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Spiritual Food for the New Millennium |
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MAIL ORDER SERVICE OF SATTWIC ORGANIC
FOOD |
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VOL
I, No. 1
Summer 2001 |
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Contents |
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| Spiritual Food for the New
Millennium Develops Farm Award System based on Rudolf Steiner’s Agriculture
Course The commitment of Spiritual Food for the New Millennium (SFNM)
to provide the best food is based on the belief that food grown with a
spiritual purpose in mind will stimulate the spiritual development of those
who partake of it. The Agriculture course offered by Dr. Rudolf Steiner in 1924
makes this ideal possible; that is why we have chosen this form of agriculture
as the basis for our food selection system.
We are open to other forms of spiritual farming as well as you will see
from the categories established in our award (selection) system. Spiritual Development is the main concern of the School of
Life Educational Society that is the originator of SFNM. Therefore, the actions of SFNM are based on spiritual values,
such as trust, non-violence (no competition), gratitude for the abundance of
God’s creation, truthfulness, purity, etc.
Our commitment also involves manifesting spiritual intent in the way
business is conducted and how this can affect the social structure.
Our principles are not based on professionalism but on ethics; our
motivation is not financial but humanitarian.
Our security is based on trust, love, compassion and courage.
We cordially invite those who share this view to join the program.
Dealing with very large farms and mass production is beyond
the scope of the SFNM program. We
would like to be very clear about one of our primary objectives at this time
which is to support and promote the survival and multiplication of small,
individually or communally owned/managed, farms that will serve their
immediate community. (The CSA
movement should be a strong component of this program)
The intent is to stimulate the use of locally grown food and avoid
excessive transportation and processing costs that unnecessarily raise the
price of food. In order to select providers for the program we have
established a “Selection Committee” of experienced farmers who will
evaluate and place each farm in its respective category. The award system we are establishing will give consumers the
assurance not only of the excellence of the food but of the spiritual nature
of it. That is why we will call
the food offered “sattwic,” from the Sanskrit word, “sattwa,” which
can be translated to mean pure and luminous.
“Sattwa,” along with “rajas” and “tamas,” are the three
attributes of nature. Rajas is
usually interpreted as active and restless, and tamas as dark and inert.
As said before, the award system is not based on competition;
therefore there will not be a winner. Each farm participating in the program will receive the award
corresponding to the category for which it has been selected. Several farms
may receive the same award and degree. There will be five categories with a varying number of
degrees, based on the established point system. These are: 1.
Spiritual Farms: Guardians of Tradition 2.
Innovator Farms: Fore-runners/Explorers 3.
Alternative Farms: Dharma-bans (meaning: siblings in righteousness) 4.
Organic - farms using organic methods.
5.
Non-classified - Either farms/providers that are unable to be classified or
farms in transition from conventional contemporary practices to any one of the
above categories. The point system is based on the ideal farm, the qualitative
description of which was prepared by Jenni Muir, based on Rudolf Steiner’s
Agriculture Course. A farmer must
first be knowledgeable in being a farmer, and adopt as many sustainable
practices as he can. Such as:
In addition, the following is of utmost importance:
The quality of produce can be judged by its capacity to
promote human life, being as beneficial and health giving as possible.
A farmer engaged in only the materialistic side of farming may produce
large and colorful produce. However, without the spiritual forces present in
the food, it is but a mere filler to the body – to move through the body and
be discarded, without ever taking up the vitality of the forces in the food in
the right way. Likewise, the food
will quickly rot, and attract insect pests to itself quite readily. The interaction of our soul and spirit with everything that
is around us, when we walk our land and become intimate with our soil and
plants, makes us ever more receptive to the mysteries at work.
In nature, everything is in mutual interaction with everything else.
We develop sensitivities to the more intimate interactions and
processes in nature; we observe things in such a way that we see all living
things in their place, and each thing’s importance within the overall farm
organism. It is important to see
these things on a spiritual basis. It
is impossible to assess the world of living things solely from a materialistic
view. We need to look at the
activity of the spirits in nature. We
must gain this insight into the way substances and forces work, and in the way
the spirit works. This is the way
we acquire spiritual knowledge. There is a whole world beneath the surface at work.
There are various plants like legumes, busy inhaling oxygen and
nitrogen, so that they can give nitrogen to other plants who need nitrogen.
Lime drawing everything into itself, silica being somewhat undemanding,
and clay mediating between lime and silica.
Steiner taught us these spiritual matters.
He also taught us how to cultivate sensitivity to the different
fragrances that come from plants growing on the ground, those that come from
orchards in bloom, and those that come from woodlands.
