I am looking at the January 28th, 2014 edition of The St. Lawrence Plaindealer. (Ok, I wrote this over 2 years ago... where does the time go? and never posted it.) The FARM FOCUS section has an article titled: "Important to Properly Clean Produce." The last paragraph, in this short article, had this statement: The Pure Food Growers of America states that the average American consumes more than 10 pounds of insecticides and herbicides every year from produce.

Their answer to this consuming pesticide problem is in the article’s title:

"Important to Properly Clean Produce"

I have a few ideas of my own around this “just wash it off” issue. Is it really just a matter of washing the produce well? This sounds like a good plan, on the surface. However, when we think about chemicals and the permeability of the produce’s skin and the soil the produce is grown in, the actual picture looks a bit different.

I am certain you have heard this before: You are what you eat!

Let's take a closer look at the meaning of the words.

What we take in for food is what directly feeds our body cells to be healthy or not. Eat real food and you create, regenerate, healthy cells. Eat junk (junk should not be called food) and you create un-healthy cells... degenerative cells.

Animals are the same. If they are being fed the dregs; the left-over, crap food from the cafeteria waste bins that is the fuel their bodies use to create new body cells.

Farmers have been known to gather up waste food from restaurant and cafeteria's left-overs to feed to their chickens and pigs. If there is refined junk "food" in that waste bag, well, guess what is fueling the regeneration of the animal's cells. That's correct, junk! An animal's meat, eggs, and dairy will only be as healthy as the animal, as healthy as that animal's body cells. Feed the animals junk, you get junk cell regeneration and therefor junk food products from that animal. (This means that the animal's meat, eggs, and dairy products are less than vibrantly healthy. These products will only be as healthy as the animal that makes them.) Eating that meat, eggs, and dairy that is less than healthy? Guess what, it is junk to your body cells. What goes around comes around and you are what you eat! The animals are what they eat as well.

**My humble garden spot where things literally grow outside the box!**

Vegetarian or vegan? The plants you are eating are not immune to this equation of:

Whole foods eaten = whole body cells regenerated

VS.

Junk food eaten = junk body cells degenerated

Do you know what your farmer is feeding the vegetable, fruit, grain, nut, and seed plants you are eating or eating from?

Feed those plants (i.e. this includes feeding the soil around the plants as well) good compost, cover crops, organic fertilizers, etc. and the plant's cells are being fed well. Plant cell regeneration will be healthy. Feed the plants and soil synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, etc. and your plant cells will suffer, degenerate.

Healthy plant cells feed your body for positive cell regeneration.

Unhealthy plant cells feed your body for degenerative cell replacement.

By the way, your compost pile is also in need of good food. Feed your compost well as it is what will feed your garden. If you do not eat refined, processed food "products," do not dump them into your compost pile. What goes in the compost goes into the garden, goes into your produce, and goes into your body.

Be conscious of the food you feed yourself. Get to know your farmers and be conscious of the food being fed to your produce, your "eggs," your meat and dairy. It all truly matters!

You are what you eat!

Natural Health Education Blog