Hunger and Waste
What if we were satiated within ourselves, symbiotic with nature and stopped supporting materialism and stopped destroying nature to feed our greed?
In 2018, the United States, had more than 63 million tons of food waste generated in the commercial, institutional, and residential sectors, with only 4 percent managed via composting. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that “food reaches landfills more than any other single material in our everyday trash, constituting 24 percent of municipal solid waste.”
This is wasted nourishment that could have helped feed families, including animals. Resources like water, energy, and labor used to produce wasted food could have been used for other purposes, or conserved. And, many lives could have been saved.
On June 12, 2024, the USDA and EPA announced the “National Strategy for Reducing Food Loss and Waste and Recycling Organics” as part of President Biden’s whole-of-government approach to tackle climate issues, feed people, environmental justice, and economy.
The four objectives:
Prevent food loss.
Prevent food waste.
Increase the recycling rate for all organic waste.
Support policies that incentivize and encourage food loss and waste prevention and organics recycling.
While the governments’ plan may be helpful, opportunities for each of us to be a part of resolving problems of hunger and waste are needed.
The potential for food- waste composting has social, environmental and economic benefits that are well established. Advances in zero waste offer many job possibilities. Collaborations between composting businesses, municipalities and investors are necessary. The U.S. composting industry can increase scale to advance a more circular economy for organics, reduce our environmental impact and create a more sustainable future for generations to come.
The Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC) for 2023 reports that a quarter of a billion people are facing acute hunger.
Food is at the crux of many of our problems, whether personal, political, national or global. We are all affected by how food is grown, traded and allocated. We are affected by how we are educated about food and how we are eradicated by the lack of food. And, we all know someone who is experiencing a health and well-being crises regarding food, and it may even be you.
Food is a universal need and it needs our attention.
We are fed physically and spiritually by what we ingest and digest.
We are initiated, formed and informed by food. Animals, humans and nature are victims of malaise, need and greed. And, yes, greed is a form of violence. Food, farming and freedom are calling each of us.
My Guest Column, recently in the news, shows how we can conserve and protect farmlands and wildlands. Nature provides food, shelter, recreation, beauty, inspiration, and connects us with Something Greater than Ourselves. Nature is generous and symbiotic. It is time for us to be generous and reciprocal with nature, food and waste, too.
How we feed our mind-body-spirit is essential.
You play a part in reaching the national food waste reduction goal – there are resources to help you do your part to reduce food loss and waste.
Feed the soil, feed the body-mind-spirit
Created in the 1950’s and used since the 1970’s, billions of pounds of glyphosate have been sprayed on our food. A 2022 study found that 81% of Americans have detectable amounts of glyphosate levels in their urine. Toxins devastate health: dementia, weight gain, gut inflammation and a more than 40% increase in risk of cancer. Toxins kill the soil microbiome, dries out the soil, and demands more water. Glyphosate is the most used pesticide in the world. The run-off poisons our water and has been found to induce neurotoxicity in zebrafish. The public needs to know what is true so that actions are clear.
I have an accreditation in soil health and landscape design and create native gardens in my Habitat Restoration group. I’ve worked with State leaders, Cities and Counties to help them shift from using toxic land care to organic/ regenerative land care in parks. I’ve given public presentations about protecting and conserving our ecosystems, helped to get a diesel tram out of a State park, worked with schools, animals, and helped ban wildlife killing contests. I’m passionate about nutrition, health and helped a farmers market re-envision themselves to be the powerful change in our community. My partner and I own farmland that has been in his family since 1902, and we have planted hundreds of native trees, wildflowers and milkweeds for wildlife. I am also passionate about regenerative farming. And, my great grandfather was a farmer and friend of President Truman.
My friend, the late Ronnie Cummins, diligently worked with others, including Robert Kennedy, Jr., to get Round-Up ingredients and labels changed and product removed from retailer’s shelves. However, Bayer (formerly Monsanto) continues to sell billions of pounds of their product. They control politics, markets and farmers. They want people to buy their GMO seeds and products because it helps them grow more powerful. We don’t need unethical industrial-politics, dead soil or another Dust Bowl.
YOU are needed: Change starts with you. Simple actions for YOU:
It’s up to each of us to stop purchasing products that harm from companies that harm: vote with your dollars, buy from small local business owners, support co-ops and farmer’s markets.
Ask your friends who are using chemicals on their property if they know the function and value of flora and fauna.
Ask them why are they choosing to poison instead of feed the soil? If the answer is because everyone else uses it, because it is readily available, or they don’t know are opportunities for a shift in thinking and habits. Civilizations have been farming for more than 11,000 years, and, they did it without starving and wasting life with toxic chemicals and materialism. Ecosystems have been working together for millennia. We have become conditioned to believe that we must use certain products, and many are petroleum-based. Well-funded products “flood” the market and then become mainstream. We must think differently and it starts with knowledge. Did you know that New Mexico is leading the way with regenerative farming in the U.S.?
We can restore habitats, soils and souls and feed more people. Are you ready to be the change?
Allow trees and plants to decompose- that’s nutrition for soil- food and homes for wildlife.
Mushrooms are nature’s cleansers.