This way, we learn to tell whether the atmosphere around a plant is
poor or rich in astrality. For
the tree makes the spiritual atmosphere around itself in astrality. A tree is inwardly poorer in ether than plants, which in turn
influences the trees roots to become much more mineralized, and draw some of
the ether from the soil around them. This
makes the soil more dead around trees, than around plants.
And if there were no trees, then there would be no insects, because
trees make it possible for insects to exist.
We must strive to understand these inner workings of nature, and the
intimate relationship that exists between everything.
] We must consider the relationship of planetary and lunar
rhythms to the life span and decomposition of plants. We must gain this knowledge of the effects of the stars in a
spiritual way, and not just by means of the physical senses.
We need to understand how water, or warmth can enhance, or restrain the
influence of the planets, and the role of silica and lime in mediating the
influence of the planets. Ashing techniques for keeping harmful animals and insects at
bay, in earlier times were known as star knowledge.
The ashing techniques for unwanted plants were of a lunar influence.
We cannot understand the plants and animals on earth in isolation; we
must look to the entire universe, for nature is a unity, with forces working
in from all sides. We must also look at nature in a broader sense, such as the
spiritual nature of the elements (protein, sulfur, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen
and hydrogen), and their physical carriers.
Oxygen being the carrier of life; nitrogen, the carrier of astrality,
carbon being the carrier of all nature’s formative processes, and sulfur
being the carrier of the spirit. Steiner
employed us to get to know the elements in their deeper nature.
Steiner felt materialists only see the physical carrier and forget
about the spirit. We must enliven our soil directly by use of manure or compost
that can retain the proper amount of nitrogen and become vitalized; then
transmit this vitality to the soil. I believe it is necessary to study Steiner’s work,
beginning with the Agricultural Course, in order to develop a deeper
understanding of these spiritual matters.
I also believe we should set aside quiet time each day for meditating.
We must come to understand just how powerful our thoughts are, and
learn to use them in a spiritual way to develop and manage our farms.
There are other realms in nature we will come to discover and interact
with when we begin to practice spiritual farming.
We will find it is a continual learning environment, full of new
insights. We learn to see with
new eyes, and to listen with new ears, to what the plants and animals need to
grow healthy and to offer health to us. |
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Editors
Note: Spiritual
Food for the New Millennium (SFNM) is a mail order service for the purchase of
pure food, grown
in consideration of all of nature’s influences, including the spiritual
element. Victor
Landa, director of Shanti Yoga and the School of Life in Bethesda, Maryland is
the founder of SFNM.
There is a world-wide class of farmers who practice spiritual farming
techniques as
originally described by the scientist and clairvoyant, Dr. Rudolf
Steiner, in 1924.
(Please see previous article) SFNM was established to support those
farmers who are laboring to produce pure and vital food, by relieving them of
marketing responsibilities.
As explained in the following article, the service has, until now, been
solely operated by volunteers from the School of Life.
Last fall a decision by the Demeter Association (a certification board
for farmers using Rudolf Steiner’s methods) made it necessary for SFNM to
temporarily shut down and restructure their operation.
The following article by Victor Landa updates that restructuring
process.
The
new millennium is bringing a total renewal to Spiritual food for the New
Millennium. With
the re-structuring and addition of the farm award system, this renewal has
been a matter of great concern and decision-making. A
questionnaire developed by a “task force” of farmers (Christy Korrow, Hugh
Lovell, Thomas Roemer and Kerry Sullivan) and already in use will be subject
to a wide discussion for improvement and revision. Price lists, brochures,
displays, booklets, etc. have to be redesigned to replace the word,
“Biodynamic” with “Sattwic Organic” food and to identify as spiritual
farms those who are providing us with the food grown according to the
agricultural course of Rudolf Steiner. With
these new responsibilities, we have had to look at things objectively and
pragmatically in order to find ways that will benefit the greatest number of
people. As
many of you know, the School of Life Educational Society sponsors SFNM as a
service project. Once the plan was laid out, it was very clear that the job in
front of us was more than we could reasonably manage under the present system
of using volunteers (Karma Yogis) from the School of Life.
We are proud of the work of the Karma Yogis but, considering that most
of them have full time jobs, children to raise and a demanding sadhana
(spiritual practice) we could not expect them to pick up the extra work.
It also became clear to us that, with the added responsibilities, SFNM
may play a more important role in our life-purpose of supporting spiritual
upliftment; therefore, there is a need for it to grow and multiply to serve
the purpose effectively.
Structural and substantial reforms became inevitable. One
of the easiest decisions was to fuse the three newsletters, i.e., Let’s
Grow Together, of SFNM; Shanti Yoga/School of Life, representing
our local yoga center; and Cornucopia, the newsletter of Rose Lord’s
“Food for Peace” educational program into one which will now be called Food
for Peace and (R)Evolution.
