I'm sitting at Ink Casualty's place blogging, drinking tea, today and celebrating my 1,000th post. I am sending a parcel to the best comment left here over the next couple of days (till Wednesday evening...I'm on the road...) SAY ANYTHING, a story? a question? a poem? a rant? I've had an unusual amount of visitors in the last few months...but almost no comments...who is out there? ...the parcel will have all kinds of goodies. A couple of books, some art work, cool wrist bands, and other fun bits and bobs. Thanks for visiting this blog and always inspiring me and giving me many things to think about and enjoy...you've all become part of my family here in blogland!
There are at least three sets of reasons to explain the findings that agriculture was bad for health. First, hunter-gatherers enjoyed a varied diet, while early farmers obtained most of their food from one or a few starchy crops. The farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition. (Today just three high-carbohydrate plants - wheat, rice, and corn - provide the bulk of the calories consumed by the human species, yet each one is deficient in certain vitamins or amino acids essential to life.) Second, because of dependence on a limited number of crops, farmers ran the risk of starvation if one crop failed. Finally, the mere fact that agriculture encouraged people to clump together in crowded societies, many of which then carried on trade with other crowded societies, led to the spread of parasites and infectious disease. (Some archaeologists think it was the crowding, rather than agriculture, that promoted disease, but this is a chicken-and-egg argument, because crowding encourages agriculture and vice versa.) Epidemics couldn’t take hold when populations were scattered in small bands that constantly shifted camp. Tuberculosis and diarrheal disease had to await the rise of farming, measles and bubonic plague the appearance of large cities.
Besides malnutrition, starvation, and epidemic diseases, farming helped bring another curse upon humanity: deep class divisions. Hunter-gatherers have little or no stored food, and no concentrated food sources, like an orchard or a herd of cows: they live off the wild plants and animals they obtain each day. Therefore, there can be no kings, no class of social parasites who grow fat on food seized from others. Only in a farming population could a healthy, non-producing elite set itself above the disease-ridden masses. From Jared Diamond
21 comments:
All hail Candy Minx. Big up the Queen of Blogger.
Y'know, I don't think I'm gonna win any Best Comment award, but I'ma say it like I mean it, dawg.
You are one rad blogpal, and it's always great to be in your virtual company. Revel in the glory of the big One Thou, my sister. And congratulations!
Hey thanks Asterisk! You know I love it when I'm worshipped!
Can I worship at the Minx temple too?
Congrats on 1,000!!! Wow, that is incredibly impressive. You are one super-rad chick with an amazing blog. I don't think I ever moved on from your page without feeling challenged, or made to think about something, or having my interest piqued in something I knew little about.
Here's to the next 1,000!
Aw, I am now blushing. Thanks Red...I don't know a lot about a lot of things but I have read a lot about a very few things..I like the idea of sharing paradigm shifts with friends...I knew I could talk a lot...but I didn't realize how much till I started blogging.
Ah, I see...it's all about the buttering-up, is it? All righty then. Wait! You know what goes really great with butter? Corn. Corn on the cob. Corn niblets. Corn, sweet corn. But, as we all know from the uber-fabulous, ultra-sensational, most awesome possumest Ms. Candy Minx, corn is not good. One just had to read her previous posts on ethanol to learn how this particular biofuel does more harm than good despite emitting less CO2. And need I mention government subsidies? Ack! Therefore, I will not condone this buttering up of said fiesty Minx lady. Nay! I shall, instead, sit here quietly, content to share in the enjoyment of her glorious words of wisdom. Nope, I won't resort to flattery. Bribing her with Prince tickets if I had them??? Oh sure, but never buttery flattering words. Because corn's bad, get it?
I hearts me some Candy.
Oh, Karen can be so corny at times. Corny, ha! Geddit? See what I did there. Bwahahahahahaha!
Wow! Congrats on 1000 posts! Looking forward to the next 1000. Your posts never fail to be thought-provoking, and I'll try to do better at putting those thoughts into comments. :) ***smooches***
well...I'm damned pissed there weren't no cocktails of buffalo steak to be had on this end and how the hell did you find time to post all of that over morning tea??????
I lost my comment some where.. It was a good comment too.. LOL.. Oh well I dont remember what I wrote either..
Oops!!!!
I got stuck in traffic and didn't mean to be slow to respond to comments here. I am not able to post a new post yet...but that is okay...I think I'll just keep this one up for another day or so.
My goodness, Captain Karen...you're on the right track. No no I don't want flattery...but I love interesting ideas and your comment was very funny. This week has been shocking to hear about how food banks don't have hardly any donations...the cost of food is going up and up....the price of wheat and corn is going up...it's like...yikes! We really DO need to think about food differently. Above all...it is that if one eats corn...and sometimes we all do....but to make it organic. You know people who take heroin love it...people who drive cars love it...but does this mean that we should do what we like or perhaps we need to re-evaluate how we spend time and money on food? Can we re-evaluate how we make a living? I don't know?
