hey everyone we hope your journey into
nutritional healing is going great so
far now it's time for us to really get
our hands dirty as the topic shifts to
literally the dirt on agriculture when
addressing the topic of nutrition and
the healing of diseases with food we
truly wish we could simply say eat
fruits and vegetables and all of your
problems will be solved this idea does
have a lot of truth to it especially if
we lived in a world of perfect Gardens
however we need to apply a little bit
more awareness to what is going on
behind the scenes in the modern world of
Agriculture if we are going to see the
bigger picture and make more informed
choices when it comes to our health and
wellness because of the way we have
constructed our lives as a species when
investigating industrial plant based
agriculture we have found that our
system is in the same kind of trouble as
it is with the other industries that
we've looked at previously one of the
key takeaways from those discussions is
how the mass industrial production of
meat and dairy causes disease and damage
to our bodies due to the way these
systems are built managed and
commercialized the lack of concern for
the health and well-being of the animals
translates to the consumption of the
unhealthy end results and this is not to
mention the fact that we consume way too
much of the wrong kinds of these
products as well we must become aware
that this same phenomenon is happening
with our plant food to the issues
surrounding plant-based agriculture are
slightly different but don't let that
fool you they are just as dangerous as
any of the other heavily commercialized
industrial practices are on our health
although there seems to be fewer
diseases related to the consumption of
mass-produced plants they are still
responsible for major health issues due
to modern chemical agriculture genetic
modification and low nutrient quality
when we found out the most traditionally
nourishing plant foods on the planet now
have the lowest levels of nutrients
within them that they ever have we just
had to find out why one of the things we
discovered was that it all comes down to
the dirt
you see we are made up of the same basic
elements that the earth is made of and
share the same elements that make up all
of life most commonly these are hydrogen
oxygen carbon nitrogen phosphorus and
sulfur these are among the most
essential nutrients within dirt to the
living creatures on the earth have used
the same molecules over and over
recycled through countless organisms
dirt and even water dirt is very much
alive in fact 80% of the world's biomass
is found within dirt including all six
kingdoms of life plants animals archaea
bacteria EU bacteria fungi and protists
with the amount of species that live
inside of a teaspoon of dirt you will be
amazed to find out that it is literally
just as alive as we are in fact a single
handful of terrestrial dirt contains
more organic organized information than
the surface of all of the other known
planets in our solar system there are
tens of billions of microorganisms in a
single handful of dirt some living in
harmony with each other and others in
competition with each other this is all
happening in perfect balance with
countless different means by which
everything is able to live together what
we often call dirt that stuff you're
trying to get off your car or driveway
is not actually representative of what
is really going on just underneath our
feet the soils and sediments that are
necessary to keep our biosphere alive
and healthy entirely exist as a living
layer of the earth kind of like our skin
is to our body this layer is referred to
as the humor and is the most biodiverse
substance known to science when you hear
the word dirt in relationship to the
growing of food the establishing of
forests and the health of entire
Ecology's it's houmous that is being
referred to so what does all of this
information about dirt have to do with
nutrition and our physical health that's
an excellent question
you see healthy soil is the foundation
of the food system and healthy soil only
comes from a living and thriving houmous
layer living soil is vital for supplying
the food that we eat or the food that
our food eats with vitamins nutrients
and minerals without these things plants
cannot be healthy enough to provide us
with the nutrition we require to feel a
healthy body and vibrant state of being
so if the soil is devoid of the
biodiversity required to create the
conditions appropriate for plant life
your plants if they even grow at all
will not bear as nutritious a fruit as
plants grown in soil abundant in a wide
diversity of life this is the reason we
are in the predicament we are today with
our food having the lowest nutritional
density it ever has in history over the
course of the last 100 years or so our
farming practices have had a dramatic
impact on the dirt and therefore our
food nutrition and our health are all
being adversely affected as a result the
American Midwest was once known as the
breadbasket of the world using modern
machinery x' farmers across the prairies
removed a native grasses the plant often
just one or two crops over an expanse of
millions of acres this seemingly
efficient system of farming called
monoculture worked really well in the
short term bringing record yields and
profits because of the nutrient rich
soil from thousands of years of natural
plant growth that created a pristine
layer of living humans however what the
farmers didn't realize was that the
living dirt was actually dying off due
to the destruction of the grasses fungal
networks and microbial systems that
formed the very basis of a living
prairie land without a solid
biodiversity dirt has a hard time
staying alive retaining water and
growing plants leaving the soil dry and
barren this practice is what resulted in
the Dust Bowl of the 1930s after only a
few years of drought heavy winds could
just pick up the topsoil and blow it
away and this is all due to the practice
of monoculture today we have lost about
one-third of our topsoil in the last 100
years along with a tremendous amount of
nutrients that should normally be in our
soil which leaves our food largely
nutritionally empty it's the problem of
the way we do agriculture now millions
of acres of a single crop the more we
practice monoculture the more we destroy
the soil the result is not just the lack
of nutrients all kinds of ecological
emergencies arise due to this for
instance worms are the nutrient
exchangers of the soil they are
responsible for providing up to two tons
per hectare of chemicals and organic
matter required for living humans
since 1950 in Europe alone warm
populations have gone down from 2,000
kilograms per hectare to less than a
hundred kilograms per hectare causing a
devastating blow to the soil the result
is the overuse of chemical fertilizers
that are actually causing a quickening
of the damages rather than helping and
this is just the beginning of the issues
at hand large amounts of a single crop