Under sponsorship of the School of Life Educational Society and the
editorial abilities of Rose Lord, it has the potential of becoming a magazine
that will cover farming and consumer issues, the CSA movement and development
of intentional communities.
We believe it will also advance the coming together of different
spiritual streams, not by an amalgamation but by honoring the yogic principle
of “unity in diversity” based on mutual respect and consideration for each
other. This
newsletter can be a very valuable tool in spreading the message of the
spiritual farm purpose.
Rose has also engaged her son, Richard, a professional journalist, to
help prepare a book, or booklets, with descriptions of the farms and farmers
who participate in the program so that consumers can have a better sense of
who is growing their food. The
second decision, a far more difficult one, was that of sustaining the Mail
Order Service and its projected growth.
Given the existing condition, the only alternative was to make it a
full time job; until now, it has been totally run by Karma Yogis.
The task has been offered to and accepted by John Mutzberg.
At this moment the inventory is minimal and since the income has not
been enough to pay even the minimum wage for one person, we have agreed that
the program will start again with the full support of the School of Life.
John will gradually take over as the income becomes reasonable and
enough to allow him to really put time into developing the service. John
moved to Kimberton, PA, three and a half years ago at our request to act as a
liaison and to develop the Washington DC/Maryland area CSA.
For two years he not only took that task, but drove his own truck on a
weekly basis to bring the vegetables to Maryland.
After the second year and a fundraiser, we were able to buy a van and
members of the CSA took turns driving weekly to Pennsylvania to give John a
break. However,
he still had to gather from different points in the area other products that
SFNM needed like fruit spreads from Camphill Soltane, eggs from K. Sullivan,
milk, cheese, bread, etc.
John is one of only four members in the School of Life who have
attained the first degree of “Helper.”
So, SFNM will continue its process of development in good hands.
The transition will probably take a year or more and during that time
we will continue providing support in the daily operation of the program. Another
strong component of the re-structuring is to make the School of Life a
non-profit organization.
We will then concentrate our efforts on the educational and promotional
work, i.e., attending conferences, offering or organizing workshops/seminars,
the newsletter, etc.
In addition, we intend to develop centers of distribution around the
country so that the fresh produce is not transported over long distances.
Plans also involve giving more attention to the procurement of
providers and strengthening the community of producers and consumers.
These efforts will be another way of supporting the work of SFNM. This
is a very important task we are undertaking at a crucial moment due to the new
standards of the USDA for organic food. Experts
in this matter do not feel that the new standards offer an adequate safeguard.
Since certification agencies cannot impose higher standards than the
ones offered by the USDA, the consumer could be left unprotected at the mercy
of unscrupulous people. Certification,
therefore, has lost its meaning.
The task of providing safe food becomes a great responsibility that
will require the effort of both producers and consumers.
The ethical interaction and trusting relationship developed from this
exchange will weigh heavily on the results of this effort.
We are very fortunate that six experienced farmers have taken upon
themselves to offer their time and expertise to select those farms that will
be working with us.
The scoring method will be an indicator of the effort of the farmer to
produce the best food possible, the yearly renewal will also show any
significant improvement that the farm may be accomplishing.
Paired with these the description of each farm and farmer that will be
presented in the newsletter and also in booklet form, will provide a level of
confidence that will be confirmed by the consumer’s own experience of the
food. Another
big task is to further the process of providing more fresh food to more
people, in place of long distance transportation of food, by strengthening our
relationship with committed CSA’s and creating hubs to serve surrounding
areas. The Award system has opened up possibilities for the CSA’s to support
and participate in this common effort.
We see the expanding mail order service as a seed planter for more
CSA’s that are using these principles of spiritual farming practice.
This is why we will urge you all to share your sattwic organic food
with your friends and neighbors, help them to have the experience of this food
so that they too can become involved.
To facilitate this, we will be preparing a sampler box that may be sent
also as a present to a friend.
(For details on hese boxes please see the Bulletin Board on page 12) Another
example of “seed planting” can be illustrated by this story.
Some of our members who had been receiving raw cow’s milk, recently
got together and bought a cow to serve that cluster of people living
geographically close and made arrangements with a local farmer to take care of
the cow. Another
structural change taking place involves the “Committed Friend” and
“Operation Rescue” programs.
These programs will be replaced by membership in the School of Life,
which as mentioned before, is applying to become a non-profit organization.
An annual, tax-deductible membership fee of $20 will constitute a
“Friend” and will entitle the member to a waiver of the $3.95 handling fee
on each shipment from SFNM.
No further obligation will be required for this level of membership.
The
web site of the School of Life organization is now being designed and managed
by Richard Lord, Senior of our wonderful family of communicators that are
offering so many hours of karma yoga.
Even
though all these changes are a lot of work we are happy with the turn of
events and look forward to a challenging but peaceful new millennium.
