[4 The South Marysburgh Mirror The Poetry of Food “Without proper diet, medicine is of no use. With proper di- et, there is no use for medicine.” Ayur-Veda In the opening paragraphs of his classic work, Soil and Civilization, Edward Hyams decries how modern mis- application of science has caused humans to “begin working across or against the grain of life.” [yams explains that when science becomes master rather than servant, it displaces the age-old natural wisdom that has maintained the “ntegrity of life.” Without that in- tegrity, humans begin to lose contact with the “poet,” which Hyams describes as the instinctive understanding of whole- ness that has nurtured our well being throughout the centu- ries. Today, grocery shelves are filled with products that seem to keep forever. But only fresh and living foods give us live bodies. With a bacterium such as Listeria, often found in food, the prospect of food irradiation lurks on the horizon. Irradiation leaves food lifeless and foreign to our bodies. But it is exactly the life in food that I embrace. My reality is food that is grown organically right here in the County, rich in flavour and nutrients, and rich in enzymes. It is food that gives me health, energy and vitality. I eat about 70 to 80 percent of my food just as Mother Earth gives us: in other words, I eat most of my vegetables raw. Iam a raw foodie, adhering to the living foods life- style. What do I mean by that? With the living foods lifestyle, the emphasis is on raw, natural foods that have not been processed, packaged or cooked. The raw foods diet includes organic vegetables and their juices, fruits, sprouts, nuts, seeds, and fermented or dehydrated foods that nourish, cleanse and rebuild your body. Please don’t get a wrong picture here. I don’t sit at my dinner table holding a carrot stick in one hand and a cel- ery stick in the other. I create the most scrumptious and tasty recipes, nut patés, marinated dishes and—true to the harvest season—preserved foods such as sauerkraut. I make dehydrated cookies and breads year round and the yummiest deserts you can imagine—all of it uncooked. (Of course, I eat some cooked foods as well. I love old-fashioned soups the way my grandmother made them.) Food preservation techniques can be divided into two categories: the modern methods that remove the life from food, and the natural methods that maintain or enhance the life in food. Modern techniques produce dead foods that are sealed in boxes. My instincts tell me that long-dead foods cannot properly nourish long-lived people. ‘ermented foods such as sauerkraut have been cel- ebrated for centuries and are considered gourmet delights Continued on page 6 MYTH BUSTING Myth #1: No Reduction in Emissions Wind opponents sometimes argue that wind energy doesn’t actually reduce the fuel use or harmful emissions of other power plants. On its face, this claim does not make sense: utility system operators must precisely balance the to- tal supply of electricity with the total demand for electricity at all times, so the electricity produced by a wind plant must be matched by an equivalent decrease in electricity produc- tion at another plant. When it is available, system operators use wind ener- gy to reduce the output of the power plants that are the most expensive to operate, which are almost always natural gas or coal power plants because of their high fuel costs. Wind ener- gy is also occasionally used to reduce the output of hydroe- lectric dams, which can store water to be used later to replace more expensive fossil fuel generation. By directly reducing the use of fossil fuels, wind en- ergy significantly reduces emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) and other harmful pollutants. A num- ber of detailed power system studies, as well as real-world experience with wind plants, have demonstrated that wind energy significantly reduces fossil fuel use and emissions: « In 2007, for example, wind energy in the U.S. reduced CO2 emissions by over 28 million tons, equivalent to taking almost 5 million cars off the road. * On average, each Megawatt-hour (MWh) of wind en- ergy — the amount produced by two typical 1.5-megawatt (MW) wind turbines in an average hour - reduces CO2 emis- sions by 1,200 pounds. + The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) 20% Wind Energy by 2030 Technical Report calculated that obtaining 20% of our electricity from wind energy by 2030 would cut cumulative CO2 emissions between now and then by over 7.6 billion tons. (1) « The DOE report found CO2 emissions would be re- duced by over 825 million tons in the year 2030 alone, an amount equal to 25% of all electric sector carbon dioxide emissions in that year or the equivalent of taking 140 million cars off the road. + The DOE study also found that wind energy would cut the amount of natural gas used for electricity generation by 50% in 2030. Continued on page 9