For some years I've been interested in organic gardening, particularly permaculture. Recently I've taken a deeper dive into this method of 'natural' farming within which is embedded a deep reverence for, and trust of nature. And I've realised that permaculture has some uncanny parallels to the non-diet approach and Health at Every Size movement I am so passionate about in my clinical practice. For the last 7 or so years I've been working with people with weight, food and body image concerns, from wanting to lose a couple of kilograms to life threatening eating disorders.

One of the greatest teachers of this method of farming is Masanobu Fukuoka, author of The One-Straw Revolution. In this book Fukuoka describes his discovery of "do nothing" farming, where he creates situations where nature will do the work with the minimum of interference on his part.

So instead of spending hours ploughing the soil or spending money on adding chemical fertilisers to his crops, he simply chucks the rice straw back on the ground after harvesting it and scatters chook poo over it. Occasionally he sows clover to use as a green manure.

​And that's pretty much it.

And rather than seeing everything turn into a wilderness and watching helplessly as the prickles take over, Fukuoka actually equals the yield of farms that have had these modern high intervention inputs applied to them, with a fraction of the investment of labour and resources.
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Of course by "healthy weight" I don't mean what the BMI deems healthy. I adopt Dr. Rick Kausman's description of your healthiest weight being the most comfortable, natural weight for you - the weight your body naturally arrives at and maintains when we provide the right "soil" (see number 2). So here's what I gathered together in my current understanding of permaculture principles and my more deeply rooted understanding of HAES and the non-diet approach. The biggest parallels between permaculture, and the non-diet approach and HAES as roads to body peace, are:

For the last few weeks I’ve been volunteering on an organic farm in Tamil Nadu, Southern India. It took a period of adjustment, but I now love this part of India and particularly, planting, weeding, picking, composting and slashing in the cool mornings! I’m learning a lot about sustainable living, renewable energy and permaculture.

Being a dietitian I’m all about what to eat and how to eat it. Since my first few years as a veterinary undergrad travelling to rural Queensland for practicum, I’ve been interested in where our food comes from and the environmental impact of animal agriculture. But this is the first time I’ve actually gotten my hands into the soil and worked the land for an extended period of time.  And man, has it opened my eyes…

Starting work after a pre-dawn yoga session is a positively divine way to ground yourself first thing in the morning. With the sun rising and a gentle breeze, it’s a time when I feel calm enough to sense the energies of the garden and within my own body – and to feel that they are sustaining me. The farm is not just a place of work, but also a place of contemplation and connection with other energies.

I’ve loved being in nature for as long as I can remember. But I’ve always felt a schism within myself – that whilst I may be in nature, I am not of nature. This is perhaps the first time I’ve felt engaged with the earth, more aligned with its energies, more deeply in tune with the rhythms of living.

I’m sleeping on the ground, seeing bright stars every night and no matter how hard I scrub, have the impenetrable red dirt of work seeping into my fingernails and soles of my feet! But living closer to nature like this and being engaged with it to grow food and live off the land have helped me touch a source of life force energy.

It’s the same life force that I’ve inherently felt in natural foods - things like fresh veggies, green juices and sprouts, except this is on a larger scale. It’s really quite incredible and I feel an evolution in my understanding of human health and its close interconnection with the health of Mother Earth.

It’s as if my understanding of food as nourishment has come full circle. I now get why I had such a strong urge to come to India from Thailand - which was not part of my original plan and caused some serious upheaval and emotional angst on my part.

Here in Buddha Garden - a community farm in Auroville  by volunteers - it’s not just a question of growing vegetables, but of growing them with a particular awareness and consciousness. Growing the food we and the community need to live is not just about producing calories, vitamins and protein.

Our vegetables have a special energy that nourishes us on many levels. Doing this work is not just about completing garden tasks – it’s also about bringing a certain level of awareness and love to infuse the work while consciously working with the energies of the earth and creation.