Om
Shanti, Victor |
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. Profiles in Farming I: Camphill Village at Kimberton Hills . |
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By
Rich and Rose Lord On
a conventional farm, fighting Codling moths is a relatively simple affair; you
spray the heck out of the buggers with the pesticide azinphosmethyl. At
Camphill Village in Kimberton Hills, it’s a lot different, says Thomas
Roemer, who works the orchards at this unique farm and must contend with the
moth’s apple-ravaging larvae. Using Rudolf Steiner’s farming approach,
“you have to be very aware of the cycles of the insect,” says Roemer.
Using lures with moth-attracting smells, you track the moth’s population.
You search the trees and remove infested apples. And you spread the ashes of
burned pest larvae at certain times of the year in order, says Roemer, to
“deter those organisms from coming to your fields.” Its
methods for combating the Codling moth are just one example of Kimberton
Hills’ use of
Steiner Agriculture. The 280-acre farm in southeastern Pennsylvania has
used the teachings of Dr. Rudolf Steiner since 1972. Today it raises cows,
chickens, goats, pigs and bees; and grows all manner of vegetables, grains,
fruits, and medicinal herbs. Camphill
Village at Kimberton Hills is a community rather than just a farm, says Roemer.
It is home to about 40 developmentally disabled individuals, of whom 10 work
on the farm, while the rest handle other duties. It also employs seven
full-time farm workers and an equal number of half-timers, and relies on
volunteers from a local high school, and helpers who come from as far away as
Germany and Japan for one-year stints. “On
a Steiner inspired farm, you often find people willing to volunteer in one way
or another,” says Roemer. Not so on a conventional farm; farmers who have to
strap on a gas mask to walk their fields don’t typically get many
volunteers, says Roemer, who worked a year on a conventional dairy farm in
Wisconsin before embracing the Steiner approach.. “You
have to have had experience in conventional farming to appreciate fully what
is happening to people, animals, plants and soil on conventional farms in the
U.S.,” says Roemer. What’s happening, he says, is that plants are being
poisoned with herbicides and pesticides, animals are being imprisoned in tiny
enclosures, and the soil is being robbed of its health. Like
organic farmers, those farmers who practice Steiner Agriculture eschew the use
of chemicals, hormones, and non-therapeutic antibiotics. But this method of
farming adds what some might call a spiritual, or holistic element.
“Essentially, you’re dealing with the complexity of living systems,”
says Roemer, and seeking to understand how living things behave, how they
interact, and the spirits that underlie them. Roemer
and his compatriots, for instance, use the cycles of the moon and planets to
guide their planting schedule. In fact, the Stella Natura calendar, which many
Steiner farmers use to schedule their plantings, was developed and is updated
annually by Sherry Wildfeuer of the Kimberton Hills farm. They
also treat their soil and even soak their seeds in some of the preparations
developed by Steiner. That’s not always easy. “Some of the things that are
needed [for the preparations] are hard for a person to come by, like a
stag’s bladder or a cow’s skull,” says Roemer. And the plants used in
the preparations have to be harvested at precise times in their life cycles.
“It’s another one of these many details that you have to keep in mind
being a Steiner farmer, which some people would find terribly annoying, but I
find interesting.” Kimberton
Hills leaves 65 acres of their farm wooded, for several reasons. For one, the
woods are a place for the spirits of living things, called elementals, to
“play,” as Roemer puts it. For another, the woods and other patches of
uncultivated land provide an environment for
beneficial insects, which eat pests. And Steiner teaches that providing
a place on your land for, say, an unwanted fungus “might reduce the presence
of molds and such things in other places,” Roemer says. “In
Steiner’s view, a healthy farm needs to be differentiated like a human body
is, into organs with different functions,” Roemer says. The woods, for
instance, serve as a sort of liver for the farm, purifying its air, water and
soil. The humans serve as the farm’s ego. “Human beings shouldn’t be the
controlling agents in nature. They can be a guiding and facilitating force.” Just
as a body couldn’t survive if it consisted entirely of kidneys, a farm needs
many different components to function properly. That means no mono-cropping
– the practice common in conventional farming of planting endless rows of
the same vegetable, fruit or grain; Kimberton Hills grows scores of different
things, from apples to hay to strawberries. It
also means that the flesh and blood of the farm – soil and water – have to
be healthy, which in the case of Kimberton Hills means carefully protecting
the stream and fish pond, plus lots of composting, crop rotation, light
tillage, and the planting of cover crops in the winter. It also means
worshipful devotion to the earthworm, whose tunnels aerate the soil and whose
secretions nourish it. “They are the doctors of the soil, and whereas we may
not hold some doctors in high honor, we do hold earthworms there,” says
Roemer. The
vitality of the soil gives Steiner farmers a leg up on conventional farmers,
Roemer says. That helps Kimberton Hills produce yields of berries, grains and
some vegetables that are comparable to those of conventional farmers. (It’s
harder to compete in the orchard, especially in humid, insect-friendly
southeastern Pennsylvania, Roemer notes.) And since Steiner Agriculture
doesn’t rely on large, expensive machines or costly chemicals, the debt
loads of its practitioners aren’t as high as those of many conventional
farmers, he says. That
said, “You’re not going to get rich on this method of farming,” Roemer
states. “Farming in this country in general isn’t economically
sustainable.” Kimberton Hills stays above water, thanks to help from the
nonprofit organization that operates Camphill Village at Kimberton Hills, and
also because of a thriving community-supported agriculture system. With the
CSA model, residents of the community buy shares in the farm, and then receive
a percentage of its yields as their dividends. “They’re
buying produce from animals and plants that are happy and healthy,” says
Roemer. In the end, it’s the feeling of doing meaningful work, and making a
good product, that motivates him. “With Steiner Agriculture, you feel like
you’re farming in a completely healthy way.” Tim
Rapsey has been practicing Steiner Agriculture since 1971 and with his wife,
Fabienne, operating the CSA at Kimberton Hills for the past 5 years.
