Mine lived next to the Mersey in a town dominated by Imperial Chemical Industries factories, and lived almost entirely off processed food, fish caught near the mouth of the Mersey, and vegetables grown in the fog of chemical pollution from the factory chimneys. I suspect my diet's way healthier.
My grandfather was considered unusual because he didn't use the hard pesticides that many others did. My father was (and still is) a full organic vege gardener and my kids and I love our (organic) vege gardening as well.
There's always choices to make... and we've chosen to eat veges we make.
Hey Jadis, it's great you have the time, energy, money, space and resources to have a garden.
For many poor people working two or three jobs, a family to look after, living in an apartment or house with little to no garden, limited money, and no time to devote to a garden, they don't have that privilege.
Even as a middle class, 40 hour work week person, I find vegetable gardening incredibly time and money intensive (building a garden, buying/transporting soil, seeds or seedlings, tools, pots, mini hot house etc) for the food resources it gives back. And when you're poor you have to make decisions - do you invest a good chunk of your tiny spending money for a food return in weeks or months, or do you eat now?
It's nothing to do with proper 'choice', so there's no need to get back on that carousel of passive aggressive sneering at poor and/or fat people who don't grow their own veggies.
I'd also like to point out that gardening when poor can become a nil return too, due to weather (hail storm, snow or garden flooded out), insects, dug up/shat on by pets, and even stolen. If it happens once, you don't waste your time and money again.
Yet gardening while poor has been one of the ways I've had a variety of food at times, and it was for my family growing up too. And right now - I'm not poor at the moment -I'm eating spinach, silverbeet, lettuce and broccoli for buggar all outlay. But I love gardening (and vegetables). No judgment on others who might choose to buy food now rather than reap it later because they are hungry. Having no money often means having buggar all choices.
Nonny, vege gardening doesn't have to be done as a middle class hobby. Over three years I think we've spent between one and two hours a week gardening. Which has kept us in silverbeet, broad beans, mint and parsley, with occsional other veges (maybe 10 capsicums, some rocket, rainbow chard and perhaps 5kg of tomatoes).
My side of the gardening has all been about saving money, so I've focussed on stuff like silver beet and broad beans that are easy to grow and I'm happy to eat. Warrigal greens, mint, tomatoes, rocket and silverbeet are effectively wild in our garden now - we have to pull them out to stop them taking over. My housemates have spent silly money on things that we knew would never pay off, just because they wanted to. So we have chives, garlic and so on that we've never had in more than token quantities. Oh, and someone grew four or five strawberries. Several plants, 4-5 berries!
For me it's a balance between a hobby (I work in IT, so coming home and building/digging can be a nice change), and a source of food (I will happily eat beans and silverbeet in a couple of meals every week). Much of the snack stuff never makes it inside - I don't really know how the tomatoes and rocket did because I wash them and eat them while I'm out there and so do my housemates.
Oh, the mint is quite a saving, since we drink mint tea rather than buying tea bags. The chamomile hasn't worked at all in that regard, but we have a couple of other "tea" herbs coming along.
I thought the issue highlighted by the original posting of the organic farming promo, was not to grow vegetables organically or nor, or how our grandparents gardened, but to do with the clean, pure, non-tired image of the woman used to promote it?
Crunchy: I was replying to "A Nonny Moose" comment that growing your own veges is a middle class hobby. Do you have a something to add or are you just policing?
I realised that LJ's point was all about the appearance of the woman but no-one else seemed to care. My impression is that the poster is using the stylised imagery of WWII-era posters which never show the dirt (e.g. Rosie the Riveter was suspiciously clean). So this woman looking all clean and hearty is misleading but thematically reasonable.
15 comments:
Things my grandparents consumed on a daily basis:
Alcohol
Cigarettes
Racist TV programs
Right wing propaganda
Organic food
Mine too. On both sides. Just the national flavours varying from North America to Scotland.
My grandfather used DDT in his garden, he also sprayed it inside to kill flies, so yeah, organic? Not so much.
