Since covid-19 first emerged, one of our continued recommendations has been to “start a garden”.
The pandemic has exposed the fragility of our food supply chains, as well as the shortcomings of our global and national health authorities. So having more self-sufficiency when it comes to calories, as well as better nutrition to boost your immune system, just make good sense. Hence: start a garden.
In this week’s podcast, we welcome back Joel Salatin. Labeled by The Washington Post as “the most famous farmer in America”, Joel has spent his career advocating for sustainable farming practices and pioneering models that show how food can be grown and raised in ways that are regenerative to our topsoils, more humane to livestock, produce much healthier & tastier food, and contribute profitably to the local economy.
Fresh off huge demand for his farm’s output during the covid lockdown and from releasing two new books, Beyond Labels and Polyface Designs, Joel gives yet another heaping dose of common sense ways we can improve our ecology, economy, food production and wellness — starting with a healthier approach to dealing with the coronavirus:
There’s nothing fresher, more nutrient dense than growing your food yourself. You know exactly where it came from and what went into it. That’s a real viable way to ensure your own health.
The problem with the current pandemic is that everybody’s sitting around waiting for a vaccine. I’m waiting for the day when somebody pushes Dr. Fauci aside on the microphone and says, “Okay, America, tell you what: we’re going to spend one week working on our immune system. Let’s build our immune systems for a week.
So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re not going to drink any sugary soft drinks. No Cokes this week. We’re not going to go to McDonald’s. We’re going to cook from scratch in our kitchens and go to the farmer’s market and supplement your own stuff. And we’re going to cook from scratch, not going to eat processed stuff. Everything we eat, we’re going to be able to read the label. And then we’re going to get eight and a half hours of sleep every night. And we’re going to drink three liters of water a day so you get hydrated. And we’re going to exercise into at least a light sweat 20 minutes a day. We’re going to spend an hour a day out in the sunshine. And to top it off, we’re going to forgive everybody we hate.”
That’s about six simple things that if we did it as a nation, just imagine where our immune system would be. It would go through the roof.
Note that I didn’t even mention things like stopping smoking or not taking drugs. I’m not even going to. I’m just saying for the average person, this is a recipe for real immunological enhancement. And to me, that’s far more important long-term whether or not we develop a vaccine.
But I haven’t heard anybody at the high level talk about building an immune system — ever. It’s like it’s not even in the discussion. It makes you feel like it’s a conspiracy; but it’s not. It’s just a fraternity of ideas that overlooks the most obvious thing — which is what you can do for yourself rather than what you have to be dependent on from somebody else.
A vaccine makes you dependent on somebody else. But if you can build your immune system, then you can fix it yourself. And we live in a time and a national narrative that’s all about how to create additional dependency, not how to create additional independency.
Click the play button below to listen to Chris’ interview with Joel Salatin (59m:47s).
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by mki-2-2