The garden that supplies the CSA grows 35 to 40 different varieties of
fruits and vegetables. Tim rattles off a couple dozen, including carrots, potatoes,
sweet potatoes, onions, spinach, Swiss chard, cabbage, kale, broccoli,
tomatoes, peppers, egg plant, zucchini, winter and summer squash, asparagus,
strawberries, raspberries, beans, peas, and herbs – basil, parsley, dill,
sage, cilantro. When
asked what the differences are between Steiner Agriculture and traditional
farming, Tim states that “It’s different by degrees.
We work with traditional good farming practices. Traditional farming is
a basis but not enough, because nature has never had to deal with what it has
to deal with now.”
He points out that organic farmers may use “anything, as long as
it’s organic.”
Whereas the first aim of the Steiner farmer is to make the farm a
self-sustaining organism, a closed cycle.
This means the fertilizer, the materials for the preparations, the
animal feed all come from within the farm.
“We’re not talking about input to output,” Tim says.
We’re talking about the optimum number of animals and the optimum
plants that can support each other.
We’re talking about a total farm economy, not a money economy, but
relationships between plants, animals, soil, human beings.”
When
speaking about the preparations in comparison to commercial products, Tim
states that it’s not so much quantity of nutrients but the forces inherent
in the manure, the plants and other substances that are used to make them.
He refers to the preps as a “medicament, almost like a homeopathic
remedy.” “The
earth is under a tremendous amount of stress,” Tim says, “from electric
currents, magnetic currents, pollution, nuclear fallout.
The earth is aging,” he adds, “and just like a human being, it’s
not as resilient.
It has to develop this other side and it can’t do it by itself.
It needs human beings to help.”
By developing and applying the preps, Tim says,
“We are part of the cycle.” When
asked how his produce compares with the other products on the market, Tim
doesn’t hesitate.
“Nutritionally and in terms of keeping quality, ours are much
higher.” He
admits that cosmetically they “probably don’t match up. They might not
look as uniform, because we don’t’ use hybrid varieties or genetically
engineered seeds.
But flavor-wise,” he notes “there’s no comparison.” |
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. The Life Story of a Loaf of Bread . |
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Most
bread starts out life as a grain of wheat, grows into a stalk of wheat, is
milled, combined with other ingredients and baked into a loaf of bread.
Rye, oats, barley, millet, buckwheat, rice, corn, many other grains and
even potatoes can be ground into flour and subsequently made into bread. But the main character of this story, little Willy Whitebread,
started life as a grain of wheat. Little
Willy had it rough right from the start.
After about 300 years of the white man’s farming, the soil in which
he was planted was weak and depleted. The
farmer was trying hard to build up the soil and bring it back to life with a
multitude of chemical fertilizers. He
also tried to protect Willy and his neighboring wheat stalks from insects and
diseases by spraying them with even more synthetic chemicals.
The farmer thought he was doing the right thing.
You see, he had been told that these chemicals were the only way he
could grow a strong and plentiful crop of wheat. For
about fifty years now his family had farmed that way.
It was the way his father had done it and his grandfather before him,
although it seemed that they were always having to use more and more chemicals
in order to keep the wheat growing year after year.
Sometimes this bothered the farmer, especially when he listened to
those radicals who were saying that our food supply is toxic and polluted.
He wondered whether those chemicals (like that anhydrous ammonia with
its ominous sounding warning label) could have anything to do with the nervous
tick he had developed or the skin lesions on his young son or possibly even
the fact that he and his wife couldn’t seem to have another child. Every year, after spreading the fertilizer, he would have
some difficulty breathing, but that went away after a while. These things
bothered the farmer but he didn’t know what he could do about it.
