Celebrating Independence from the U.S. Food Supply (in Vilcabamba, Ecuador)

Tuesday, July 07, 2009 by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) I didn't write a July 4th article this year. I was busy harvesting food out of my garden in Ecuador. Instead of celebrating geopolitical independence (which is what America's July 4th holiday is about, after all), I was celebrating my food independence.

This was the weekend that my gardens and orchards broke through a milestone, producing more than 50 percent of the food my wife and I consume daily. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, check out what we did this weekend:

• Pulled 40 fresh avocados off the tree.
• We have hundreds of fresh, sweet tangerines off the tree each week.
• Our garden is producing large quantities of cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli.
• We have an unlimited supply of green onions and red raspberries (year-round).
• We just pulled up our first batch of home-grown peanuts.
• Our four papaya trees are producing at least one fresh papaya fruit each day.
• Fresh pomegranates are nearly ready for consumption.
• Corn, tomatoes, zucchini and potatoes are all producing large quantities.
• Celery, carrots and strawberries are ready daily, right out of the garden.
• Our herb garden is producing massive quantities of mint, thyme, lemon balm and even dulcamara (a local medicinal herb).
• The aloe vera plants are growing like crazy, producing several large aloe leaves for juicing each day.

Thanks to all this abundance, we are harvesting and juicing fresh, organic produce from our garden every single day. And keep in mind that this food production is year-round, so we have fresh food every day. It's also 100 percent organic. I use only neem oil, tobacco, garlic and natural soap as my pesticides. All the crops get sprayed with seaweed extract once a week, and we apply ash from the local sugarcane mills on a regular basis.

True freedom requires food independence

Because of all this, I am now celebrating my food independence from the greedy, poisonous food corporations of North America. No more Dean Foods or PepsiCo in my life. No more being enslaved by Monsanto or ADM. No genetically-modified foods, pesticides, herbicides or terminator seeds are found around here. No long-distance food imports, no waiting in line at the grocery store with a stupid discount card and no more packing my groceries home in toxic plastic bags made from petrochemicals.

My food acquisition process has become ridiculously simple:

Step 1: Walk to the garden (60 seconds).
Step 2: Pick what I want to eat (5-10 enjoyable minutes).
Step 3: Prepare it (juice it, boil it or whatever).
Step 4: Eat it.

This process requires no financial transactions, no taxes, no transportation, no plastic wrappers and no coupons. It does not involve finding a parking spot, going into a building, carrying cash or inhaling the toxic vapors of detergent products that permeate all the aisles of modern grocery stores. There is no need to check a price, enter a UPC bar code or banter with grocery store clerks. Instead, I simply walk to the garden, harvest the food and eat it.

That this simple act is so astonishingly rare is, all by itself, a disturbing commentary about the state of the food supply in America today.