over lead positions in pollution generation.)   However, linear systems in farming are non-sustainable, broken systems, compared to Regenerative Farming approaches that use non-til and corp rotations to restore the quality of the soil.
To commercialize this "nitrogen fixing" cereal crop requires some improvements, new varietals (sexual reproduction) or genetically engineered (GMO crops). The intellectual Property (IP) of such crops will be important. Profits and the capitalist system at work, availability to the people and countries that need it, and the property rights protections that make IP work are just a few important ingredients in the dissemination of new technology -- in this case, new crops.

World Soil Day the down-and-dirty on Ag

When you eat, and as you eat today, give thanks to the soil that made it all possible.
USDA on Soil Day. December 5th.

Today is World Soil Day, and the the truth is in the soil. Neglect the soil long enough and all you have is depleted crops. AND no, it does not come in the usual 6-6-6 fertilizers that concentrate on only 3 components in the fertilizer while neglecting how the soil got depleted in the first place.

It has to do with cycles. Farms were never meant to have all the crops hauled away to the cities, with no mechanism to return the nutrients. We experienced this during dust bowl of the great depression, where top soil had been depleted and the ag practices tilled the land so the remaining topsoil was readily blown away.

We all need to think more about closed-loop ag systems. All crops begin with the nutrients and the soil. We neglect and deplete them at our own demise.

Eat well today, and think about fertile soil and healthy food systems.

Bon Appetite.

To Eat or Knot to eat Knot Weed - WSJ

Pittsburgh Tries to Eat Its Way Through a Savage Weed - WSJ:

What do you do, with Kudzu?

Invasives like kudzu and Japanese Knotweed, can take over square miles. They really go wild in strip mines and disturbed areas, and completely take over. Once started, the weed pushes out anything and everything in the surrounding areas -- an ugly mono-culture that disrupts entire ecosystems much like Melaleuca has done in Southern Florida.

Melaleuca trees transplanted to Florida to attempt to dry up the Everglades is not the same type that is found in herbs, incense  and oils. Ours tree apparently burn toxic, so firewood is out. One of the best uses of it is to make mulch... A rather cool business model where there's an endless supply, and land owners will typically pay you to take it. Getting paid twice for the same job, land owners and customers, while doing a good turn for the environment and society, has got to feel both good and green.

One of the best uses of kudzu, that invasive vine that has taken over the South (all the way down through Georgia), is to feed it to goats. Goats will eat anything. Once they eat all the kudzu in a field, they simply have to rest a while while it grows back.

Eating Knotweed is an interesting idea. It tastes a little like chicken, oops, no, that's an invasive animal. It apparently tastes somewhat like rhubarb. There is a limit to how much garnish people are willing to eat, however. I'm not sure that we could get everyone in the US to eat a couple helpings of rhubarb each day. Knotweed might require three helpings a day.

Unfortunately, knotweed often grows in disturbed soils like river banks and spent strip mines where the quality of the soil is not only poor, but often semi-polluted. Metals and heavy metals from coal dust/mines will make many knotweed harvests non-nutritious, at best. Modestly toxic at worst.

One of the best uses of knotweed would probably be biomass uses that go directly to incinerate, or are processed into ethanol. But, yet another kick in the pants: transporting knotweed  to the refinery/incinerator when in bloom, will spread the seed of invasion into fresh new virgin territories.

The weed is easily propagated from "cuttings" so 4-wheelers or trucks can readily spread the weed to places where it is not.

As with most (all?) invasives, this is a gift that keeps on giving.

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Top 15 Contaminated Fish You Shouldn't be Eating

Top 15 Contaminated Fish You Shouldn't be Eating:

What's the USDA recommendation for Mercury intake?

If you eat some of these fish, you will exceed safe levels if you eat it more than once every couple weeks. Sharks and swordfish I new about, but others in the list are a real eye-opener.

Biomagnification is where toxic chemicals such as mercury build up more and more as it moves up the food chain (to humans).

This is a really good article with lots of good information on sustainability and safe eating levels of fish.

Maybe salmon will move up on many people's list. Sustainable, wild would be best, of course.