He’d heard that those organic farmers weren’t making much money and
he had a family to support. At
harvest time it seemed that the farmer had indeed done the right thing.
Little Willy and the other wheat stalks were tall and beautiful,
swaying in the autumn breeze. The
farmer proudly gathered the wheat and sold it to the miller, vowing to ignore
those crazy radicals and never again worry himself about fertilizers and
pesticides. What
he couldn’t see was that this wheat did not contain all the nutrients that
its ancestors did many years ago. The soil just didn’t have all those rich minerals anymore.
Some, like selenium, were entirely gone.
And no amount of artificial chemicals piled on top of it could restore
it to its former condition. What
he also could not see was that some of those chemicals had become a part of
Willy and, even if they were only a small part, with people eating about 142
lbs. of wheat flour a year, those chemicals were also bound to become a part
of the people who eat the wheat. Nor
could he see all the nitrates from the fertilizer that were being washed into
the local streams and ponds. Well,
never mind. Willy still contained
many nutrients. He was about 70
percent carbohydrate which would give people lots of energy.
Since Willy was hard, red, spring wheat he was also 12-14 percent
protein for body building and repair. He
had lots of good fiber in him to help people keep their digestive tracts clean
and working well, not to mention the B vitamins, beta carotene and a number of
minerals. And he was destined to become a loaf of bread, a future a young
stalk of wheat could be proud of. But
somehow Willy did not feel as proud as he should have.
He felt a kind of emptiness and a vague anxiety over things to come.
He wished he could identify exactly what was bothering him but he could
not, so he just looked forward to the day when he would get together with the
other kernels of wheat and become a nourishing and delicious loaf of bread.
Willy
didn’t know about the history of bread-making.
He didn’t know that this tradition was actually thousands of years
old, or that even in prehistoric times before man had learned to grind wheat
into flour, he had eaten unground and uncooked grains.
He wasn’t aware of the drastic changes that the domestication of
grains like himself and his cousins, Barley, Rice and Corn had made on the
lifestyle of man. Willy didn’t know that the earliest types of bread were
simply grains ground with a stone, cooked with water, and then dried by a fire
or the sun, nor that his soon-to-be relatives, Flatbread, Matzo and Tortilla
were still made using this technique. He
was totally oblivious to the accidental addition of a fermented beverage
(possibly some Egyptian baker having a beer on the job) to a batch of bread
dough and the resulting lighter
and tastier loaves of bread. Nor
was Willy aware of the centuries of development and improvement in
bread-making that had gone into the production of bread as we know it today.
And Willy was blissfully unaware of the more recent developments that
have produced the nutritionally empty loaf of bread that many people of the
western world now eat. Blissful
was exactly how Willy felt on that day when he arrived at the mill.
He was informed that first he and his fellow kernels would get a kind
of bath to separate them from the straw, earth, small rocks and seeds which
had made their way into the wheat. That
sounded like a good idea. But
what a process this turned out to be. They
were passed through separators, aspirators, scourers, magnets and
washer-stones. Next
came a process called tempering in which they were soaked and conditioned in
water. This made Willy absorb moisture and his outer layer (the husk
or bran) became kind of tough.
Then
the grinding started. They were
put through corrugated rollers, not once or even twice, but six times.
During this process Willy realized that he was losing his husk.
It kind of popped off and was whisked away. ‘Oh no,’ thought Willy, ‘there goes all my good fiber
and some of my minerals, especially the iron.’
After
a while Willy realized that he was losing his middle layer as well. “But,
now I will lose most of my B vitamins and vitamin E, lots of high quality
protein and more minerals.” By
the time the grinding was done all the wheat kernels were a fine powder
consisting of just their middle part, the endosperm.
Willy felt naked and empty. He
was ashamed of his condition and as he looked around him, he realized that all
his fellow kernels were in the same sorry state and feeling just as low.
A
jolly mill worker came along and realizing their unhappy state, tried to
reassure them. “Don’t worry
fellas,” he told them, “we’ll put all that good stuff back into you.”
But all they added were some synthetic B vitamins and iron.
There were still about 20 nutrients that were, for the most part,
missing in action. Next
came the bleaching. Willy had
heard rumors about this process. “Oh no,” he shouted, “not the bleach. This will take out my beta carotene, which could have become
Vitamin A for the people who eat me. Please
don’t take that away from me too.” “Hey,
kid, there’s nothing we can do about it, “ said one sympathetic mill
worker. “Since Roman times
people have preferred white flour and white bread.
And the bakers love it. White
flour is easier to work with” “But,
don’t they know what’s good for them?” pleaded Willy. “Guess
not,” were the last words he heard before the benzoyl peroxide hit him.