can become a feeding frenzy for insects
which adapt to thrive on this massive
quantity of a certain food in order to
deal with this problem
pesticides are introduced to kill them
these pesticides make their way into the
ground is drawing the vital life forms
causing less and less soil fertility and
more and more toxic conditions to the
plants animals and us if you think about
it plants and insects are all biological
organisms and very much function in the
same basic way that we do if we are
feeding insects a poison that will kill
them that same stuff is going to kill us
if we eat it too the next thing
challenging our agriculture is the
spraying of herbicides because all kinds
of unwanted native plants begin to grow
in the same area and choke out the
intended crop once the herbicides are
sprayed there is no longer a balanced
ecosystem that can handle the
biodiversity of all of the various plant
fungal bacterial and insect life that
makes these grasses their home this
causes an even more highly saturated
chemical soup in the soil water table
and air that interrupts the balance of
all life in the area and as if this
isn't already enough of a biological
disaster in order for the plants to be
able to handle the massive levels of
chemical intervention there is yet
another new kind of threat to the
ecology genetically modified organisms
aka
GMOs these new genetically modified
Franken plants are tinkered with at a
genetic level to handle the various
kinds of chemicals being sprayed on them
our bodies the insects the bacteria and
the ecosystems are all negatively
impacted because of this entire process
this chemical cocktail paired with
genetically modified organisms is the
biggest problem with plant food and
health as we know it for instance the
National Cancer Institute has found
links between consuming pesticides to
leukemia Hodgkin's disease
Hodgkin's lymphoma and many other forms
of cancer pesticides have also been
shown to disrupt the endocrine system
wreak havoc with hormone regulation in
the body and disrupt the reproductive
systems children are especially
susceptible to the damage caused by
consuming foods with pesticides with
results showing that they may greatly
impact the development of the central
nervous system and to think that this is
all the end result of a single
misunderstanding about growing society's
food the naively simple yet tragically
ecocidal practice of monoculture it is
at this time we'd like to bring up a
video which you may have seen several
years back it's called my potato project
the importance of organic in which an
adorable little girl named Elise
presents her science experiment on the
difference between organic and inorganic
foods now this video you can watch on
your own it's pretty short and we super
recommend it but here's the abridged
version first she tried growing a
non-organic store-bought potato and
after three weeks nothing happened she
then tried growing a store-bought
organically certified potato and over a
month it finally grew these and finally
she went to a local farmers market and
got an organic potato from a grower who
brought it directly from the farm after
only one week it looked like this this
entire project really is incredible for
several reasons the first is observing
just how much life energy natural food
has within it and how much of that is
drained when they are treated with
chemicals Elise also explains the
dangers of these herbicides which go
deep into the cell structure of the
plants and so washing them doesn't make
a difference at all companies may claim
that herbicides aren't bad but if they
weren't toxic with the people spraying
them really need to be wearing what look
like radiation suits so what can we do
with this information our simple answer
to you is start a permaculture garden do
a quick search and learn about what
permaculture is and why it's so
important right now even if you live in
an apartment you can start growing
plants in your windowsills giving your
plants gratitude for their lives has
also been shown to speed up growth and
will create healthier more nutritious
plants for you
if you can start frequenting farmers
markets so that you can support small
local farmers who offer a wide variety
of fresh vegetables grown with more
traditional methods promoting healthier
soil if you're a farmer who may be using
these traditional practices we just want
to say thank you even more than this if
you are using the practices of
permaculture we are deeply grateful as
it surely takes a great deal of time
devotion and effort to convert your farm
over to these more wholesome systems
anyone introducing healthy crop rotation
cycles permacultural practices or
creating vertical greenhouses to save
space are helping everyone and
everything to be healthier and happier
in every way it is at this moment we'd
like to extend an open invitation to all
of the large industrial agricultural
organizations responsible for creating
the chemicals equipment and GMOs that
are poisoning our planet and people we
understand that you're doing the best
that you can with the information you
have and that all of the resources spent
on pesticides herbicides and GMOs are a
result of years of monocultural
development which out of necessity
required you to implement these systems
with that said we'd like to invite you
to take account of everything we've
discussed in this episode and make a
change if you change your system
internally from the top and restructure
the way food is grown across all of your
farms you set yourself up to be seen as
heroes to the people of the earth by
supporting and demonstrating what it
means to live in harmony with the planet
now today's episode was mostly all based
around land agriculture and plants but
we also have to take a moment to
acknowledge that this same exact thing
is happening in our seas and oceans and
it is having a very dire and adverse
effect to all of the marine life and
natural ecosystems on the planet as a
result oil and garbage pollute the water
choking its inhabitants and causing
tremendous suffering for literally
everyone for example it was recently
discovered that the tiny synthetic
fibers of our clothes are released bit
by bit through our washing machines and
end up in the very fish that we eat it's
very important that as we reevaluate and
change our farming and agricultural
practices on land we absolutely must do
the exact same thing for our
relationships and practices with aquatic
life cultivating a healthy and
sustainable practice of aquaculture
bringing this segment to a close with
everything we've just looked at even
when times may seem bleak the truth is
we're in the process of discovering the
miracle of who we really are and
stepping into a whole new way of life on
earth but to get there takes a deep
respect for all of life and honoring all
that came before us so don't fear have
faith and know that we are here with you
every step along the way to see this
world shift into a new age of light so
thank you so very much for watching and
we'll see you next time