For these reasons I’ll be bringing home a greater element of environmental consciousness to my nutrition work . I always knew in theory that SLOW food – seasonal, local, organic and whole – was best for us and for the planet. But now, having grown it, plucked it and eaten it fresh off the vine or out of the ground, I feel it in my bones. It’s as much a part of nourishing the body as choosing the right diet or getting the correct balance of nutrients – possibly more so.

I really look forward to bringing this new awareness (as well as some fun ideas for sustainable food and organic cooking workshops!) back home to share with anyone else who is interested in lightening their environmental footprint and eating more consciously. See you all in March!

Dirt encrusted hugs, Casey :)

By Palasis Cooney, wholefoods chef

Awareness is the first step of realisation. When our bodies are showing clear signs of imbalance then we may become aware something must be done about it. Nutritionally, many symptoms are created by mineral imbalances in the earth's topsoil. Depleted soil will no longer provide the nutrients for plants that we need to assimilate in our diets in order to maintain a healthy body and mind. If we are aware enough we may realise that for many nutritional deficiencies, depletion of the earth is the root cause of the problem and something must be done about it.

I have just completed a Permaculture Design course in Thailand and I'll be travelling around some more to gain experience in the principles and techniques of permaculture and self-sustainability. I went to Thailand with an open mind and had no expectations of what I was going to receive from the course.
 
The teacher Christian Shearer shared with us teachings that went beyond the physical realm and a little into the emotional and spiritual aspects of the holistic, integrated system of Permaculture Design. Through effective communication methods, clearly stated goals, the desire to meet basic human needs and effectively and consciously directed action we can form communties where all members can use their creative gifts to support it.

Permaculture seeks to create agriculturally productive systems with the diversity and sustainability of natural systems in order to provide food, water, shelter and all other needs in a a sustainable or even regenerative way.

Parallels between human and earth health

Science can be a little daunting, but science is everything we observe in the world around us and beneath us. The soil  is the main part of what I am writing about here and it is literally teaming with billions of bacteria. Guess what - so are we! Our bodies have more bacterial cells inside them than human cells and if we can understand parallels between the earth and our bodies, we can more deeply understand the problem and what needs to be done about it.

The simple yet crucial observation that I made was the distinctive similarity between the way the Earth is treated through modern agriculture, and how humans are treated - by themselves or otherwise. In Permaculture there is a model based on inputs and outputs, which shows us what elements we need to survive and thrive off an area of land and which of these the land can give us. The earth really can give us everything we need, so this simple model is not complete without considering and actioning what can we give the earth in return.

The problem with monoculture

Let's take a look at the monoculture production of iceberg lettuce, keeping in mind this process is common among all modern agricultural farming techniques who produce a monoculture. In many parts of the world, the seeds for this crop are sourced from Monsantos.

Monsantos is a sizeable corporation that monopolises the production of the most widely used crops in the world and sells their seeds to farmers in the most remote regions of the world. Once planted these genetically modified seeds produce plants that mostly produce no seeds and pollinate crops all around the vicinity to take on the same characteristics, hence no more seeds except from Monsantos.  

This is disastrous for marginalised communities struggling to survive. Monsantos provides GMO seeds to disaster stricken communities sometimes for free. Once these seeds are up and growing they require fertiliser - and it's compulsory to use Monsantos fertiliser or legal action can and is taken against farmers. This fertiliser is a cadmium (heavy metal) based salt, which rather than making the soil and plant stronger as in organic farm methods (by balancing out the semi-permeable membranes of the plant), this chemical fertiliser bloats the plant so it's basically water.

The plants appear to grow bigger and faster but it's not in any way healthier. This is when hungry insects come in to devour the compromised plants. These insects are then killed with insecticide which is cleverly stocked on the Monsantos shelf.  The soil progressively becomes more acidic and the soil structure is weakened. The bacterial balance in the soil is disturbed as pathogenic lifeforms multiply and plants are unable to utilise the normal decaying organic matter to be healthy. Fungal disease then sets in and Monsantos again stocks the fungicides used as a bandaid solution to the mounting problem.