But the peroxide was not alone in its assault. There was potassium
bromate to help the flour “mature”
as well as calcium carbonate, calcium sulphate, magnesium carbonate, potassium
aluminum sulphate, sodium aluminum sulphate, and tricalcium phosphate.
By
the time this process was over Willy didn’t even know who he was anymore.
He didn’t think things could get any worse but he didn’t know what
would ensue before he would actually be baked in the oven and made into a loaf
of bread. There were emulsifiers,
conditioners and preservatives to be added.
In all, about 30 different chemicals would be added to the flour and
the dough. By
the time Willy made it to the grocery store shelf he had only one thing to be
proud of. At least his wrapper
looked good, with its bright red, yellow and blue balloons.
THE END |
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. Some Interesting Facts About Bread . |
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Cereal grains and legumes, much of it in the form of bread,
supply more than 70 percent of the daily energy requirements of over two
thirds of the world’s population. In a 1970 research study in Germany, rats were fed diets
consisting of 50% flour or bread. Group
1 consumed fresh stone-ground flour, Group 2 – bread made with this flour,
Group 3 – same flour as group 1 but after 15 days of storage, Group 4 –
bread made with the same kind of flour fed to group 3, Group 5 white flour.
After four generations only the rats fed fresh stone-ground flour and
those fed the bread made with it maintained their fertility.
The rats in groups 3 through 5 were totally infertile.
Four generations in rats equals approximately 100 years in humans.
[This interesting study was cited in source#6, page5] About 95% of the flour used in the USA is white, with only
20-30% of the grains original vitamins retained. In the early 1900’s Harvey W. Wiley, who was then Chief of
the Food and Drug Administration won a Supreme Court case banning the use of
bleaches in breadmaking. Wiley
was later forced out of the FDA and the Supreme Court decision was not
enforced. Commercial “Wheat Bread” is often made of highly
processed white flour. Ingredients
such as “enriched wheat flour,” “unbleached
wheat flour,” and “wheat flour” do not indicate unprocessed flour.
Look for the words, “100% whole wheat flour,” or “stone ground
whole wheat flour” If you want to be sure you are buying a less processed
product. Even “whole grain
breads,” may have bleached, processed wheat flour as their main ingredient.
So read your bread labels carefully and avoid anything that says,
“enriched wheat flour” or simply “wheat flour.”
Some wonderful alternatives to conventional yeast breads are
sprouted breads and sourdough breads. Sprouted
grains are some of the most nutritious foodstuffs you can eat.
Sprouts are loaded with vitamins and minerals and “living energy.”
One very excellent sprouted bread which is available in many health
food stores, is Ezekiel bread. This
is actually made from a “recipe” set down in the Old Testament, Ezekiel
9:12. It is an extremely hearty,
highly nutritious bread that will make any sandwich into a satisfying meal.
Sourdough bread is naturally leavened, using a small portion
of the dough from a previous batch, called a “starter.”
Some people have health problems seemingly related to ingestion of
yeast, including indigestion and yeast overgrowth.
For these people sourdough breads may be a wonderful alternative. Sources: 1 The
Bread Book by Carolyn Meyer, Harcourt, Brace, Janovich, Inc.; NewYork,
1971 2. The Bread
Bible by Beth Hensperger, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1999 3. Funk and
Wagnalls.com Encyclopedia –
article on Flour 4, North Dakota
State University Extension Service – Fertilizing Hard Red Spring 5. Encarta
Encyclopedia – article on Bread 6. Ecological
Agriculture Projects – Nutritional Characteristics of Organic,
Freshly |
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Starter: Sterilize
a glass jar and a spoon in boiling water.
Mix flour and water together in the sterilized jar, using the
sterilized spoon.
Cover jar with clean cotton cloth and let sit.
Stir contents of jar daily with a sterilized spoon.
After three days
the starter hould be ready.
Loosely cover with jar lid and store in a cool place.
Bread
(3-4 loaves) Mix
7 cups flour with water, salt and starter, leaving a pinch of starter in glass
jar. Add
remaining flour slowly until dough becomes too thick to stir.
Knead gently until uniformly smooth and elastic in texture.
Cover and let rise 2 hours in a glass or porcelain bowl.
Replenish starter.
Knead dough again and shape into 3 or 4 loaves.
Cut shallow slits in top to keep from cracking.
Place in oiled and floured bread pans.
Cover and let rise for 4 to 6 hours.
Place in cold oven with a pan of
water on bottom rack of oven.
Bake at 425 F for 15 minutes.
Reduce oven temperature to 350 F and continue baking about 45 minutes
or until golden brown.
Remove from pans and cool.
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. Editor’s Journal: On My Mother’s Passing . |
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We
had hoped to get the first edition of this publication out in June but
circumstances in this editor’s life would not allow it.