Mushrooms decompose organic matter and toxins. They build soil health, enhance soil structure, drainage and moisture retention. Weeds have these important functions, too. Healthier soil feeds plants, supports biodiversity, and provides better food. Healthy ecosystems are reciprocal, regenerative and biodiverse. Well-being for nature includes a diversity of native flora and fauna. You can learn more about fungi and the biota in my other essays, including Let it Be Wild and Free to Increase Health and Prosperity.
Are you willing to create native gardens and habitats instead of “green carpets” aka lawns? Are you willing to see and know the plant and animal world differently than how you were taught?
Food as medicine
Sulforaphane in broccoli cleanses our body, is anti-inflammatory and has “cancer protective properties”.
“Broccoli-based glucoraphanin/ sulforaphane-rich preparations have been shown to accelerate the detoxification and excretion of potentially carcinogenic food contaminants and air pollutants, offering a very attractive strategy for population-wide reduction in cancer risk due to unavoidable exposures to pollution.”
Broccoli has been shown to reduce burdens of disease: arthritis, allergies, asthma, COPD, blood pressure, neurological health, diabetes, and many other challenges. It also has beneficial health effects for eyes, skin, heart, teeth, bones, joints, and cholesterol.
Broccoli has many nutrients, including fiber, vitamins C, K, B9 (folate), and iron. This wonderful food has 3% protein, potassium, magnesium, iron, manganese, calcium, and antioxidants. It also keeps blood sugars stable and strengthens the immune system.
Eat broccoli raw, or steam it for 1-3 minutes, on low heat, below 284 degrees F., 140 degrees C., to maintain nutrients.
The healing power of plants have been co-opted by big pharma and other corporate-political greed. Suppressing what’s true for profit is corruption. Nature provides for us and it is up to us to support highest and best practices that protect and conserve, which helps all of us. Health and well-being are our birthright, yet, we are all victims of abuse of our political-pharmaceutical-industrial world. Choose physicians and health care professionals who know food is medicine.
Wildlands was created to empower you and increase connection with nature. I have worked in the holistic health field for more than 35 years. I have helped people heal digestive issues, lose weight, increase their immune systems, and, feel and look younger. I can help YOU, too! Health and well-being creates a better world for all.
Feeding a Starving Spirit Heals All of Us.
Desire and gluttony. Satisfying a desire with food, drink, or some other substitute has an effect on everything. I saw two t-shirts that said, “Your fat ass killed trees and animals.” Another t-shirt said, “Your fat ass killed trees and wildlife”. The data on farm animals, wildlife, habitats, air and water implies this is fact. Are you startled by the bold message?
et tu, brute?
The tragedy reveals a comedy. Comedy is a great reveal-er and healer.
Do you yearn for something and feel you need to fill the emptiness within yourself?
Our society has become a shocking betrayer of Something Greater than Ourselves, nature and her beings. We have become a shocking treachery of All our Blessings.
If you are fortunate to have your basic needs met, you are blessed. If you have an inner hunger that is not met, you have an opportunity.
What if we were taught how to connect with intuition, and taught how to channel our passion in a way that would serve the world?
Do you have inner conflicts, confusion and delusion that led to an illness…dis-ease with self?
Sometimes the search for what is true feels like moving mountains. The ‘mustard seed’ of religious teachings is our growth potential and connection to Something Greater than Ourselves. Personally, inner conflict is something I have lived with for a very long time. One theory is due to a critical mother that set up some very early patterns which have repeated in my life. Though this may explain some challenges, personal responsibility to overcome is essential for growth.
Universally, duality and unity are themes throughout most religions and spiritual lessons.
If we were all peaceful, unified within, we would be less destructive. Chaos leads to devastation.
Would your focused passion lead to realizations that bring inner peace?
How can you reduce harm?
Our connection, or lack of, to ourselves, nature, and others affects our homes, families, friends, and our entire social-political lives and world.
Imagine a world where our hunger was satiated. Knowledge is power. Let’s heal hunger in our personal world and thus, heal hunger in our outer world.
Food for thought: what are your choices today:
Did you grab food on the go? Did you go to a nice, quiet restaurant? Or, did you enjoy a home-made meal alone or with someone meaningful in your life?
Is your food sourced locally? Animal or plant based, or both? How did it look, smell, taste and make you feel after consuming it?
Did you avoid eating? Or, were you drawn to “comfort food” to soothe emotions?
Do you enjoy food? Are you addicted to food? Do you experience scarcity? Do you live near food swamps- the overwhelming amount of processed, junk and fast foods that plague our families and communities?
Do you compost and/ or recycle?
Do you purchase products that harm from companies that harm?
With distractions, disconnection and desire in the land of not enough and the land of plenty…
What is your inner hunger? What nourishes and sustains you?
Wildlands is a guide to help you purify a core hunger. Please share Wildlands with those who may be interested in this conversation. Your voice matters. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for your support! I strive to bring you quality work that helps you have a better life and world. My work is inspiring other people’s work, including veteran journalists. Ideas and wisdom are the “competitive” edge.
Hunger and Waste is an opportunity: what can you do to feed your inner cravings?
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Hunger and Waste: What if we were satiated within ourselves, symbiotic with nature and stopped supporting materialism and stopped destroying nature to feed our greed?
Amy said, "Powerful essay, thank you, Robin!"
Hi, thanks for all your wonderful support! Good things are happening in Wildlands!