Surviving Off Off-Grid: Chapter 11 - Food, Part 1

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FIRST GO READ THE INTRODUCTION
THEN GO READ THE FIRST CHAPTER
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 2
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 3
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 4
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 5
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 6
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 7
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 8
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 9
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 10

Chapter 11: Food, Part 1

Culture, the Land, and Food

This topic (food production) will take several chapters to cover, so I will start again with philosophy before getting into specifics on different kinds of food production. Food preservation will have its own chapter.

Earlier in the book I pointed out that the foods that we eat, for the most part, are faint representations - faded memories – of our Agrarian heritage. Most of the foods in our diet, at least when we are not eating pre-packaged or frozen industrial foods, are based on (or derived from) traditional Agrarian food preservation techniques. Ham, bacon, sausage, jerky, bologna, cheeses, yogurts, jellies, jams, krauts, pickled vegetables, condiments (like ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise), raisins, and hundreds of other foods we eat every day, even many liquors and malted beverages, were originally invented as ways to preserve the harvest and to make longer term use of seasonal food supplies. In America, many regional or traditional foods are indicative of the heritage of the people who settled in that region of the country. Today, if you travel the world and sample what are now considered “exotic” foods, you are likely partaking of the ancestors of many of our own modern foods. Throughout Eastern Europe diets may be heavy in pork products, fat, cheeses, and foods made from fermented vegetables or grains. In parts of Russia, where the growing and harvesting seasons may take place in as little as four months, you will find people eating ample amounts of dried fish, and pickled… everything. From the wines and cheeses of places like South America, to the fermented milk products, dried meats, breads, and fruit of Africa and Asia, food in the lesser “industrialized” world has not changed significantly from what was eaten by kings and paupers hundreds of years ago. The point is that, prior to the age of industrialism and mass transportation, different regions of the world were very much identified with their location on the earth and what could be produced and preserved from it. There is a universal truism found in the Bible that it would be well for us to ponder:

“But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content” (1Tim. 6:6-8).

If we are to be content with food and raiment (clothing), and if these things are derived from the bounty of the earth, we can conclude that our happiness and contentment rely very heavily on our philosophy of the land and on our benevolent governance of it. We abuse or neglect the land to our own spiritual and physical detriment. In abandoning his Agrarian roots, man has abandoned his connection to the land, and with it has cast out his peculiar local heritage and culture. Instead, man has adopted a rootless, amorphous, and temporary international culture - defined alone by man's insatiable and fruitless hunger for more - more personal peace, affluence, and comfort. Benign cultures were defined by those peculiar practices particular to a people whose culture developed from a close, personal, and mutually beneficial interaction between the people and the land. Relationships, celebrations, and even diet were defined and restricted by land and growing practices, and all of life was governed by what (and when) the land would produce its bounty. By definition then, the culture was a representation, brought forth from the divine gardener, of a piece of land, the good ground, from which the progenitor of all men had been derived. Each culture was the product of not just the morality and laws the people had accepted for themselves, but of the types and quantities of crops that would grow readily in the local soil, and the animals indigenous to the place which could be used for food, or which could be sustained easily by what could be grown.

Our ideas of what the ideal life should be will naturally change as we become more attuned and informed about what is truly and eternally good for us, and as our knowledge of what a perfect God wills for His people and His land grows and matures. Just as all people are not the same (some are bad soil, bad trees, or bad fruit) and all men and women are designed for different purposes, we should recognize that all lands, regions, or cultures are not the same and should not be forced into the same mold. The globalization and industrialization of food, diet, and production is as destructive as the globalization and industrialization of anything else. The world system has determined that all men and women are to be assimilated and systematized until they are all equally dependent consumers of industrially produced, globalized products. I watched a documentary not long ago about how a major potato chip manufacturer struggled in introducing potato chips into the Chinese market. It seems that the directors and planners of the multi-national snack food producer did not know that, for the most part, the Chinese were not “snackers”. Because the Chinese culture, other than in a few large cities, was still basically agrarian, the people still engaged in Agrarian eating practices. They did not eat three large meals a day but instead ate many, smaller, healthier meals; and they did not eat “junk food” between meals when they grew hungry. The snack manufacturer soon realized that, even if they were to pump shiploads of potato chips into China, they still weren’t ever going to create a market there without some serious re-thinking of their plans. You see, the availability of salty snack foods wasn’t going to make the Chinese want to eat them. That kind of thinking works in America, but not in China. In order for the market to change, the culture would have to change. Covetousness and greed would have to be sold in China first. China was going to need an infusion of Western-style consumerism. Massive amounts of advertising were utilized to convince the Chinese that they needed to want the good life. Potato chips were portrayed not as junk food, but as a symbol of prosperity and a sign that an individual was progressive and forward-thinking. Potato chips would become an indicator of Western-style aggressiveness and ambition, and snagging a bag from a street-side vendor was portrayed as proof that prosperity and advancement had arrived. Potato chip and snack food factories were built in China, paying wages that would be sufficient to allow the new, upwardly mobile and ambitious workers to afford the good life. Eventually, the tactic began to work, and potato chips have become one of the fastest growing food items sold in China. China being invaded by snack producers may seem like a fairly harmless alteration of the ancient culture of China, but, in a kind of “butterfly effect” (where small changes in a system may have far-reaching - and possibly devastating - effects on the system) the overall results may prove to be more destructive than anyone may think. Introducing a westernized snack-culture and the industrialized method of eating to the people of China will likely have dangerous rippling effects in the culture, economy, and health of the Chinese people. We can probably guess, but only time will tell how harmful the effects will eventually be.