In my previous newsletter, Cornucopia News, I shared my thoughts and
also many joys and concerns with my readers.
Although this journal entry involves a deeply personal event in my
life, when I shared it with Victor, he encouraged me to offer it to the
community. On
June 23rd, 2001 the spirit of Agnes Judge, my mother, left this
plane of existence. She was a
much-loved soul who will be missed by her children and grandchildren, her
nieces and nephews, her friends and the staff at the veteran’s home where
she had been a resident for 2½ years. Some
people have called my mother a saint. Whether
or not she deserves that title depends, I suppose, on one’s definition of
the word, saint. That she was a
good person who had lived a hard life with many trials and tribulations is
without question. That she
maintained an attitude of gratitude and graciousness is also indisputable.
The three qualities that, in my opinion, stood out in my mother’s
character were Devotion to God and family, Perseverance and Selflessness.
I
was privileged to be present during my mother’s final moments.
We had known for several weeks that her death was imminent and all of
her seven children spent as much time with her during those weeks as our
varied situations would allow. For
the last three days of her life, Mom was totally unresponsive to our attempts
at communication. She
could not eat or drink anything and although she occasionally appeared to be
trying to open her eyes, the effort was just too much.
Mom’s
passing was not gentle and easy. She
had been in constant pain from severe arthritis and injuries incurred as a
result of osteoporosis. She also suffered from congestive heart failure and
during the last ten days she had developed an infection that her weakened body
simply could not fight. During
the final two days of her life, she was racked with a high fever and chills.
We struggled to bring the fever down while trying to keep her warm and
as comfortable as possible. On
the last day of her life the combination of pain and fever medications
apparently relieved her pain enough that she could move her head a little in
response to the voices around her, and her hands, which had become curled up
with arthritis, finally relaxed. I
had been sitting at her bedside for two days when the final moments came. Her labored breathing suddenly became much more so, her whole
body seeming to participate in the effort to get enough air.
My sister was in a chair on one side of the bed and I was sitting on
the other side of the bed with Mom’s arm in my lap,
talking to her and gently stroking her hand.
I knew that this was it; her time had come.
So I asked Sue to read from a book of Prayers
for Mothers that she had brought with her.
Sue started to quietly read the prayers while I continued to talk to
Mom, telling her what a good job she had done and how her work was done now
and it was alright for her to go. I
told her how much I love her and that she needn’t worry about her children
because we would take care of one another. As she struggled to breathe,
she opened her eyes wide and looked directly at me.
I was thankful that the medications had relieved her pain because for
the first time in months, I was not afraid to touch and move her.
“I’m going to hold you,” I told her.
I put my arms behind her and lifted her towards me, holding her head in
my hands. She continued to stare
right at me as I grasped for the right words to make her passing a little
easier. Do you see the light?”
I asked her. “Go to it, Mom. Don’t be afraid. It’s
good. It’s beautiful.
There won’t be any more pain, Mom.
No more worries. Thank you; thank you for all you’ve given us.”
Despite
the tears running down my face I was able to smile.
She looked like an innocent and trusting child.
When she breathed her last breath I could feel the spirit leave her
body. She was as light as a
feather when I laid her back down on her pillow.
The grimace of pain that had been almost constantly on her face was
gone. She looked totally relaxed
and peaceful. She looked
beautiful. I
miss my mother. Even though I
hadn’t been able to spend nearly as much time with her during the last few
years, as I would have liked to, I knew she was there and I could always pick
up the phone and call her, fill her in on my life, my children’s lives and
what her only great grandchild, my grandson Zachary, was doing.
I had a totally loving relationship with my mother.
We had no issues with one another.
I always knew exactly who she was, because she was genuine; she was
precisely who she portrayed herself to be.
I will continue to miss being able to talk to her, to see her, to send
her letters and pictures. I have yet to call the florist and tell them to cancel the
monthly order of fresh flowers to be sent to her room.
I
will miss her for a long time but I don’t feel diminished by her death. If anything, I feel that something has been added to me –
some of her strength, some of her
love. During several meditations
that I’ve had since her passing, I’ve felt an incredible fullness, good
energy overflowing. I have
experienced many other sensations during meditation but nothing quite like
this. I had asked Mom in
the quiet hours of the night before she died to give me whatever energy she
had left, to transfer to me the love and devotion that had characterized her
life. I had forgotten about that
request until a meditation several days after her death when I was first
overcome by that wonderful fullness. So,
if this is it, Mom, if this is your energy, love and devotion – which I
believe it is, I have one more request. Please
help me to know just what to do with it, for such a precious gift must not be
wasted.
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Peace
and Joy Rose |
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4217 East-West Highway, Bethesda,
MD 20814
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