About the Food We Eat

There are a few pleasures in life like strolling through a field of fresh berries on a sunny day and eating your way through.

And there is no better way to eat than picking it and popping it in your mouth. Fresh ripe food can not be found in a store. Fresh food starts loosing it's "energy" - often by time it reaches your house to process it.

Some people say if you are going to have corn for supper- get the water boiling before you go to the field since once you pick it - the sugars begin changing to starch. now I'm not that fast but I can tell you once you get used to fresh food, picked and eaten fresh daily, even day old food seems blah. The flavor of fresh food is 100% there.

The other part of food production I think gets lost is how the food is grown. If you buy mass produced food - chances are that food was grown using chemicals. And, if "You are what you eat" is true, then mass food grown with chemical use is just chemicals rearranged to look like food.

And if you like really fresh food - try skipping a few steps in your wheat grains and eat fresh wheat grass while walking through the wheat field. Sounds a little odd but once you try it (or do juicing it) you'll find re-newed energy and vitality. No wonder animals like hay!

There are so many new gardening types for people to integrate into their life now from simple pots in sunny windows to permacutlured wood lands. From sprouting to mushroom growing and water gardens for growing fresh water cress and chest nuts - can all be done Off-the-Grid on the farm or in the back yard.

Seed Saving is another important step in growing food since the food you grew last year is more suitable for your climate than seed grown in other climates and shipped to a store near you. Plants (except potatoes) develop "hardiness" for a particular climate and soil conditions over years so learning to keep what grows well in your soil and climate can mean you increase your yeilds year after year.

When you can't eat fresh, preserving the food you grow with as much freshness is your next best way to get non-chemical, no preservative foods. We like drying our food since we made a huge food dryer but building a good root cellar is a neccessity when it comes to off-the-grid food storage. And last but not least, we've returned to an old way of storing food with a technological twist- the Ice House.