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There are many reasons: for the simple pleasure, for the physical and psychological benefits as well as to save some money.
Let's first talk about the positive psychological impacts. My garden is a place where I decide: how I will manage it, what I will plant, when and how I will intervene. For many of us, having a small corner without a boss and with a certain autonomy is a great joy.
Following the seasons and natural rhythms and thus escaping for a moment from the pressures of modern life is very nice. Seeing the seasons pass and feeling the changes on our skin takes us away for a while from the sound and visual vicissitudes that are, unfortunately, part of our lives.
Exchanging with others and finding friends and allies is really beneficial. We are social beings and helping each other is heartwarming.
And, just spending some time around the irregular shapes of plants rather than the angular geometry of our cities and neighborhoods, is very good for us. It's the same with colors like green which has a calming effect on our minds.
In addition to these direct benefits on our quality of life, here are other good reasons to grow your own food:
The quality of modern food
Today 60% of our calories come from corn, rice and wheat. With sugar, barley, potato and vegetable oils, the total rises to 85% of our calories. 75% of today's human diet comes from 12 plants and 5 animal species.
Dependence on such an undiverse food base is dangerous. There are between 250,000 to 300,000 known edible plants and we only use 150 to 200 of them. Since the 1900s, farmers have adopted modern varieties and abandoned local varieties. We have therefore lost around 75% of the genetic diversity in our crops.
We have adapted by selection the plants that we have been growing since the beginning of agriculture. Unfortunately, for several decades, the food industry has wanted to create varieties suitable for intensive agriculture. That is to say varieties that will grow faster, use synthetic fertilizers more efficiently, etc. Unfortunately, many studies have shown that these fruits and vegetables are less nutritious. Since the 1940s, most of the vegetables we eat have seen a decline in calcium, iron, phosphorus, copper, vitamin B2, vitamin C and potash.
You have no doubt heard of our microbiome, formerly called the human intestinal flora. We are witnessing a revolution in our understanding of our bodies and minds. We now know that a healthy microbiota, with a wide diversity of microorganisms, is essential for many bodily functions. We should not underestimate its importance. A discussion on the complexity of the functioning of the microbiota, its role in our body and its impacts on our health and our mind would be too long for this book but I would like to share some information, simplified.
In our microbiota, there are archaea, bacteria, viruses and yeasts. This set, and especially the bacteria, protect us against pathogens, they participate in the development of our immune system and they help us digest food. There is continuous communication between our guts and our brains through several pathways.
A rich diversity of these mutualistic symbioses is essential for good health. They will protect us from many things, as much as they can, pollution for example. We know that hunter-gatherers have greater diversity than most of us. Among the Hadza, for example, diseases such as colon cancer, colitis and Crohn's disease do not exist.
Our long supply chains
We have all been through a pandemic and there was the invasion of Ukraine. We have seen how fragile the long chains of goods and food transfers are. I can also talk about the negative impacts of maritime and air transport on the environment and the quality of our foodstuffs. Distant producers are much more aware of their own production practices than we consumers. This is what we call production information asymmetry. Remember the 2017 scandal of eggs contaminated with insecticide? Insecticide prohibited for use in products intended for consumption. Millions of eggs were removed from the shelves and destroyed. This in the European community where the monitoring of food industry production is supposed to be well managed. I prefer to produce for myself, my family and my community rather than supporting these long and precarious supply chains. I also prefer to have a relationship of mutual aid and friendship with the people who produce the foodstuffs that I cannot or do not want to produce myself.
Mass poisoning. Some people will say that "poison" is an exaggeration but the Larousse dictionary defines "poison" as: "Substance which, introduced into the body in sufficient doses, destroys or alters iy’s vital functions". This is indeed the case of ultra-processed foods** (UPF).
Increased risk of obesity
Metabolic
disorders Gastrointestinal disorders
Increased risk of cancer
Development of type 2 diabetes
Increased risk of cardiovascular disease
Increased risk of high blood pressure
Increased risk of depression
More bodily fragility
Less diversity in the intestinal flora
According to SIGA more than 66% of the 24,932 packaged foodstuffs tested in France in 2019 are ultra-processed foods and more than a third of the calories consumed by French men and women come from TUEs. In the United States, this figure reaches 71% of packaged foodstuffs. In 2019 the High Council of Public Health wanted to reduce the consumption of TUEs by 20% before 2022. In 2014, in Brazil, the government decided that the processing of food products was the biggest public health problem. Following this, a group of researchers from the country created a food classification system called NOVA
Minimally or unprocessed
Culinary ingredients
Processed
Ultra-processed foods
We also find the Nutri Score and the SIGA system . They help us to better choose our foods. But the question is rather: how is it possible that these products are on sale and that the labels are not like those of cigarette packs?
A “sub-problem” of this food crisis is its impact on people in low-income households. These products, heavily promoted by the food industry, are sold at affordable prices. They are also, for the most part, ready-made foods, quickly served, with a minimum of preparation time. It is attractive for busy people.
In the world of Permaculture, we have insisted for decades that our food be of good quality and thus strengthen our health: I am what I eat! We have set up or helped people to set up systems for the production and distribution of healthy food products.
**“An ultra-processed food is characterized by the presence in its list of ingredients of at least one substance itself ultra-processed, called an ultra-processing marker. These substances are obtained by synthesis, or by a succession of physical, chemical or biological processes applied to natural raw materials and which lead to a strong degradation compared to their original matrix”
(Davidou et al, “The holistico- reductionist Siga classification according to degree of food processing: An evaluation of ultra-processed foods in French supermarkets”, ResearchGate, January 2020)
Environmental destruction.
Deforestation, soil degradation, destruction of ecosystems and groundwater, pollution of soils, people and waterways. These are, among others, some of the issues associated with the production, processing and distribution of food currently managed by the agro-food industry.
Producing and consuming local, fresh and seasonal fruits and vegetables from old varieties are all approaches that can help us to partially solve these problems. It is also very important that we diversify our diets.