Not wanting "organic" bread

[OakLeaf]

We do not (and cannot) produce enough food to feed even our own population with these methods.

Not so quick with the "cannot." The info-box on this page has a nice summary.


Spray-on organic pancakes.... Forget the Froot Loops, that just makes me want to have a pancake spray fight.

[GLC1968]

Not so quick with the "cannot." The info-box on this page has a nice summary.

I still stand by 'cannot'. I'm not saying that you cannot produce as much using organic methods. I am saying that without equipment, refridgeration and the ability to ship food, we cannot feed our population (organic or not). Human population boomed because we could feed it. But, our ability to feed it is artificial and inflated. Take away those inputs and the overall yields drop and people go hungry. And additionally, we have large population centers in areas not conducive to agriculture - so local is definitely not always possible. But again, there's so much to it. If it were an easy fix, there would be no debate and we'd all be living large on healthy, fresh, local food and the small farmers would be respected and the big 'evil' agribusinesses would have gone the way of the dodo.

Spray-on organic pancakes.... Forget the Froot Loops, that just makes me want to have a pancake spray fight.

That sounds like a disgusting mess in the making!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Can I be allowed to be human and have contradictions?

Yes.

I have tons of contradictions and I certainly don't always do or say the exact right thing.

[msincredible]

I should mention that my usual form of buying "locally" is riding my bicycle to the farm 7 miles away and filling my backpack with their produce.

[OakLeaf]

Folks like Oakleaf, GLC, others here on TE etc. should be commended for cultivating their own food gardens, etc. ...

Can I be allowed to be human and have contradictions?

None'a that in my direction eh. Truth is I'm probably the worst environmental offender on this board, what with being a snowbird, and the travel, and half of the year living 12 miles from anywhere, and all. I hate that that's true (and the snowbird part isn't my choice, but that's another story for the marriage counselor ). But it is true, I know it, and it's part of why I bristle when people mock the meager efforts that I do make to offset the damage.

Human, contradictions, yepper.

[tulip]

None'a that in my direction eh. Truth is I'm probably the worst environmental offender on this board, what with being a snowbird, and the travel, and half of the year living 12 miles from anywhere, and all. I hate that that's true (and the snowbird part isn't my choice, but that's another story for the marriage counselor ). But it is true, I know it, and it's part of why I bristle when people mock the meager efforts that I do make to offset the damage.

Human, contradictions, yepper.

Just think of all that heating fuel that you DON'T use!

[GLC1968]

None'a that in my direction eh. Truth is I'm probably the worst environmental offender on this board, what with being a snowbird, and the travel, and half of the year living 12 miles from anywhere, and all. I hate that that's true (and the snowbird part isn't my choice, but that's another story for the marriage counselor ). But it is true, I know it, and it's part of why I bristle when people mock the meager efforts that I do make to offset the damage.

Human, contradictions, yepper.

Contradictions? You bet. I have a brother who is a pilot for a commercial airline. No matter what I do, I can't offset the damage he does every minute of his work day. I did get him into recycling though.

We do what we can. It's all good.

[maillotpois]

I should mention that my usual form of buying "locally" is riding my bicycle to the farm 7 miles away and filling my backpack with their produce.

Not on the Ducati?

[smilingcat]

The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic
Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses


The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming


The Backyard Homestead

And if you do a search for "backyard homestead" on amazon, you will find many more books on intensive farming technique in an urban setting.

Our growing technique isn't pure "organic" since the soil on my property is depleted. Depleted of nitrogen, potassium, phospor, sulfur, magnesium, and all the other trace elements. We do have an active composting going to help with the soil rehab. We have no choice. We use chemical fertilizer.

Useless lawn has been torn out and replaced with diverse selection of plants. Most are not native to this area .

There was an interesting article in recent Mother Earth News. An urban homesteader in Pasadena. Every inch of his property with exception of his house was used to grow food. Several thousand pounds of vegetable, fruits nuts ... per year.

----------
When I go to the farmers market, I find out where they are from and buy "local" This could mean 80 miles away. We used to buy farm eggs, interesting blue-ish color, to tan to brown egg shells. small chicken, butchered looked like a black silkie... to bison meat. Not sure how local it is. Might be 300 miles from the market.

You will not find banana, mango and like at california farmers market. Only items allowed are the items grown by the farmer is the way how I understand it. The LAW!!

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As for organic bread, never occured to me that some would consider hard crust as being stale. Isn't that the point of baugette? But having it explained, makes sense. Just tad odd to me.

[GLC1968]

I'm not sure if this is the family in Pasedena you are referrring to, but this place is amazing (and pretty much a legend in the 'homesteading' world). Something like 3 tons of veggies from a 1/10th of an acre or something...

http://www.pathtofreedom.com/

[channlluv]

I try to buy local, too, when I can, but being in a major metropolitan area where local actually does include northern Mexico, it's kind of hard to know what's safe and what's fudgy on the great slide scale of organic squishiness.

smilingcat - when I read your post I had a flashback of reading something once upon a time that molasses was used as an additive to irrigation systems to restore the minerals in farm soil. I wonder if that might help your yield and replete your soil.

I love crusty whole grain bread - someone called it artisan bread, and I didn't know that it was low-gluten and all that until I read it on this board. Interesting stuff. Now I'm looking for it every time I go shopping as there is a new Trader Joe's on the way home from my favorite bike workout. Woohoo!

Of course, I'm supposed to be off wheat to test for a wheat allergy that might be hanging up the weight loss effort, but getting off wheat is h-a-r-d. For me, at least.

Susan, how are you milling your own grains? I've got a small coffee grinder that I've used for grinding millet and flax, but after that, I don't know much what to do with it. The one bread I tried didn't taste very good, alas.

Do you have a good recipe for millet and flax bread?

Roxy

[malkin]

There'a a banana farm in Ventura CA.

[OakLeaf]

The bakers of the really good millet bread keep their process a deep, dark secret, but I've heard it rumored that it's a sourdough process (so it's not truly yeast-free). I haven't got around to trying that yet. Rice flour is a main ingredient as well. (Also, it's processed on equipment shared with wheat bread, so although I can tolerate it well, it's not suitable for a challenge diet or for most people with celiac.)

Although the commercial bread lists flours, not whole grains, in the ingredient list, I think my next attempt will be to soak, grind and ferment whole millet and rice. That should eliminate some or all of the bitterness of the millet.

[smilingcat]

I'm not sure if this is the family in Pasedena you are referrring to, but this place is amazing (and pretty much a legend in the 'homesteading' world). Something like 3 tons of veggies from a 1/10th of an acre or something...

http://www.pathtofreedom.com/

YES!!

Wow!! such wonderful video you dug up. Yes, his action made us rethink of our garden. And thus our reason for tearing out our lawn.

I'll post more on the garden thread.

[msincredible]

Not on the Ducati?

It's only 7 miles! Plus the parking lot is all dirt and I'm a little bit nervous about the Duc in there.