Filed under: agriculture, Animal care, Corn, Farm, food, Minnesota, Soybeans | Tags: Corn and Soybean growers, Minnesota, Shrimp, Tru-Shrimp
On Monday, I attended our local Corn and Soybean growers meeting. The guest speaker was from a company called Tru-Shrimp. The goal of Tru-Shrimp is to help the U.S. grow more of the shrimp currently eaten here. Currently 80% of the shrimp eaten in the U.S. is grown overseas in lagoons and bays near the ocean. Because of a variety of problems, these shrimp production areas can have a mortality rate of over 60%, a number that no U.S. farmer would allow in their flocks and herds.
Tru_Shrimp has developed an indoor pond system for shrimp production in Balaton, MN. Thats about as far away from salt water as you can get in the lower 48. This pond system is set to be put into full scale production in an indoor ocean near Luverne, MN in about a year. The plan is to eventually have 12 of these large scale shrimp production sites in the area.
Now why would the corn and soybean growers be interested in shrimp production? The food source for the shrimp will be locally sourced corn and soybeans. In ocean side shrimp farms the shrimp are fed fish meal. Taking fish and fish by-products for shrimp production may be part of the reason for the 60% mortality rate. Using corn and soybeans in a totally enclosed system where water is filtered and reused has gotten the mortality rate to nearer 10%, a truly ground breaking shift.
So keep your eyes open for Tru-Shrimp. Once those Minnesota shrimp farms are up and running you’ll be able to buy and eat some really fresh shrimp, all brought to you by folks here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, and your Minnesota Corn and Soybean Growers.
Filed under: church, food, Ondini circuit, Shetek Conference, South Africa, travel
We were well fed on our trip, our South African hosts saw to that. The food was differently spiced, long on protein and starch, and filling.
Breakfast always included eggs, whether scrambled or hard-boiled, bacon, more of a Canadian style and more meaty that we use in Minnesota, and toast. Sometimes there was oatmeal or something like the grits of the southern U.S. Hot dogs, served cold, might also be part of breakfast.
Drinks would include some type of fruit juice, hot chocolate, tea, instant coffee or cappuccino.
Milk in much of the rest of the world is processed differently and is shelf stable, so it is not refrigerated. That was the case here. South Africans like lots of milk in their coffee and tea, so there was always a pitcher of hot milk at meals. They would also have white and a crystalline brown sugar as well as honey to sweeten your tea, coffee or porridge.
Water was always bottled. We bought it in 1 or 2 liter jugs. Aside from the fact that drinking tap water in a foreign land is usually suspect, the local tap water had a sulfur smell to it.
Soda brands are different. The largest selling soda is Iron Brew. Other brands include Appletiser and Coo-ee. Sparletta is the local branch of Coca-Cola. Sodas come in flavors we do not usually see like pineapple, pomegranate, orange, ginger beer, grape, lemon / lime, cream soda, lemonade and raspberry. It is possible to find a Mt. Dew there, but not easily. If you want it with less sugar you order your soda lite.
Main meals usually included rice or potatoes, and a curried beef or chicken. It was also possible that the noon meal included sandwiches or cold hot dogs on a bun. Sausages (bangers) of many different spicing types could appear at any meal. Their ketchup was called tomato sauce and was differently spiced than ours is. For more festive meals they barbecued sausages or a thin cut of beef, usually from the front shoulder, that cost less than what we might buy.
Different combinations of foods were often served. There was a carrot and white bean dish that was really good. Beets were served at most meals as was some type of cabbage dish, both were recently harvested from area gardens. Potatoes had also recently been harvested, other times of the year, white corn would replace it as the starch. Also on the menu at times was squash, served sliced after cooking.
What they call dumplings, a type of bread made with cake flour and cooked in a double boiler, was a common side dish. It was too crumbly to use as bread except to soak up some meat juices, but they were good.
We did eat at restaurant chains if we were on the road. McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried were in the area, but we avoided those. Kentucky Fried Chicken is the largest restaurant chain in the country. South Africans do love their chicken. Even burger and pizza joints had menus that were more chicken than any other protein. Other grab and go food services included Steers, Whimpy and Debonairs Pizza. 
Just 10 km down the road was Thokozisa Center. The restaurant had a decent menu and free internet. Menu items could include wild game like ostrich and antelope, plus sea food, pasta and pizza. There were also some small stores that sold clothing, furniture and touristy stuff. We stopped there on both of our free nights. For cool nights part of the restaurant was inside, but most of the seating was outside under thatched roofs.
For as close as it is to the Diaconal Center, I surprised to find that I was the only one who knew about it. Thank you Simpewi for introducing it to me.
Castle and Hansa became our beers of choice when in South Africa. Bottles and cans of the size we are used to were common, but you could get your beer in liter bottles.
My most unusual South African meal was served there years ago when I was served boiled beef on a large wooden tray. It was a Sunday noon meal, and I was eating outside with the men. There had been a wedding and the family was gathering to eat one of the dowry cows. With little refrigeration, the whole clan was called in to help eat it.
That and the beef head served this year tell you a lot of the difference in culture that we have around food.
It is plain to see the influence of both England and Germany on the food we were fed. Bits of India and Asia appear in the spicing and the Americas in the presence of corn, potato and squash. Eating was always an international adventure in South Africa.