Darla, thanks for dropping by and your kind comments. I need to find a whole bunch of weird things to write and think about...I'm looking into some new things to think and write about...from Egyptian kings, to wheat history to Bill Moyers and well I don't know...I'm going to find some new weird connections this next coming 1,000 posts...
Ink Causalty thanks for taking care of me with lots of tea while I blogfged the other morning...that was fun!
Tweetey, it will come back to ya don't worry good to see ya and thanks!
Here are three trumpet blasts - for the 1,000 posts! I liked the one today - I never thought about our diet being mainly 3 starchy crops - ack. What to do - gather up all our old issues of Mother Earth and go back to the beginning?
Moving on, I so appreciate, as Red says, logging on to a challenge to think about on your post. Behind so much wonderful "thinking" and writing, I find a warm, generous, unique woman like no other - and that is another celebration in itself.
One of my joys in life is knowing you and considering you a friend. So, here's a super martini toast to you!
Congrats on the 1000th post. Thanks for visiting the Pink Flamingo's last TT.
SJR
The Pink Flamingo
I still swore it saved it that day. I usually dont leave a blog until I have seen the yellow sign saying saved.. LOL..
OK here is a general idea of what I was saying.. I was just saying that if we wouldnt have merged in closer together where would our crops be and where would trading be right now? But then again like in the post said there is disease with crops being so close together yes true. But still lots of things to think about in this one.
Organic foods. I have to admit I have never tried organic foods. Yes they are making cars that use Corn now a days. Never tried it here but have heard its cheaper but doesnt last as long as regular gas. I heard its better on the ecomony. But then again. I am going off topic here.
Disease is a big issue. A scary one to when they first got the crops too close together. Back when they didnt know what was what and what was killing people or at least getting people very sick.
Ok that is close to what I said the other day..
Good God, 1000 posts. Whew!
You know I love to be the devils advocate, and I know many of you who come here love a good discussion...and I know you, Ms. Minx, have heard this counter argument before, but...food for more thought for all those who kneel at the temple of Minx.
Certain groups of First Nations, technically hunter gatherers, had class divided societies, from powerful leaders, lower classes, artisians to slaves. Some practiced potlatch to re-distribute resources, but I'm not sure if all did. What they had in common with agricultural societes was a glut of at least one resource.
It could be argued that perhaps these societies where on their way to becoming an equivalent to a farming society...except based on hunted and gathered foods, but still...it means its not farming that is the problem, it is something else.
It makes me wonder...sometimes I think there are people, when they have too much of anything, have the potential to want to control the resources because they have or get a fixation with power...and perhaps this is our real problem.
Hey - we're waiting for post number 1001!
xoxox
the underground baker
The U/g Baker is on to something that I think is the problem. Not farming, but overfarming. As with all things, isn't farming okay in moderation?
It is always amazing to me that people clingto a romantic ideal of farming.
I mean, my god, there are people who are really pissed off at me because I suggest they avoid eating so much corn. Liek I've just asked them to stop the unthinkable...why not just eat corn once a month? And make sure it is organic corn...?
One thing that is very tricky with farming is that...the actual concept of controlling food, of growing it defines how people think. It's as if the actof farming controls thinking patterns...it is almost impossible to suggest tofarmers that there is another way to live or make a living outside of farming.
Think outside the box?
The "box" is actually farming...
Unfortunately...unless a person lets go of their attachment to wheat, corn, and other piles of crap starches...it affects the way their brains seem to work and their thinking.
In essence, the potlatch communities of Haida were using food like salmolm as a "farmed" anmal because they had "harvested" so much of it...it did become a glut and an opportunity for class division.
All that does is prove exactly what Jared Diamond was saying about farming...that when we over harvest and believe we can control food and it is endless...we believe we can control each other and society.
The Kwakiutl is a good example of a society that used intensification of resources to begin clas divisions, in fact, they had what almost amounted to a slave class.
This observation is not an excuse to support farming as societies today are well aware of limited resources.
The most effective way to intensify
production is farming and what the argument of the coastal societies that had abundant resources reveals is actually supporting everything I feel about agricultural economy rather than arguing against my position.
Right now we may not be able to stop food production in order to feed all the people alive on earth right now. I have never suggested that we stop farming...but rather that we accept our limited resources and the serious flaws of agricultural production...and adopt some other econimies which we can easily study by observing hunter and gatherer societies.
Continuing to glut ourselves on corn, wheat, noodles, bread, potatoes is just plain ignorant behaviour and we might as well admit to being junkies with no brains.
Or...begin to set aside our romantic attachment to "farming" as some kind of superiour method of economy and start thinking about how we can send water to Darfur (lack of water is why they are killing each other...not this bogus media idea of "tribal warfare") and how we can provide food to food banks and live eating less and differently in so-called affluent nations.
We're not affluent anymore.
In a 100 years, now that we've passed peak oil production,only the very rich will be able to afford petrol.
...that means us here on blogs...will be like Darfur...
...unless we change our attitude and think outside the farming box...
What you've talked about in this entry reminds me of the Barbara Kingsolver book I'm reading, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life", which is already beginning to change the way I think about food.
Congrats on your 1,000 post!
Thanks Janet...I'll go get that book this week...
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