Maybe you’ve heard an older person laugh and say, “If I had known I would live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”
Thankfully, if you’re reading this, you’ve probably already decided to start taking better care of yourself. It’s a common thread among everyone who finds Azure. We all want better health for ourselves and our loved ones, and we’re actively pursuing it. We know that the foundation for our good health rests on the health of the soil, plants and animals we depend on for food. But, sometimes we don’t know exactly what to do for better health.
What’s the next step? We need guidance; we need the truth; we need the confidence to take action. We’ve all done things we later regretted. Some regretful things we’ve done in life were momentarily embarrassing and soon forgotten.
But, when it comes to our health, we don’t want to regret the choices we’ve made. We want to make the best choices now, so we’ll have fewer regrets later. I call this “regret reduction.” Careful research and a look-before-you-leap attitude can save you from some regrets. Also, making sure to always do the right thing (which may not necessarily be the easiest thing) is another way to reduce regret. Still another method is to ask the question, “What if…?”
So, here’s my “what if” question for today: What if you were to suddenly find yourself on a homestead somewhere in the wild west with nothing but the land, tools, animals and shelter left to you by the previous homesteader? What would you eat? How would you prepare your food? What would you do without a refrigerator or freezer or electric stove or pressure canner? What if you needed a pain killer or a laxative or a vitamin-B supplement? What would you eat if you were a vegan/vegetarian and the first green signs of spring hadn’t yet emerged?
Of course this is a hypothetical situation that you certainly wouldn’t find yourself in today, much less to “suddenly” be there. But, it was this kind of scenario that started me thinking about what it would take to gain excellent health from living on a truly sustainable homestead.
OUT IN THE COUNTRY
Several years ago, I was blessed with the opportunity to move to a place way out in the country. It’s so far out that I’ve been able to successfully keep a multi-generational flock of free-range/pastured guinea fowl. Now, you really have to be “out in the boonies” for that!
Although the 100-year-old farmhouse has been beautifully remodeled and has all the amenities of a modern kitchen, I really wanted to be able to grow my own food, prepare everything from scratch, and prove to myself that it’s possible to live healthfully on what can be produced on a homestead. But, it’s not so simple. I suddenly realized I wasn’t physically up to the task.
Digging, tilling and planting the garden that first summer (on ground that was growing essentially prairie grass) wore me out, and I was sore from head to toe continually. I helped build the “cluck house” for the chickens and guineas early that summer, too. Although I was getting fresh organic cow and/or goat milk from my neighbors, and continued to take the supplements I’d been taking for years, it didn’t seem like quite enough. I began to wonder how the early pioneers did it!
“I have all of these modern conveniences and supplements to help me, and I’m still struggling,” I thought to myself. “They must have been much stronger and healthier. What were they doing differently than I am?”
Thus began my search for something better. What is “real food”? And is it possible to get the nutrition you need from the land you live on? (Of course, the answer depends on the quality and quantity of the land and how it’s managed.) I hope to share more details with you in future articles, but the short answer is, yes, it can be done. Keep in mind you may have to eat some unusual items prepared in unusual ways to get truly complete nutrition.
The difficulties arise when you’re dealing with the ramifications and consequences of previous deleterious dietary choices and destructive daily habits (and maybe even some mishaps or accidents) that negatively affected your health. So now, you have to work twice as hard to regain true health. In these special circumstances, it may be beneficial to utilize effective supplements. (We’ll explore those options in future articles.)
A HOMESTEADER’S LIFESTYLE
Thinking of yourself as a homesteader can make for easier choices about what to do and what to eat for better health. What would a perfect homestead look like? What crops would we grow? What trees would we need? What would we use for fertilizer? What birds or animals would we have? What would be truly sustainable and self-renewing? And beyond that, where would we get salt? And what sweeteners could we obtain? How much activity would we get? How many meals and snacks would we eat in a day? Can we plop down on the couch after supper and watch TV?
The answers start to become obvious in light of getting back to real food, local food, unprocessed food, and the physical activity for which our bodies were designed. I picture an ideal homestead as having a variety of poultry (chickens, turkeys, guineas, ducks, geese, you name it), and a variety of ruminant animals (cows, sheep, goats, etc.). These animals not only turn vegetation from the land into foods digestible to humans, but they also provide fertilizer.
The answers start to become obvious in light of getting back to real food, local food, unprocessed food, and the physical activity for which our bodies were designed.
The ideal homestead would have fruit and nut trees and berries. It would have plenty of green grass for the birds and animals, pure water, and wild lands nearby for hunting and fishing. It would have a vegetable and herb garden and wild herbs growing nearby, and, of course, honey straight from the hive. And, a smart homesteader would “trade” with others for foods necessary to round out the diet. Weston Price describes this as a common practice in many areas of the world such as the Pacific Islands where tribes who were mortal enemies would agree to trade needed foods for mutual benefit.
