DAY TEN ALKALINE YEAR

FORBIDDEN FRUIT?

Meat is at best a wasteful use of arable land.  Paul Roberts states in The End of Food  that it takes eight pounds of grain to make one pound of meat. In addition, the way that industrial beef is raised, as Michael Pollan shows in The Omnivore's Dilemma,  opens the way for pathogens to screw up the food chain.  Same goes for pork.  Swine flu warn't named that for nuthin'.  In addition, Roberts points out, as other parts of the world acquire our expensive taste for meats, the costs in terms of land, and even more important, water supply to grow the feed, will force economic crises.   Meanwhile, sub-Saharan Africa cannot feed itself.  Are we stuck in an evil morality play?

With the above paragraph, an image came to mind of Adam and Eve leaving the Garden of Eden, shaking their fists at God, and yelling: "So why did you put that poopendecker tree there in the first place if you didn't want us to eat it?"

In the story of the sixth day of Creation, if my Harper Collins study Bible (NRSV) is correct, God gave humans dominion over fish, birds, cattle, and all wild animals.  He didn't say, "Eat them."  Cattle could have been used to pull plows and to till the land. Be that as it may, when He next created us, He said:  "See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food."  Odd that he didn't think to mention in advance that he was going to make a tree from which fruit couldn't be eaten.  No mention of animals for food.   Next sentence deals with the beasties and in it God is quoted as saying he'd given them every green plant for food.

Why do people get so up-tight over giving up meat?  Maybe it's like Adam and Eve shaking their fist at God.  We could see peace instead of this.  The enjoyable solution would be to give up meats, replant a lot of the genetically-altered corn with vegetable and grain crops, and use the extra arable land to help feed people who are really in need.

Today, Day Ten, was Food Bank day; my main job is picking up the day-old pizza at one store that freezes and saves it for us, and also picking up miscellaneous contributions that visitors deposit in a big red box at the Senior Center. Then I helped to bag dog & cat food and a few other things.  It's "community" in the best sense of the word!  The clients often come in to volunteer, along with a lot of caring others, some of whom also cook lunch for both clients and workers. I'm going to miss it when Jack and I go to Arizona this winter, and hope to volunteer at the one in Nogales.

The most serious challenge to my alkaline visions came when, after tending to the above jobs, I walked into the social hall where the lunch is served, smelled coffee, and saw a table full of pizza, breads, candies and cookies.  The desire was momentary,  YAY!

Later, I met with Sue at her house to help plan the November art show at the Senior Center.  She suggested we call it "Honoring our Ancestors," and it is to include photos, writings, and artifacts before 1940.  We need to stress in the publicity that the ancestors don't necessarily need to be from Orcas, as so few people are and we want everybody's ancestors to show up.    Sue had a good raspberry herbal tea, and we went out to pick two apples from her three-year-old yellow Delicious tree, which is flourishing.