If you’re noticing the rapid decline in food quality, plus the increases in human population, leading to acres of arable land destroyed and replaced with housing complexes… you might be concerned for your own future, your wellbeing, your financial security, and many other things.
Really it scares me and the only tangible and actionable solution right now seems to be growing my own food. I don’t own land, I don’t make much money, and with my six figures of student loan debt that I’m sentenced to, for committing the crime of getting a grad-school education… I don’t foresee any future where I’ll qualify for a mortgage or ever possess my own slice of paradise.
And so I’ll work with what I have — the space in and around my rental home in Florida. There’s nothing more vital, more game-changing, more important than having a fresh source of nutrition on a daily basis.
I’ll start small, feel good, and get smart with time.
Here are the reasons we should all consider growing our own food, even if it’s just a pot of tomatoes in the window.
You’re sick of eating poison
Most of us participate in a broken food system that involves monocropping, stripping the soil of essential nutrients, packing up crops and shipping them thousands of miles, and maximizing for shelf life.
What we really need is uncontaminated nourishing food.
Glyphosate and other toxic chemicals screwing up your digestion and microbiome
Your hard earned dollars can be invested elsewhere
Looking to cut costs? Save your grocery money and allocate it smarter in other investments!
You deserve increased wellbeing
Guaranteed you’ll feel better when eating high quality foods.
Those beneficial soil microbes, the result of proper growing practices, significantly improve mental health and gut health, leading to a host of other benefits.
Your mental health will improve
Stressed out a bit? Experience less depression and less anxiety by taking control over what goes into your body.
We humans seek purpose and satisfaction in life. Experience a sense of fulfillment by starting a project as a seed and later sharing it as a meal with family and friends.
Survival of the fittest, and the greenest
Worried about an apocalypse? It’s already happening. Store-bought food is getting crappier with each passing season, and it’s bringing your health down with it. Start eating smarter, the sooner the better!
You give a damn about your community, and the planet too
We humans tend to feel greater satisfaction when contributing to the greater good, by being a part of the solution and not the problem.
Soil and ecosystems – because you give a damn
All this buzz about climate change and carbon sequestration could be remedied, in part, by not contributing to the overall broken food system, and instead focusing on your own backyard. Restoring soil health and infinite ecological, financial, and public health benefits.
You’ll learn and grow wise
The garden has many lessons to teach us. Patience, persistence, dealing with abundance and loss… all valuable life lessons. Get to gardening and experience endless growth and learning!
You may experience a sense of community
This is relatively foreign in our American suburbs and cities, with fences walling us off from neighbors and no reason to venture further than your driveway, to the insulated bubble of your own vehicle, only to drive off with no human connection with anyone until you reach your destination.
I say ‘you may’ because, in fact, you may choose not to! You may have a simple balcony garden in a pot – and there’s nothing wrong with that. We all start somewhere.
We live in a broken food system – and you’d rather do something about it than gripe and groan
And need more sustainable ways of doing it
Monocultures are unfavorable
Lawns are monocultures, and they do more harm than good, adding extra chores and expenses to your life, without much return. Use your lawn to grow food instead.
Additionally, we shouldn’t be eating from monocultures. What you buy in the store was grown monoculturally.
Your food just tastes better home-grown
Fresh from the soil and not shipped thousands of miles in trucks.
The takeaway here: your overall health improves with real fresh food, and this contributes to every other aspect of your life. Increased sun exposure makes you happy. Physical activity increases endorphins and overall energy levels. Getting your hands dirty contributes to stress relief. You feel a greater connection to the earth and to life in general with you understand the entire food cycle.