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I cannot help but want to share this “quote of the week” written by extraordinary author (and friend), Lierre Keith. It arrived in my inbox this morning via the Organic Consumer’s Association Newsletter. It is excerpted from her profound and deeply important book, “The Vegetarian Myth” which should be read by every thoughtful caring human being interested in saving not only their health, but the whole planet.
Breathtakingly important and moving:
“Defend the Soil With Your Life!”
“…the living world is complex, and beholding it should leave us all aching with awe. So start with topsoil, the beginning place. Remember, one million creatures per tablespoon. It’s alive, and it will protect itself if we stop assaulting it. It protects itself with perennial polycultures, with lots and lots of plants intertwining their roots, adding carbonaceous leaves, and working together with mycelium, bacteria, protozoa, making a new organism between them, the mycorrhiza that talks and nourishes and directs.
Defend the soil with your life, reader: there is no other organism that can touch the intelligence of what goes on beneath your feet.
So here are the questions you should ask, a new form of grace to say over your food. Does this food build or destroy topsoil? Does it use only ambient sun and rainfall, or does it require fossil soil, fossil fuel, fossil water, and drained wetlands, damaged rivers? Could you walk to where it grows, or does it come to you on a path slick with petroleum?”
The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability
Aside from minimally cooking meats, one could have a tartare of beef or salmon to get a palatable raw fat meal.
I cannot say how enormously proud I am of being a friend (in the facebook sense anyway) of Lierre. She is a truly extraordinary person who has overcome almost insurmountable obstacles to reach this stage in her life. She has a wisdom that belies her years. Thanks Lierre..