If Globalism and the “Potato Chip Revolution” were successful in corrupting and sowing the seeds of destruction in a traditionally agrarian culture, it seems logical that Localism and a Regional Food Revolution might be successful in building an agrarian culture. It may seem overly simplistic, but if millionaire marketers with all their college degrees and computers concluded that picking up a bag of chips would support and expand the industrial processed food culture, then NOT picking up a bag of chips ought to have the opposite effect here. Maybe it won’t work on a worldwide scale, but it absolutely will work in your home.

In all things I believe that traditional and local is usually better, and this philosophy will be reflected in all of the subsections I write about the different food categories. We should focus our efforts in studying and learning what will work well where we are. As you probably have discovered, I put a high value on a good philosophy and right thinking in engaging in an off-grid plan. As we grow and learn, some practices, means, and methods will develop (or re-develop) which are highly successful, and others will be abandoned as failures. Ideally, even in our small communities, we will begin to see the development of a peculiar culture particular to our land, region, and lifestyle. Traditions, practices, feasts, etc. will become more local (because hopefully we will have already cast off the more globalist/consumer ones), and we will once again begin to be defined by our regional agrarian culture. The family will once again be connected to the land and associated with it. Man will again have legends and the stories of building and working the land, and he will have a sense of history that is more in line with reality and less the result of globalist, statist, industrialist propaganda.

Re-Localizing and the Development of Local and Regional Culture

I am a product of the South, so my examples will be derived from what I know the most about, though they can be applied to any area or region anywhere.

Once upon a time, when the South was still agrarian and predominantly Christian, even within the South there were many, many, diverse and discernible cultures. Though there was a particularly Southern culture and set of values, from town to town you would have found a grand diversity in how these values were practiced. Every small town had different festivals and celebrations. One town might have "The Watermelon Festival", while another town celebrated "Okra Days". Here in our small Agrarian community in Central Texas, the two big festival days for us are The Fiesta De La Paloma (the Feast of the Doves) in Coleman, Texas; and Santa Anna Funtier Days (which celebrates the Old West heritage of the area) in Santa Anna, Texas. As our Christian community here (if the Lord wills it) grows and expands, we will likely develop our own special days and festivals, and these ought to develop organically. In our small community, we already look forward to "First Wednesday" which is our monthly community work day where we all gather together to work on some project for someone on their land. But the point is that our desire in our Off-Grid Agrarian lives is to live our lives more locally, and to do so it all has to start with us.

A good place to start in our endeavors to re-localize will be in looking into what types of food and crops are indigenous to, or adapted well to, our area. Those products that may not be indigenous, but which have developed here and succeed here are great, and if they can fit our criteria, then we ought to pursue them; but if we can reclaim those foods and crops that are indigenous, and that really thrive in our local soil, then we would be foolish not to focus on them. It has been a shocking (perhaps it should not have been) thing for me to realize that the crops that I have grown over the past 8 years that have done the absolute best, are these:

Okra
Black-eyed Peas
Green Beans
Squash
Sweet Potatoes
Greens (Mustard, Collard, Spinach, etc.)

Now let me see... that looks like a Southern menu if I ever saw one! Why should I be shocked that these foods grow well here in the South? I shouldn’t be, but I really was. There is a reason that these foods are identified with the South - and sometimes we are too slow to figure these simple things out - I know that I am. I have eaten these foods all my life, but because I was so “in the world”, they never became a regular and traditional part of my diet until lately. Likewise when I talk about meat animals, I have learned that there are animals which do well and thrive in our environment, and some which struggle or which do not do as well.

In my off-grid plans, I intend to really focus on these locally successful animals and crops, and naturally our diets will change to represent what grows well here. Our minds and hearts need to become more local. Live wherever you want to live, but if you plan on living as an off-grid agrarian - then really LIVE there. Make it your home and you will find you will more readily succeed in your endeavors. Rather than spend your time in the world, partaking in the world's culture and society, put those things behind you and live your life among your local friends and family. This book is about Off-Grid Living, but more specifically it is about successful Off-Grid Living. Our mindset is critical to our success, and a right philosophy of life and living will immeasurably assist in that success.

