How Far Do I Need To Go??!!

What a beautiful sunny day.  The sun is gaining strength, a sure sign its plan is to melt away the snow and warm the earth again.  With that comes dreams of gardening.  Today I was thinking about what the next season will hold for us.  An addition of new piglets, a pumpkin patch and perhaps an expansion of my existing vegetable garden.  I would like to expand the garden to allow more room between the rows.  Then I wonder if I should just plant less.....but I want to plant carrots, sweet potatoes, various lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, peppers...... and then I watched the "food industry documentaries" on Netflix.  Expanding my garden sounds like a great idea and I may research options for growing some of my own veggies during the winter months, or at least extend into the beginning parts of winter. 

The documentaries have over loaded me with uncertainties about what I am feeding my family.  I will certainly have to watch them a few more times to absorb the information.  It's interesting how they describe a lot of our food as "food like products".  They aren't "real food".  Most of our food is so processed and refined the nutrients are gone.  We're eating calories with no benefit to our body.  I hadn't thought of it that way.  From most of our food all we're gaining is fat!

This is not news to me.  We grow our own meats/eggs so we know what we're eating, we grow our own summer veggies so we know what we're eating....how much further can I take it?  I can't see me milling my own flour....in reality I shouldn't have to mill my own flour.  Would I have to grow my own wheat so I'd know it wasn't sprayed with chemicals????  How far do I need to go????  Do I just search out alternatives to processed bread products?  Are there alternatives to processed bread products?  What is really safe????  My mind is whirling with information overload and uncertainties. 

A lot of it is a no brainer - fast food, sugary snacks, sugary drinks, processed foods are all bad for us.  But what is really good for us?  Tomatoes are sprayed with a gas to ripen them.  Are organic tomatoes sprayed with that same gas?  How many chemicals are in a salad?  If the grass the cow eats is sprayed with pesticide that is in our milk, our cheese, our yogurt.......  It's crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!  It's scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We trust the food industry to supply us with nourishment but they don't deserve our trust.  They are failing miserably.  It's all about making money.  One documentary suggests sourcing local milk, flour, etc.  Government regulations frown upon sourcing milk from local farmers, they want us to drink only pasteurized.  In the eyes of the government we are no longer capable of knowing if something is safe.  Or that's what they want us to believe, that we need them to make sure our food is safe.  They don't want us to purchase milk, eggs, meat from our fellow neighbours.  They want us to support the processed world of the supermarket. 

We have recently found out government organizations are actually spending time on internet classifieds such as Kijiji watching for local people selling food products such as eggs, turkeys, chickens, pork etc.  Apparently, if you are not a part of the government organization, if you don't fill out their paperwork and abide by their criteria you are not seen fit to supply food to others.  To source unprocessed food you have to go underground.  If you could source whole milk you'd have to sneak it home and tell nobody.  As they crack down on our neighbours who are supplying us with unprocessed, hormone free, pesticide free, natural food it is going to be harder and harder to find someone to take the risk.  Threatening letters are scaring home farmers, making them afraid to share their hard work with others.  There's always the Farmer's Market, from what I understand those people have jumped through the hoops for the government to get permission to sell their goods to us.  It's a crazy world we live in!