GM Genocide: More Hidden Tragedy Associated with GM Foods

I just found this today and thought I'd share it here, yet another dangerous aspect of GM foods.  The story reminds me of something my husband had shared with me once about the old Shoshone women who used to cry themselves to death, literally, over the loss of their land and their traditions.  This story should shake all of us to our core as well, each of us is vulnerable to the effects of  GM foods and the loss of native food crops. 

The GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide after using genetically modified crops | Mail Online

When Prince Charles claimed thousands of Indian
farmers were killing themselves after using GM crops, he was branded a
scaremonger. In fact, as this chilling dispatch reveals, it's even
WORSE than he feared.

The children were inconsolable.
Mute with shock and fighting back tears, they huddled beside their
mother as friends and neighbours prepared their father's body for
cremation on a blazing bonfire built on the cracked, barren fields near
their home.

As flames consumed the corpse, Ganjanan, 12, and
Kalpana, 14, faced a grim future. While Shankara Mandaukar had hoped
his son and daughter would have a better life under India's economic
boom, they now face working as slave labour for a few pence a day.
Landless and homeless, they will be the lowest of the low. - continue reading

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Super Native Foods - A Critical Replacement to Genetically Modified Foods

My first eZine article on Native Foods is posted.  Keep a watchful eye here and over at Way Beyond Green. We're on the edge of a tremendous surge of new possibilities! It's all very excited and coming together in ways I could not have imagined.   You can also listen in Live every Friday at 11am Pacific as we talk about indigenous concepts and native foods.  Lots getting ready to happen!


Super Native Foods - A Critical Replacement to Genetically Modified Foods

As the prices of food go up we're all forced to reevaluate what we call "value". We haggle quality over quantity trying to squeeze more out of less. But can we afford sacrificing quality nutrition for GMO foods? I believe we can't, especially now and here's why.

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Getting Local

I recently read an article by Max Gladwell, one of the major players in the 'sustainability through social media' conversation. On his blog Gladwell wrote about the recent SXSW panel on 'accelerating sustainability through social media' and explains the distinctions between true sustainable systems versus convenient shades of green.

It's an interesting article and while I certainly don't agree with all of Max's ideas, especially when it comes to what he referred to as "meaningful solutions" (read about that conversation on Way Beyond Green), I am promoting the part about decentralized food production.

Gladwell may not have a clue about indigenous practices, but when it came to decentralizing food production he hit the nail on the head. If implemented, the idea of promoting local crops would be a tremendous step forward for both sustainable food production and energy conservation.

Whether through local farms, community gardens or in local farmer's markets, the practice of growing and sharing in the harvest encourages community sustainability and a develops participation in the local environment. It builds in all kinds of great stuff like relationships based on the successful life cycle of place. It's deep sustainability with ancient indigenous roots.

True sustainable solutions start with learning about indigenous practices. Food traditions is a big part of the conversation. Feel free to 'eavesdrop' on the indigenous conversation by joining twitter and listening in on the #indigneous and #nativefoods twitter stream. Ask a question (keep it clean please) and promote a conversation. We'd love to hear from you. And let us know what you're doing to build local food connections.

image courtesy of Creative Commons & NatalieMaynor


Technorati Tags: sustainability, SXSW, social media and green living, max gladwell

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End Fungi Phobia

The High Desert isn't really the place to go mushroom picking, but for years when I lived in Oregon it was a favorite past time for a lot of folks. Other folks. Don't get me wrong, I love mushroom and I've eaten a lot of wild mushrooms. But I've got to admit that I never got into picking them. It must have been a phobia, because I'm quite comfortable with a lot of wild plants, wandering around sniffing and nibbling at them. I think something about the old warning of people choking up, foaming at the mouth and them dropping dead at a single nibble must of scared me out of sampling mushrooms in that particular manner.

I've thought about growing them because they grow quite easily in the damp of the Pacific NW and can be grown in plastic trash cans or trash bags. I got the tour of my friend's production years ago. She bought the mushroom innoculae, grew and harvested the mushrooms and then sterilized the soil in large "steamers"after each batch. Very efficient. And since the Pacific NW air is so moist, well it's a natural, literally. I don't think we'd get past the innoculating the soil here in the high desert.

I really love mushrooms, especially in a wild rice, sausage, sauteed wild mushrooms and onions casserole. In fact @caroleleclair got me to thinking about that yesterday when she talked about her wild rice casserole recipe. I'm hoping that she'll share a paragraph or two about the importance of wild rice to the Anishanabeg, Menominee and other First Nations Peoples of Canada.

In damper regions, NW and Canada, Spring is a good time to get out and harvest some mushrooms. They've been growing under last year's debris as temperatures warm up and the warm, gentle Spring rains help flourish. I'm most familiar with the Boletus and Chanterelles. But check out what's available in your region.

I'll catch up on my mushroom edification. How about you? Have you wild harvested mushrooms? Grown them? The legal kind folks! Don't get crazy on me now.

P.S. I'm writing this after this post has been live for about 6 hrs. and I just finished watching the video on TreeHugger. I gotta tell you it's not what I thought it was but it is hysterical and resulted in hysterical laughter, but not much more. Having said that I would still like to hear about your non-magical experiences with mushrooms : ) and I've learnt my lesson I'll watch the video first. : ) Hope you enjoy as much as I did.

Know Your Mushrooms Movie: End Fungi-Phobia Now : TreeHugger

Know Your Mushrooms Movie: End Fungi-Phobia Now
by Kimberley D. Mok, Montreal, Canada on 03.30.09
Culture & Celebrity
Buzz up!


Mushroom field guide author Gary Lincoff recounts hilarious fungi encounter (via Filmswelike on YouTube)

Humble, largely misunderstood and yet mysteriously fascinating, the modern impression of the modest mushroom never usually goes beyond the typical commercial white button varieties. Thankfully, that’s where Toronto-based alternative filmmaker Ron Mann steps in with his latest feature, Know Your Mushrooms - a fun, quirky but deeply educational foray into the incredibly diverse world of fungi.


image courtesy of Creative Commons and AlanWho

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Food, Community & Sustainability with Red Earth Descendants

Last week we got to interview Jaimie with Red Earth Descendants.  Somewhere in the middle of the conversation we got onto the concepts of sustainability and the idea including food and community.  It's an interesting perspective and I'm hoping that you'll share your ideas about food and community with us here.  


Make sure to stop by RED at their site, drop a note and let them know that you're Way Beyond Green and maybe provide some feedback about their programs and or their weekly radio show.

I'd also love to hear from you here or you can post a comment at BlogTalkRadio. Was there something that in either recent interviews that was of special interest to you?  Something you wanted to hear but we didn't cover.  Post a comment or send a tweet!  We'd love to hear from you!

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Welcome to our new blog "Super Native Foods"

I've been writing so much about Native Foods that I've decided to launch off and set up this new blog devoted entirely to the pursuit of native foods.  Native foods in our gardens, in our kitchens, in our lives and on our minds. For as desperate our need for these native foods, it seems that we converse far too little about them.  So once again, here were are opening up the conversation and we want you to be a part of it. Even more so here than on Way Beyond Green.
 
Why? Because there is something that about food that is very personal and interactive.  Even in planting or gathering foods I have in my mind the people that I will cook and share these foods with.  The atmosphere and the conversations around preparing and eating these foods.  While of course, I do sometimes have these meals solely by my self .  For any indigenous woman, it when a house full of family and friends are gathered round the kitchen table that her heart truly sings. 

So join me at the table, in the garden, in the hills and near the creek as we gather and nurture the foods that have sustained us for thousands of years.

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