For example, a tribe living close to the ocean would trade fish and sea foods for plants they needed from an inland tribe. When using the idea of our “ideal” homestead, we don’t need to be dogmatic about what is permissible or not. It’s just a concept. We can utilize modern equipment and the resources of far-away places on the planet to get the nutrition we need. (I’m thinking here about coconut oil or olive oil – foods you’d certainly be able to make if your homestead was in a more tropical climate.) But has it been grown organically? Is it “real food”? Is it nutrient dense? Unprocessed? Un-denatured? These are the basic questions for true homestead living.
EVERYTHING FROM SCRATCH
Of course, my own homestead isn’t “ideal,” but it’s good enough to test my theories. I learned to make everything from scratch. If I wanted ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce (or whatever!), I researched, experimented and perfected my recipes. I contemplated writing my own cookbook. After all, I knew a lot about health, knew how to make food taste good with simple ingredients, and wanted to share my knowledge with others.
But, what stopped me in my tracks was when I decided to write a section describing exactly why I had chosen to use each ingredient and explain the healthfulness of the processes used to make the food. When you write a book, you can’t easily change your mind and do a “recall” of the books to let everyone know you were wrong. I wanted to get it right and be sure I was not recommending something deleterious just because of my own ignorance.
Thinking of yourself as a homesteader can make for easier choices about what to do and what to eat for better health.
As I began to study each ingredient and cooking method in detail, I suddenly realized how little I actually knew about healthful eating. Some discoveries were amazing, others were disappointing, but through it all I made incremental changes in what I was eating, supplementing, and how and when I ate, slept and exercised. Then, my health and feelings of well-being improved dramatically. I hope to share these successes with you in future articles in Azure’s publications so you, too, can enjoy good health as if you lived on the perfect homestead.
A HEAD START
In the meantime, you may want to get a head start on this concept of homestead living, so I’d like to introduce you to several of my favorite books and products that are available right now.
I like books because they open a window to other people’s worlds. Through books, you can see things that have taken the authors years to learn (either through research or their own experience). And for whatever reason, not every nugget of truth in books is reproduced online for free reading by the world. Some information can only be found in books it seems.
An excellent book to help you begin understanding the problems with the modern food system is “The Fateful Fork,” by Eve Gabriel (BK059), which delivers far more than the title suggests. It’s full of information about nutrient-dense and living foods and the dangers of industrial processed foods. “The Untold Story of Milk,” by Ron Schmid (BK014), is an eye-opener (whether you drink milk or not) because it clearly details how politics, special interests and other factors affect the availability of truly healthful food.
And if you haven’t gotten a copy of the ever-popular book, “Nourishing Traditions,” by Sally Fallon Morell (BK117), it will certainly bring new perspective to your view of good nutrition. For this summer’s bounty, you might enjoy the book, “Preserving Food Without Canning or Freezing,” written by the gardeners and farmers of Terra Vivante (BK012).
If you specifically plan to make homemade sauerkraut or lacto-fermented pickles this season, you’ll want to get a copy of “Making Sauerkraut and Pickled Vegetables at Home,” by Klaus Kaufmann (BK453). I’ve had the best success with sauerkraut and pickles when I use a water-seal crock (HA127). And we just started carrying a new book written by Sarica Cernohous titled “The Funky Kitchen” (BK100), which is all about traditional food preparation techniques (with recipes and pictures, too).
That may be a long list, but if you want to dig right in and start learning the basics of eating what we were designed to eat (not the devitalized modern foods), then go for it. In future articles I plan to cover topics about healthful eating — the homesteader’s way — that are not necessarily covered in these books. We’re also planning to offer informative new books to give you in-depth information that just won’t fit into little articles like this one.
REAL FOOD FROM AZURE
Here at Azure, we offer many of the foods and supplies you need to live a homesteader’s lifestyle no matter where you live or what circumstances you’re in.
If you’re living in an apartment with barely enough room for a windowsill herb garden, you can still eat organically grown fruits and vegetables, grass-fed beef, pastured eggs, raw cheeses — even classic homestead-style raw pickles and raw sauerkraut! — by getting them from Azure. If you have enough space for a backyard garden, we can help you create nutrient-rich soil (which will make your food more nutritious as well) with the excellent organic fertilizers we offer. And even if you have a vast spread of land and you’re already living the homesteader’s lifestyle, we have the little extras that can turn something good into something great.
For example, we offer fermented cod liver oil from Green Pastures, which is made the old-fashioned way of fermenting the livers of cod fish, then retaining the nutrient-rich oil for you.
Yes, you can live a healthy homesteader’s lifestyle in today’s modern world. With all the great products Azure currently offers and the new ones we plan to make available to you in the coming months, we’re working to make it possible for you to enjoy all of the bounty of the homestead no matter where you live.
FURTHER RESEARCH
"Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" by Weston A. Price, Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, 2008.
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Note: Some produce only available when in season. Visit the produce page to see a full list of produce items available. Azure Husbandry offers many varieties of fruits, vegetables and grains.