Off-Grid vs. Super StuffMart

Our specific topic in this chapter is Food, and I will be getting to the specific categories of food in later chapters, but it is necessary that we discuss a few things first. If we formulate our plans according to the failed ideas of the old consumer system, or if we remain entrenched in our colonized thoughts and ways of doing things, then the product of our efforts will naturally reflect the errors in our presuppositions. The “grid” system of food production and distribution is no more reliable or safe than is the system of grid electricity or grid water. It is evident that the JIT (Just In Time) system of large industrial farms, trucks, and grocery superstores has provided a mirage of what looks like success and prosperity. I remember many years ago I took some visitors from Australia into a huge chain grocery store here in one of our bigger cities. Australia is no backwoods third world country, but my Australian guests were completely awed by the sheer amount and variety of goods available in the store. One of our guests exclaimed, “Wow! This is the most decadent country in the world! This is Rome!” And he was right. It is possible today, at any time of the year, to buy big, beautiful, red tomatoes, bananas, papayas, guava, watermelons, and fruit and vegetables of every imaginable type and kind. Season has no real meaning to the worldling any more. The readily available and inexpensive smorgasbord of goods might even, if we are not careful and aware, convince us that food is not a problem in America and that maybe it ought not be high up on our list of important concerns. How wrong we would be if we fell for the mirage, and succumbed to such a superficial con. The questions we must ask ourselves are these:

1. Is the food that I see in such plentiful quantities and evident quality really good? Or does it just look good?

2. Is the system which makes such plenty readily available and cheap good? Or does it engender slavish dependence and weakness.

3. Is the system that delivers and provides for such ample bounty trustworthy and reliable? Or is it subject to interruption or cessation if tragedy or catastrophe were to strike?

4. Are the prices of these foods realistic? Or do they reflect the practice of “price shifting”, where the real costs are (by sleight of hand) really moved over into higher taxes, higher fuel and material costs in other areas, or higher health care costs from our dependence on nutritionally deficient and chemically laden foods?

The plan is, of course, to stop buying food at these stores and to start growing our own food, but it is necessary that we spend a little bit of time in identifying what is wrong with the current system. Why? Because when we have more information we are strengthened in the inner-man, and we are more likely to stand firm against the flow of modernism that seeks to punish or isolate those who do not agree with the status quo.

When we very first started down our road towards off-grid living, I received a ton of resistance from friends and family. Had I known then what I know now, I would have had better answers to give them. Back then I knew I wanted to grow my own food – I just hadn’t really examined all of the reasons why my way was better, safer, and wiser than the modern methods. My parents would say, “You are losing money. It takes more money for you to grow tomatoes than it does for me to buy them at the store. You’re spending money on gardening, watering, seeds, plants, canning and preserving materials, etc., and for half of that money you could have bought already canned and preserved food from the store. Well, when I was ignorant, and when I looked at those facts according to the evident presuppositions that they had offered, it seemed like they were right. I instinctively believed that growing my own food made me freer and less dependent on the store, but back then I did not know enough to argue that, when all things were considered, they were actually wrong! It doesn’t cost more money to raise my own food, not when I consider gas costs, taxes, health issues, and all the other ways that costs are “shifted” from the price of grocery foods into the other “stuff” I was being forced to buy from the industrial system. In reality, the more we moved out of the system, the more we realized that the whole modern food production and delivery system was an elaborate con game. I did not know then that foods could be genetically modified or actually grown differently and unnaturally in order to make them LOOK better, even if their actual quality and nutritive value was less. I didn’t know that a huge, red, rich, ripe, store-bought tomato may have as little as 1/3 of the nutrition available when compared to a measly, small, and comparatively less attractive home grown tomato. This is not to mention the fact that most of those beautiful store tomatoes were grown with toxic chemical fertilizers and additives, and that even many of the “organic” varieties were of poor nutritional quality. I did not know that everyone is eating 2 to 3 times more food today than they were 60 years ago because of the anemic quality of the food, and because of the insane ways that food is processed and transported in order to make it look a certain way in the store. I did not know that obesity, diabetes and other health problems were skyrocketing, not just because of the ubiquitous reality of snack foods in the American diet, but because our bodies are screaming for nutrition and it takes more food to give us less of what our bodies need. I did not know that scientists and industrial producers had figured out how to grow big, beautiful, consistently sized products out of depleted and abused soils by manipulating the genes in the seeds or by hybridizing the plants.

I know now that I need to grow and process my own food, not just because it is safer, more reliable, and healthier, but because it really is cheaper too. I know now that when I look at the bounty that Vanity Fair (the world) provides, that it is actually a hologram and not real at all.

