Thursday, February 15, 2007

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

I noticed that Allison was reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Delimna and it reminded me to pass on another article from the New York Times, written by Pollan, from a couple of weeks ago that while very long is very much worth reading. Pollan is a good writer (also highly recommended are The Botany of Desire, Second Nature, and A Place of My Own) and those of you who have read Omnivore's Delimna will recognize and appreciate a return to a common theme, while those of you who haven't read it will hopefully be intrigued enough to do so. Here's a paragraph towards the end that I really liked, just to give you a sample:
Cook. And if you can, plant a garden. To take part in the intricate and endlessly interesting processes of providing for our sustenance is the surest way to escape the culture of fast food and the values implicit in it: that food should be cheap and easy; that food is fuel and not communion. The culture of the kitchen, as embodied in those enduring traditions we call cuisines, contains more wisdom about diet and health than you are apt to find in any nutrition journal or journalism. Plus, the food you grow yourself contributes to your health long before you sit down to eat it. So you might want to think about putting down this article now and picking up a spatula or hoe.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Trees, Property Rights and Soil Conservation


Well, for the inaugural post on the WHRI blog here is an article from the New York Times last week that gets pretty close to summing up a lot of what we're about around here. Its got it all - sustainable agricultural practices, conservation of soil, recovery of soil fertility, nitrogen fixing (thats right, I said nitrogen fixing!), ecological balance, the tenuous balance of rural development, civil rights, etc., etc., etc. Definitely worth a read. What I find interesting in this piece, as in others of its nature is how a return to "balance" in an ecological system is often the harbringer of "prosperity." Or if you were to phrase it in somewhat more spiritual language - creation functions as it was created to function when it is allowed to function as it was created.