an article on arthirtis of all things...

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revek - 18 Aug 2010 08:13 GMT

Moderately interesting. No actual data supplied tho.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/health/research/17moose.html?_r=1

specifically this portion:

'For people, several historical cases may suggest a nutritional link. Bones
of 16th-century American Indians in Florida and Georgia showed significant
increases in osteoarthritis after Spanish missionaries arrived and tribes
adopted farming, increasing their workload but also shifting their diet from
fish and wild plants to corn, which "lacks a couple of essential amino acids
and is iron deficient," said Clark Larsen, an Ohio State University
anthropologist collaborating with Dr. Peterson. Many children and young
adults were smaller and died earlier, Dr. Larsen said, and similar patterns
occurred when an earlier American Indian population in the Midwest began
farming maize.'

Hmmm.

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Billy - 18 Aug 2010 17:00 GMT

> Moderately interesting. No actual data supplied tho.
>
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
>
> Hmmm.

<http://www.environnement.ens.fr/perso/claessen/agriculture/mistake_jared
_diamond.pdf>

Some people refer to the beginning of agriculture as "peak soil" because
topsoil is being consumed more quickly than it can be replaced, i.e.
(leaving aside industrial farming) our present agricultural practices
aren't sustainable.

The best gift that anyone can give humanity, is to not have children.
Two hundred and fifty million people seem to be the carrying capacity of
the planet (The number of us that were here before agriculture.).

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- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2010/07/201072816515308172.html

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Doug Freyburger - 18 Aug 2010 17:50 GMT

> Some people refer to the beginning of agriculture as "peak soil" because
> topsoil is being consumed more quickly than it can be replaced, i.e.
> (leaving aside industrial farming) our present agricultural practices
> aren't sustainable.

There are ongoing research projects to develop perennial versions of
most important food crops. Almost no plowing, much better soil
conservation.

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Bill who putters - 18 Aug 2010 18:04 GMT

> > Some people refer to the beginning of agriculture as "peak soil" because
> > topsoil is being consumed more quickly than it can be replaced, i.e.
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> most important food crops. Almost no plowing, much better soil
> conservation.

Care to point some out ? All I can think of are acorns and perennials
like chives or fruiting plants / trees.

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Bill S. Jersey USA zone 5 shade garden
globalvoicesonline.org

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Doug Freyburger - 18 Aug 2010 21:54 GMT

>> There are ongoing research projects to develop perennial versions of
>> most important food crops. Almost no plowing, much better soil
>> conservation.
>
> Care to point some out ? All I can think of are acorns and perennials
> like chives or fruiting plants / trees.

There was an article of Discover magazine a year or two ago with a focus
on improved farming. One of its articles was about developing perennial
versions of corn and other grains plus a reasonably wide assortment of
other crops.

I recently saw a perennial version of kale - "sea kale". It's supposed
to be about as good tasting as regular (biennial) kale as almost as
decorative as flowering kale. Probably I'll buy one next spring ...

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Doug Freyburger - 18 Aug 2010 22:22 GMT

An older article about corn

http://discovermagazine.com/1997/dec/thecornwar1286

One about wheat

http://www.culinate.com/articles/sift/perennial_wheat_monocrop_topsoil_dead_zone

This one has a picture of root structure that I remember from Discover

http://magblog.audubon.org/unconventional-farmers-perennial-grains

Or Sci Am

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=agricultures-sustainable-future

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Billy - 19 Aug 2010 01:15 GMT

> > > Some people refer to the beginning of agriculture as "peak soil" because
> > > topsoil is being consumed more quickly than it can be replaced, i.e.
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> Care to point some out ? All I can think of are acorns and perennials
> like chives or fruiting plants / trees.

It's a work in progress
<http://www.landinstitute.org/pages/Glover-et-al-2007-Sci-Am.pdf>

Veggies won't cut it. Calories need to come either from starch (grains)
or fat (animals). Protein is best if it comes from animals, and then
there is B12 (animals).
Still a little in my "True Believer" haze. Just finished the
"The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability"
by Lierre Keith (a former Vegan)
<http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/160
4860804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282176528&sr=1-1>
The book is filled with self righteousness, and is a compilation of
information drawn from books as varied as low-fat vs. low-carb, to
sustainability of human beings. (Think Taubes to Pollan, and then some)

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Billy - 19 Aug 2010 00:53 GMT

Frustratingly enough there already is a new paradigm for raising
chickens and beef that simultaneously grows tops soil, that is used at
Polyface Farms, VA, under the auspices of Joel Salatin.

As home gardeners, we can use strip mulching, a.k.a. lasagna gardening,
which is no till, and also grows topsoil.

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