With bacteria and fungal balance compromised and soil more acidic than is viable, the earth will still attempt to naturally heal itself. There are some plant species that grow in dead soil to restore and regenerate it - these are weeds and legumes. They are nitrogen fixers, that is, they take nitrogen from the atmosphere into the roots and make it available for the bacteria and fungi to use and continue the natural process with nematodes and protozoa and eventually, the plants. However, this process is seen as a threat of course and out comes the Monsantos branded herbicides to destroy any chance of soil survival.

A minor saving grace to provide beneficial nutrients to the soil is this: once the crop is gone and in the travelling process to Woolworths or Coles, a piddly spread of three elements is dusted over the soil in the form of NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium). This keeps the soil weak enough to remain sick and strong enough for sellable plants to grow. Under this model, when the bare minimum of three elements are used as sole fertiliser, the Monsantos chemical cocktail is necessitated to keep plants alive.

It seems to me like the Earth's soil is on a life support system. By continuing to operate in this reductionist system we are inevitably the ones paying the price in our health and that of the earth.

This is the same process used by the meat industry and poultry. How long does it take for a chicken to get to your table? Around 6 weeks. Six miserable weeks of being fed antibiotics, growth hormones, and being stuffed into a lot with thousands of other birds. The birds are unable to partake in natural chicken behaviours - moving around the garden eating insects and fruit, and scratching about helping feed back manure into the system of life. The chicken can't move and has broken bones as it grows too quickly and puts on mass too quickly for the bones to catch up. It's a quick solution to get the money in the poultry meat industry's pocket as quickly as possible. Let's not mention the marketing that goes with it. 

Net effects on human health

Food is one of the most basic ways for a human being to nourish his or her mind, body and spirit. How can we possibly have a fighting chance if we are being fed a chemical cocktail of hazardous sprays, heads of lettuce mostly made up water and a mix of three basic elements out of the dozens that our bodies need? 

When we mix the problem of depleted soils and nutrtiionally devoid produce with highly processed convenience foods, we create a state of health and a corresponding societal structure that leaves many people feeling stressed, depressed, and empty on so many levels. Intentionally or not, this feeds another infamous industry: pharmaceuticals.

We are being kept alive enough to keep the major food industries profitable, and sick enough to assist the pharmaceutical industry. Those in control are not dealing with the problems, but rather applying bandaid solutions that are cheaper. If this is sounding eerily similar to the health solutions applied to humans, you are justified in your alarm. All health issues, whether human health or land fecundity, need to be dealt with at the root cause of the problem, rather than symptomatically. This is what holistic human health systems and permaculture have in common.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that the underlying cause of suffering in the world can begin to be solved by healing the earth's soil. Leading permculturalist Geoff Lawton said, " You can solve all the worlds problems in the soil". By improving the quality of the soil - the source of where our food comes from - and by creating massive diversity in our gardens, plants will be healthier, stronger and more resistant to disease. We would have no need for insecticides, pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides. 

Grow local, buy local, eat sustainable

By supporting local growers in your community, you will know where your food is coming from and you'll be eating food that's in season. We are a product of our environment, and by obeying the laws of nature, living in harmony with our natural biocosmic and bioregional cycles, our own health and immunity is bolstered.

We each have a role to play. Humans are just as important as the bacteria and fungus in the soil, just our being here creates an environment for other species to survive and interact with each other. We have the power to form communities and grow our own food on a local scale, thus creating more unity, more beauty in bio-diversity, and greater health on every level. 

Are you in?

When I return, i'll be bringing with me a plan to establish community gardens, building on the progress we are already starting to see in our local community and on the Gold Coast in general. This plan will require community support from anyone interested in taking control of their lives. There is no need to be bound to an unsustainable system when we can instead utiluse tried and true systems that have nurtured and sustained indigenous cultures all over the world for tens of thousands of years. I'll show you what to grow, how to grow it, when, where and why. Time is going by fast we need to look after ourselves and each other, NOW, to end the suffering.