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ABCs: Scientists discover another cause of bee deaths, and it's really bad news : TreeHugger

Scientists discover another cause of bee deaths, and it's really bad news : TreeHugger:

The ABCs of colony collapse among Bees appears to be really, really ugly. Well, it has been ugly, but know we know a little more about it, vs. being mainly in the dark.

This current research seems to find that a combination of pesticides and fungicides reduces the immune system of bees.

This story summarizing the research is just filled with horrible little nuggets. On average the bee pollen they studied had 9 different special ingredients in the pollen cocktails taken live from California.

Worse, much of the pollen comes from the "wild", not harvest crops.

However, finally knowing more about the cause will help hugely in addressing this critical issue (for diversity and food crops).

Remedies of better use and control of pesticides/fungicides seems obvious. But organic methods should help a little or a LOT.

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Organic. Foods to buy Organic -- The dirty dozen foods

There's a lot of discussion about foods that are really and issue to eat that are not organic.

The idea is that you can eat the cheaper stuff in many cases but definitely spend the money on some of the foods that are really likely to be very unhealthy if you don't go for the organically grown.

Look here for the annual list of the dirty and also the green foods by Environmental Working Group's annual list.

7 Best Foods to Buy Organic

Here's the Dirty 7: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/builtlean/best-food-to-buy-organic_b_3779168.html

• Potatoes
• Beef
• Milk
• Apples
• Strawberries
• Kale / Spinach
• Peaches

The Dirty Dozen

The Dirty Dozen: http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/eat-safe/dirty-dozen-foods#slide-1

"But organic food can cost more, meaning many families are loathe to shell out the extra cash for organic produce on every shopping trip. That's what makes the Environmental Working Group's annual list of the dirty dozen foods so useful. The group analyzes Department of Agriculture data about pesticide residue and ranks foods based on how much or little pesticide residue they have. The group has estimated that individuals can reduce their exposure by 80% if they switch to organic when buying these 12 foods."

The Dirty Dozen PLUS (14 foods to strongly consider organics)

Eating Well will tell you that there's a couple more you should keep your eye on that are dirty(er).

http://www.eatingwell.com/food_news_origins/organic_natural/dirty_dozen_plus_14_foods_you_should_buy_organic

Note that the USDA has not yet offered a Minimum daily recommendation for pesticides. So, if you want to reduce that wild-card in your diet, avoiding these foods unless they are organic is probably a good idea!.

But, it's your body and your diet, so you decide where and how you spend your money and gain your calories/nutrition.  

Healthy eats to you.

World Water Day... March 22... Cooperation ... Whatcha gonna do?

World Water Day is upcoming on March 22...
Most of us don't realize, or don't think about it much, the nexus of water, energy and food. It takes a lot of water to make energy; it takes a lot of water to make food... It takes even more water to make food that is higher on the food chain (beef vs. corn). It takes a lot of water to make clothes.
One day per year we all pause to contemplate water. International year of water cooperation at www.UNWater.org.
What are you gonna do to save water? (and/or energy and/or food and/or plastics and/or clothes)?
Water Foot Print calc.

Earth Day Number 1 (of 4) Wellness... Gleaning feeds the needy | Highlands Today

Gleaning feeds the needy | Highlands Today: "Gleaning feeds the needy"

Earth Day... Basic four things to do. Right now.

Number 1. Health and wellness. People can’t be healthy, and they certainly can’t be productive, if they don’t have the basics of health and living conditions. Just drinkable water and basic sanitation is a critical issue. This combined with the lack of basic nutrition results in major health and wellness issues for approximately 2 billion of the world’s population.

ToDo: One of the things that can be done here is to go on missions to developing countries to help them learn and develop the sanitary and development skills. You will want to develop your own survival skills first in a programs such as the HEART program at Warner University.

ToDo: Consider helping with composting, urban gardens and gleaning projects. Gleaning, as mentioned in the bible, is where volunteers are allowed to go through the fields after they have been harvested to pick the edible -- but not necessarily pretty -- fruit and vegetables. (See Gleaning For The World (www.GFTW.org), End Hunger (www.EndHunger.org), gleaning in Florida (this article). 

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