Example of a meandering

Hi everyone. Here is an example of one of my Meanderings: I am curious about psychological and social impacts of poor-quality food vs. high quality food. So I went info. hunting...

1) Organic Food and Health: The Evidence
https://www.positivehealth.com/article-view.php?articleid=310

2) How Nutrient Deficiencies Affect Brain Connections
http://www.encognitive.com/node/972

3) 'Malnutrition at Age 3 Years and Externalizing Behavior Problems at age 8, 11 and 17 Years.'
http://www.encognitive.com/node/972

I don't need to cite material outlining US violent crime rates. We all know they are very high. And I don't feel the need to point out how our county's international policy is very aggressive (perhaps indicative of mass externalizing behavior problems). It is pretty obvious that we need to decrease violent tendencies.

So, I found a pretty good case supporting the link between poor nutrition and mental illness/violent behavior. Then I wanted to know how we could help heal this trend.

I looked into various ways to increase nutrient content of food and make that food more accessible to a wider variety of people.

4) Bio-intensive farming-John Jeavons is brilliant. I studied bio-intensive farming in Argentina a couple of years ago at a farm/school C.I.E.S.A. And that technique is a strong influence in the Outback's Educational garden. Check it out.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/04/13/HO126062.DTL

Jeavons listed open-pollinated seeds in his criteria for healthy closed-cycle farming---what are those- how do I get some?

5) Seed Saving and Seed Savers' Resources
http://homepage.eircom.net/~merlyn/seedsaving.html#section1

6) Uprising Seeds (a Bellingham-based seed company that I buy all the Outback seeds from)
http://www.greenpeople.org/listing/Uprising_Seeds_29988.cfm

7) California Farm to School Program
http://www.farmtoschool.org/ca/programs.htm

8) Food to Bank On Project (in Bellingham!)
http://www.sconnect.org/foodfarming/Food%20To%20Bank%20On/

9) Food Stamps at Farmer's Markets
http://www.enn.com/lifestyle/article/38036

So in just a couple of hours, I found an amazing amount of resources that linked together a variety of ideas- soil fertility, nutrient density of foods grown in fertile vs. non-fertile soils, effects of nutrient deficiencies on mental health, ways people are growing more nutritious foods, ways more people can have access to these foods. That is a great Meandering.

The next step is to take the information you are gathering and becoming inspired by, and join in!! How can you be part of something beautiful that is healing something ugly?

If I were doing a final project for this class and wanted to tie it to my Meandering project it would probably include some of my current activities: I teach organic gardening at Wellspring High School and to college students and pre-schoolers in the Outback. We donate our surplus produce to the Bellingham Food Bank.

Please check out some or all of these links-you will probably find different things that are inspiring and exciting for you. And above all else- have fun- this is an invitation to explore and follow your curiosity. You will get out of it what you put in!!