Blog Post 3/28

Emily Lincoln

Weekly Blog Post

28 March, 2018

This week we started our new book The One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka. Much of it is similar to the two previous books we have read, with food as the main topic. He begins by talking about why he chose to farm and do what he does and how he grew up in a farming lifestyle. In class we also talked about food. We did an exercise where we wrote down the foods we have eaten in the past month. It turns out all the foods read from the list were actually out of season. This really surprised me because I had no idea. I also recall learning in class that you must eat eight oranges to get the same nutritional value of one orange from a generation ago. This is crazy to me how much food, especially fruits and vegetables have lost their nutritional value over time. Why is this? So people buy more? Or so we have to buy other products to balance and get the same nutritional value? Or is it simply because farming is done differently? I found this all very interesting. This makes me want to shop at local farmers markets when they are in season because I feel like they may be more nutritious and healthier. Where I live, Walpole, has a farmers market every saturday in the summer and my mom usually goes if she is not busy. They sell vegetables and fruits such as corn, tomatoes, apples, strawberries, blueberries, squash, etc. There is also a man in walpole that grows his own vegetables and fruit and sells them right from a stand in his yard. I knew it was different shopping locally versus at the supermarket but I never understood there was this much of a difference. Maybe one day things will turn back around and farming will be more popular and valued, unlike today.