Xref: kermit rec.gardens.edible:72406

writes:

And the average lifespan was 47 years. :-)

This had little, if anything, to do with what they ate or the way it was
grown. Sorry. They would have surely lived much longer if good health
care were available.

Figured into those statistics are such things as three of great
grandparents:
One grandmother died a few days after childbirth of blood poisoning from
the tear caused by the birth; the baby also died because of lack of
knowledgeable care and lack of proper nutrition.
One grandmother died a few days after childbirth because of weakness from
the flu she had at the time of childbirth; the baby also died shortly
thereafter. They were both victims of a flu epidemic that claimed many
hundreds of other lives that same season.

These for people, two women in their twenties and two infants are part of
the statistics that make up that average of 47 years, or whatever other
average at which researchers might arise.

Added to that is my great-grandfather who died of pneumonia as a result of
being kicked by a mule and laying unconscious in the field behind his plow
until after dark when he was missed and found.

Those five people, whose stories I know for fact, are part of the "average
life span" figured in that type of statistic. Their early deaths had
absolutely nothing to do with anything except proper health care, or
rather lack of it. With proper health care, all five might well have
lived well into their eighties or nineties . . . and they all ate
organically grown food! There are several in the same bloodline that have
lived to be past one hundred; however, they didn't get figured into those
statistics because their age at the time of surveys was used, not their
life span.

It doesn't matter how you cut it, food grown without commercially prepared
chemicals is going to be better for the human body (an organic creation)
than chemically altered food. Few people dispute research that
demonstrates over-cooked food is not as healthy as properly prepared food
or that vitamins ingested through diet are better than those in a pill.
Even the drug companies admitted that with the caveat that "if you don't
get it in your diet, take our vitamin pill."

As for over-grazing, there is no question it can cause a problem.
However, that land that is over-grazed is soon abandoned for nature to
have her way with it; we humans are, after all, opportunists. The comment
made about Wyoming should be supported by more, and credible, research
rather than a supposition. The truth is that there have been many barren
places on this planet that were once lush greenways long before humankind
and its practices. Prairies and deserts existed before people. Climate
change has more to do with that sort of thing than does anything else.
Sadly, what we have in our day and age is that what humans are doing is
affecting some of the climate changes that take place.

Artificially produced chemicals are not the best thing going, regardless
of what they might do or not do. I can use ladybugs, etc., and birds for
pest control. I can use horse or steer manure and compost for fertilizer.
I can use a pair of gloves and some bending for weed control. Why would I
need chemicals in my own garden? The answer is that I don't. The less
one does to upset the natural order of things, the better for our planet
and our own health. We can do lots of natural things to keep things on
track.

The owners of Millennium Farms say, "Chemicals, never have, never will."
If they can operate their greenhouses and farm with no chemicals, we ought
to be able to do it with our gardens. We just need to pay more attention
and not use the throwaway attitude that so many of us in the U.S.A. have
created and practice. Sadly, we are all guilty of it to some degree, some
just more of others. I've often thought without a remote for a television
(or maybe even a television), we'd all be better off, maybe we'd have
better learned to do things differently.

Glenna
stepping off soapbox for now