We need to get back to grassroots of organic foods

by Hayden Billingy

There is this modern obsession with organic foods and this discovery has become almost viral, as commercial giants capitalize on the movement and inflate their prices. But this is nothing new for those who grew up in rural areas. We always woke up to the crowing of organic cocks and cackling hens feeding on worms, coconut, mango and grass. We picked up organic eggs from around the yard and ate organic fowls for dinner.{{more}}

Goat and cattle were fed only grass and we bought our organic meats on Saturdays from the local butcher and farm fresh milk from the local milkman. We got our fresh fish from our local fishermen with bellowing conch shells after a catch. Our oil was produced in a pot after grueling hours of cardiovascular exercise of grinding intensity that left our fingers bleeding, lol. The coconut oil that was produced was what we used for cooking, curing cold, lotion for our skin and grease for our hair.

We stepped outside our backyard to harvest okra, chives, pumpkin, spinach, thyme, peppers and fruits that were manured by fowl droppings. We used pen manure (cattle droppings) to fertilize our vegetables and ground provisions and heaped banana leaves around plant roots as fertilizers. This was what drove the local subsistence and what created stimulus that we needed for the economy. Now we are told that that farm life and the back-yard garden is dirty, lowdown, lower class living and we have substituted these things with imported canned foods, milk, processed meats and hormone-laden chickens, chemical infested vegetables, fish and oils from the same source that is now promoting organic lifestyles. Our food is suddenly not good enough, even if our grandparents lived longer with very little ailments.

For your information, the coconut oil we rejected as being unhealthy is now rated organically healthy with high levels of saturated (good) fat. We have thrown out the proverbial baby with the bathwater and have embraced a borrowed lifestyle that is now rejected by our “creditors”, while they are busy trying to embrace what we once embraced and have rejected. The irony is interesting, as the rational is not one of class difference, but for health reasons. Why do we have to wait for the metropolis to approve something before we embrace it, when our grandpas and grandmas taught us better. Is the value of their teachings and experience irrelevant in light of the information that comes from abroad, when they change their philosophies and beliefs based on new research and findings?

We need to get back to the grassroots of organic foods that we enjoyed and that helped to promote healthy lifestyles. As we eat what we grow, we will help grow our local economy, reducing our import bill and our local agriculture and subsistence at the community level will increase, creating the needed stimulus in these stagnant economic times.

It’s time to take back what we started and make it sexy again. It’s time we capitalize on this organic craze and use these opportunities to increase exportation of our local organic products to meet the demands of this organically inspired culture of the West and earn some well needed “organic” dollars.