Mine lived next to the Mersey in a town dominated by Imperial Chemical Industries factories, and lived almost entirely off processed food, fish caught near the mouth of the Mersey, and vegetables grown in the fog of chemical pollution from the factory chimneys. I suspect my diet's way healthier.
My grandfather was considered unusual because he didn't use the hard pesticides that many others did. My father was (and still is) a full organic vege gardener and my kids and I love our (organic) vege gardening as well.
There's always choices to make... and we've chosen to eat veges we make.
Hey Jadis, it's great you have the time, energy, money, space and resources to have a garden.
For many poor people working two or three jobs, a family to look after, living in an apartment or house with little to no garden, limited money, and no time to devote to a garden, they don't have that privilege.
Even as a middle class, 40 hour work week person, I find vegetable gardening incredibly time and money intensive (building a garden, buying/transporting soil, seeds or seedlings, tools, pots, mini hot house etc) for the food resources it gives back. And when you're poor you have to make decisions - do you invest a good chunk of your tiny spending money for a food return in weeks or months, or do you eat now?
It's nothing to do with proper 'choice', so there's no need to get back on that carousel of passive aggressive sneering at poor and/or fat people who don't grow their own veggies.
I'd also like to point out that gardening when poor can become a nil return too, due to weather (hail storm, snow or garden flooded out), insects, dug up/shat on by pets, and even stolen. If it happens once, you don't waste your time and money again.
Yet gardening while poor has been one of the ways I've had a variety of food at times, and it was for my family growing up too. And right now - I'm not poor at the moment -I'm eating spinach, silverbeet, lettuce and broccoli for buggar all outlay. But I love gardening (and vegetables).
No judgment on others who might choose to buy food now rather than reap it later because they are hungry. Having no money often means having buggar all choices.
Nonny, vege gardening doesn't have to be done as a middle class hobby. Over three years I think we've spent between one and two hours a week gardening. Which has kept us in silverbeet, broad beans, mint and parsley, with occsional other veges (maybe 10 capsicums, some rocket, rainbow chard and perhaps 5kg of tomatoes).
My side of the gardening has all been about saving money, so I've focussed on stuff like silver beet and broad beans that are easy to grow and I'm happy to eat. Warrigal greens, mint, tomatoes, rocket and silverbeet are effectively wild in our garden now - we have to pull them out to stop them taking over. My housemates have spent silly money on things that we knew would never pay off, just because they wanted to. So we have chives, garlic and so on that we've never had in more than token quantities. Oh, and someone grew four or five strawberries. Several plants, 4-5 berries!
For me it's a balance between a hobby (I work in IT, so coming home and building/digging can be a nice change), and a source of food (I will happily eat beans and silverbeet in a couple of meals every week). Much of the snack stuff never makes it inside - I don't really know how the tomatoes and rocket did because I wash them and eat them while I'm out there and so do my housemates.
Oh, the mint is quite a saving, since we drink mint tea rather than buying tea bags. The chamomile hasn't worked at all in that regard, but we have a couple of other "tea" herbs coming along.
Hey MOz, thanks for telling us how awesome you are. I'm sure it's on topic and the fact that I can't see how is just a reflection of my stupidity
I thought the issue highlighted by the original posting of the organic farming promo, was not to grow vegetables organically or nor, or how our grandparents gardened, but to do with the clean, pure, non-tired image of the woman used to promote it?
Hey Carol, yep that and I thought it was funny. Kinda with you on the surprise about where people have taken it.
Crunchy: I was replying to "A Nonny Moose" comment that growing your own veges is a middle class hobby. Do you have a something to add or are you just policing?
I realised that LJ's point was all about the appearance of the woman but no-one else seemed to care. My impression is that the poster is using the stylised imagery of WWII-era posters which never show the dirt (e.g. Rosie the Riveter was suspiciously clean). So this woman looking all clean and hearty is misleading but thematically reasonable.
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