For the past few years I’ve been reading about ways to live more “green” and I’ve been trying to make changes in my life across the board as a result of all that I’ve been learning.
I’m convinced that although we live in a day and age where men have walked on the moon and we can travel around the world in a matter of hours rather than days, all of our “progress” has brought as much harm as good. Sure we don’t have to plant and harvest our own fields to produce our meals, spend all afternoon washing our clothes, churn our own butter, do our own dishes or build a fire to cook dinner. Now we have grocery superstores, washing machines, dishwashers and energy-efficient cook tops.
BUT we also have television numbing our minds for endless hours every night instead of time spent talking, reading and playing games with our loved ones. We have 10 pharmaceutical commercials an hour promoting pills that claim to make us happy, get us skinny, keep us aroused, dry our noses, get rid of our periods and change our lives. Of course these commercials conclude by telling us that the side effects of these drugs range from dry mouth to death, but we’ll take the risk because we feel like crap every day.
We don’t die of the chicken pox or get infections from routine cuts and scrapes, but we’re so vaccinated, medicated and sterilized that our bodies can’t use their own God-given mechanisms to protect us. We’ve worn down our own natural defenses and replaced them with pills and antibacterial hand gel.
Maybe, just maybe, we were happier without all the amenities. I mean you didn’t see Ma or Pa on Little House on the Prairie sitting around fat and depressed…there was too much to do! There were crops to harvest, houses to clean, kids to feed, clothes to make, cows to milk, wagon wheels to repair, neighbors to visit, eggs to collect, and on and on. I’m sure they fell into bed and were asleep in minutes without having to pop an Ambien. I bet they had bad days, but for the most part they had a sense of satisfaction and gratification from all their hard work.
So many processes have been implemented to “help us” and while I think they were well-intentioned, I also think they were grossly under-researched.
We wanted to produce more food and produce it faster, so we started manipulating the growing conditions and introducing hormones and pesticides without fully considering the affects they would have on people. We started force-feeding animals all kinds of cheap, strange feed (that their bodies weren’t created to properly digest) and then we had to start pumping them full of medicine so that they wouldn’t get too sick to turn a profit as meat. We wanted to raise more animals in a smaller space, so we stacked them up and kept them cramped up like sardines packed in their own excrement. This makes them agitated, so they’re kept in the dark during their grossly shortened lifespan.
We wanted to grow bigger produce and more of it, but we didn’t want the bugs to get to it and we didn’t want to go through the trouble of rotating crops and letting the good bugs take care of the bad ones, so we decided to genetically modify the seeds to grow super huge fruits and veggies and then just spray the heck out of all of it with known poisons and carcinogen. But boy does it look pretty sitting on the shelf at the grocery!
Wow, I guess this is a bigger soapbox than I thought! I was just going to post a “feel good” blog about Norwex products and the Amish market I visited today! So I guess I should mention that before I sign off….
1. Norwex rocks! If you haven’t heard about it, you should google it and then have a party. Basically Norwex sells a line of microfiber cleaning cloths that grab 99.9% of bacteria from surfaces and then kill the bacterial because the fibers of the cloth contain silver which bacteria cannot survive on! All this is done with just water and a little elbow grease…no harsh chemicals!
2. Heflings Amish Market rocks! I’ve been able to find organic and/or locally grown produce at the grocery store or farmers market, but I was freaking out because the only place I knew to get to good meat (i.e. no growth hormones, raised and killed humanely and grass fed) was Whole Foods and it requires that you re-mortgage your home just to make a few burgers! Well, Heflings seems to be the answer. It’s a small Amish market not too far from home that sells good meat (along with eggs, butter and some produce) at great prices!
I truly believe that as Americans we vote with our dollars. The ways and places we spend our money dictate what we value — whether it be the lowest price at Walmart or the highest quality at a small local market. I’m voting for good food by making an effort to seek it out and buy it from the people who grow it!
I’m sure there’s more to come on this topic….
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I AM SOOO STINKIN EXCITED REBECCA!!! This is an awesome blog about our lives and the ramifications of living in a chemical/technical world. I loved it! I'll check out those cloths and put Andy and Lisa onto them. I'm thrilled that you're “back in the saddle again.” Love you so much. Aunt Becky
Love Heflings!
Oh my goodness dear…. you are so passionate about this and I totally echo your awesome words!!! You know I have always said, “I think I was born in the wrong era…” Pioneer life has always enticed me!!!! I look forward to learning more about the natural cleaning product. Great timing with your baby girl on the way….