Our process ought to be working us towards self-sufficiency in our food supplies. This means that each family ought to focus on producing as much of their own food as possible, and in increasing it each year by learning better techniques, by learning new skills, by working harder, and by diversifying. Start by trying to figure out how much of your food you produce now. Maybe if you are new it is 0%, which means that you are currently dependent on the world system for 100% of your food supplies. These worldly food supplies grow worse and worse each year: worse in total nutrition, worse in toxins and poisons in the food, worse in every possible way other than in the way they look. As I said earlier, modern commercial farmers will tell you that they have learned to make food look better, by making it worse for you and by reducing its overall actual quality. I was reading the Growing Great Garlic book written by Ron Engeland, and in it he admits that smaller garlic that is a little less appetizing to look upon is actually more flavorful and probably better for you, but the commercial buyers and restaurants want the bigger and more robust looking garlics because they sell better. This means that their overall actual quality is diminished in order to make them more salable. And this is an organic, gourmet garlic grower telling it like it is. If organic, gourmet growers are telling you this, what do you think is happening to the non-organic corporate grown industrial crops? The point is that you should be lowering this percentage of dependency immediately, and increasingly working to drop that percentage each year.

Abuse

As I have said before, this is a very difficult book to write, because every single reader is in a different place and comes to the information with a different mindset and a different set of presuppositions. Some of you may know all of this, and you just can’t wait for me to get to the nuts and bolts (or meats and veggies). For some of you every bit of this, especially the philosophy, is brand new to you, and it is like trying to learn a new language. Some of you have begun your move off-grid, and you are looking for secrets or tips to help you along your way, while others of you may not be convinced that moving off-grid is a good idea at all. I have said it before, and I will never stop repeating it… this book is a philosophy book, and not particularly a “how to” book. I am trying to teach people how to think, and not what to do. This section is critical because sometimes we do not know an enemy until we know what he is done and what he is capable of; and sometimes we misidentify our own problems and errors because we think we already know all the relevant information.

Maybe you never thought of yourself as an abuser, but, at its root our current system is all about abuse. Most of you may be unfamiliar with the real meaning of this word, and you have seen it applied to so many things that, in many cases, it has lost its real meaning.

ABUSE is ABnormal USE. Abuse takes place when any person, place, idea, or thing is used for something other than (or contrary to) its intended and natural use. Our world is a wreck because of abuse. Our society has grown wicked because of abuse. Our culture is freefalling because of abuse. Our land is being destroyed because of abuse. Our soil is depleted because of abuse. Our food is toxic and grows lower in nutritive value every day because of abuse. Our health is weakened because of abuse. The concept of family is decaying because of abuse. If we are honest, we can see that almost everything we do, and almost every principle by which we do it, has changed over the centuries, and now, we must conclude that most of the things we do are abusive and therefore sinful.

Like water, food is a representation of many things. The old saying “junk in/junk out” has never been more applicable. So many of God’s parables and stories revolve around the growing and preparing of food, because so much spiritual truth can be derived from the holy process of doing it right. The Bread of Life is not genetically modified. Manna from Heaven is not hybridized and sterilized. If we want to reclaim our birthright and see our bodies and our land healed, it is necessary that our minds be overturned. It seems so simple to say, but when it comes to food – nothing could be truer: Just because something looks good, doesn’t mean it IS good. Just because our enemy has given us depleted bleached bread and a circus, doesn’t mean that those things are good for us. It is our fault that we have fallen for such an elaborate con, but, once we have been enlightened, it is our responsibility to do everything in our power to repent and fix our situation. We cannot continue to support industries that rape the land and destroy our soil. We cannot continue to participate in a system that rewards greed and elevates thieves and murderers for killing us. We cannot stand by and see animals abused, the land abused, our health abused, our freedom abused, and God’s creature abused without doing all that we are able to fight against it. Unhappily, much of this evil has been done in the name of, and with the support of, those who call themselves the “Children of God”. Abuse is Sin, plain and simple. Every time any thing is used for purposes other than what God intended it is sin. When we participate in it, we sin. When we give it credibility, we sin. Apathy is sin. Complacency is sin. When we enable it, we sin. Getting a right view and a right mind about food requires repentance first. We aren’t going to fix the system at all, and we surely aren’t going to fix our own problems overnight. We have work to do. We need to educate ourselves and we need to put our hands to the plow, but first our minds need to be changed. None of us, having learned the truth, ought to ever look at the current world food system with the same eyes.

Maybe you cannot grow a crop right now, but you can go to a farmer’s market. Maybe you cannot start a garden right this minute, but you can seek out a local, organic or natural grower. Maybe you cannot break free from the supermarket overnight, but you can get started… today. Repentance, in this case, is about movement and direction. Something for you to think about.

In the next chapter we will begin our discussion on the different categories of food, starting with a discussion on meat production.

GO TO CHAPTER 12