north americans are so spoiled rotten. they pay a fraction of what much of the world pays for food. example: fresh milk is 1/2 the cost as it is in the caribbean, as is simple things like cream of wheat cereal, canned goods, fresh fruit (that isn’t local to the specific caribbean island), bread, meats, etc… and the availability of quality is greater.

...and yet, they consume so much crap.

Interesting!

Remember the *Great Leap Forward* in China (late 1940s to early 1950s) where the peasants stopped work on agriculture to produce steel (out of scrap metal – the peasants’ own pots, pans, and other metal artifacts were requisitioned to supply the “scrap”, and to fuel the furnaces the local environment was denuded of trees and wood taken from the doors and furniture of peasants’ houses).

Tens of Millions starved to death and the steel was useless crap (made in ad hoc homebuilt furnaces), and the environment was pillaged and raped.

Quote from the article:

In Europe farmers are switching en masse to fuel crops to meet the EU requirement that bio-fuels account for 20 per cent of the energy mix.

Given the stupidity of politicians and the greed of farmers, It’s a good idea to learn how to live off the land – The UK is teaming with wild food (plants and animals) if you know where to look and what to look for.

I made my own bread totally from scratch last summer (just to see if I could do it).

I picked wild apples – chopped them up and fermented a brew (the booze was a bit too strong and manky but I wanted the yeast sludge for the bread). I put the yeast sludge in a jar and kept it alive by feeding it wild fruit (containing sugar) every few days.

Next I gather a load of white oak acorns (dark acorns contain too much tannin), mashed them up and soaked and washed them till most of the tannin was removed. I then dehydrated the mush (squeezed it in a cloth and spread it thin in a warm place ) to make the flour.

I got some salt from seawater (just heat it up and scoop out the crystals that form on the top).

I got some fat from a (massive) hare I trapped (rendered down the animal fat on slow heat to get a sort of lard).

So with all the ingredients, I got a bit of the yeast sludge (which was stored in a cool dark place), gave it big feed of ripe blackberries and put it somewhere warm. I waited until it frothed up before beginning to make the bread.

Finally, just make the bread as normal – big bowl, chuck in the flour, liquid yeast (add extra water if needed to make the dough), salt and a bit of fat; mix it up and knead it like normal (for about 7 minutes), let if prove (rise) while covered, punch it down then knead it again, let if prove (rise) again then bung it in the oven.

The bread was a bit bland and crumbly (I understand the masters of acorn bread – native American Indians – mix the acorn flour with grain flour for a better texture and taste). Anyway, it was bread made form absolute scratch and I didn’t sick-up or shit my guts out after eating it.

Notes It was massively labor intensive to make a single loaf but I suppose in a post-industrial village with some economies of scale and task differentiation, a village bakery would be viable. I baked the loaf in a domestic electric oven but I know how to make an oven outside using wood, stones, soil etc. so that was not part of the experiment.

ummm… i’m exhausted just reading about the process…

©If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.©

what the world eats pictures