Filed under: Ag education, agriculture, church, Farm, farm animals, food, garden, Kwazamohkuhle, machines, Ondini circuit, Shetek Conference, South Africa, Tractors, travel | Tags: Kwazamokuhle Diaconal Centre
The Kwazamokuhle Diaconal Centre is home base for us when we visit the Ondini Circuit. It is a cluster of buildings and land near Loskop. As is the case with so many lutheran centers, this area also includes the Phangweni congregation (The largest we know of in the circuit) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa, a cemetery and a school. Also in this complex is a home and school for handicapped children.
The Centre was at one time a mission outpost of the Lutheran Church. It is obvious that it was once quite an operation, today it is but a shadow of its old self. Cattle and goats roam freely on church land outside the fence, and dogs have drug used diapers out of the garbage pit.
When Apartheid ended the missionaries who ran the center were asked to leave. They left a huge leadership vacuum that has still not been filled. On top of it all, no one really knows how much land the church owns here. Despite it all, they are trying hard to make a go of it.
When we were there this August the gardens sat mostly bare. There had not been enough rain to keep the garden going, and the hookup to the reservoir that was meant to irrigate the gardens had been drawing too much water off so they had been asked to stop. Three and a half years of drought have put a strain on all water supplies. That being said the place was busy.
Ladies are still working making communion wafers and shipping them all over the world. Seamstresses still are making robes and stoles for the pastors, and bead work and basketry are being done in the workshops and in homes. These items are for sale on the premises.
The rooms all over the compound are being rented out. Some small storage areas have been converted to rooms for single African men. Small houses are available for families to live in. A library and study rooms for school children occupies most of one building. Pastor Nkosi is staying in the guest house while his house is being built, two German girls who volunteer at the School for Handicapped children are in the guest house apartment, and then there are the ten of us.
Lazarus, the old Massey tractor was started and a few jobs were done with it, but a leaky fuel pump kept us from working it too hard.
An old tractor powered hammer mill was checked out and deemed ready to make corn meal flour.
The pork project, which was only a dream 3 years ago, is now up and running in the old hog barns. There are also pigs at the school, and Mxolisi has been hired to manage that project. He still has a lot to learn, but we must think back to how our grandfathers raised pigs to understand the level they are at.
Pastor Nkosi is hoping to resurrect a chicken rearing operation that was started and then abandoned after a wind storm damaged the buildings. Because the operation was not guarded, some of the equipment has disappeared, but the bones of the operation are still there.
A new enterprise is in the building stage. Just west of the centre’s compound a Community Centre and Rental Rondavels are being built. For now there are just four rondavels, but more are possible if these work out.
There are plans a brewing, and deeds being done to help keep the activities of the circuit going. The people of the Ondini Circuit are not standing still, they are trying, and we wish them the best.
Filed under: Ag education, agriculture, church, combines, Corn, Farm, farm animals, farm life, food, John Deere, machines, Minnesota, Ondini circuit, planting, science, seasons, Shetek Conference, South Africa, Soybeans, tillage, Tractors, travel, trucks
One of the requests we had made on a previous visit was to spend time with a farmer from South Africa. Some of it is curiosity on our part on how agriculture is done in a larger scale, and the other reason is to get a baseline for what agriculture could be in the Ondini Circuit.
Understand, that this is dryland/irrigated farming on a scale not familiar to us here in southwestern Minnesota. Everywhere we travel in South Africa agriculture is so different. Timber, sugar cane and pineapple are foreign to us. Corn, cattle, hogs, soybeans, barley, wheat and oats we understand.
Our South African farmer host also farms on a different scale than we do. While many in our area farm with only family labor, he has a considerable labor force employed. He, his daughter and son-in-law make up the management team. They have 9 full-time employees and 6 part-time employees. The operation produces white corn, soybeans for seed, black oats for cover crop, pasture and hay, wheat, pumpkins and squash for seed, and cattle to make use of land which can not otherwise be farmed.
Our host grew up speaking German, his daughters married English speakers, and his grandchildren speak Zulu with their friends and in school. Most of his employees are native Zulu speakers.
Keeping employees is one of his hardest tasks. To keep good employees he pays them above normal wages and builds a house for them in town. Employee loyalty is rewarded by advancement as space opens up or need requires.
The 8 row, row crop planter he had in the shed has all of the latest attachments for no-til planting, fertilizing and spraying under GPS guidance. While the size of planter was small by our standards, the availability of labor to keep that planter on the move made it just right for his farm.
The nearly new John Deere tractor in his shed complemented the other smaller and older tractors that populated the farm.
The John Deere combine and sprayer also looked familiar to us.
The truck configuration was different to what we use. We saw very few hopper bottom trucks in our travels, but double trailer and straight truck with a trailer combinations, with steel rather than aluminum frames were everywhere. Road conditions and local road laws are the most likely reason for this difference.
Land does not sit idle in this area of South Africa. When one crop is harvested, the planter is already in the field to plant the next. Irrigated oats keeps cattle graze in peak condition although they do have to add some dried hay to keep the cattle on green grass from getting diarrhea.
Irrigation water for this farm comes from reservoirs sourced in the Drakensberg Mountains. Our host farmer serves on the local water board to help manage that crucial water.
Corn stalks are also used to graze stock cattle when available.
During the summer, when all of the irrigated land is planted to other crops, native grass pastures are used to keep the cattle growing. A feed lot is also on the farm, but it is presently only used for part of the year. That is one place he hopes to make more use of. Right now he only has cattle in the feed lot to meet the Christmas market when local prices are highest.
Most of the cattle he has on hand have bells on them. Although all cattle must be branded to prove ownership, there is the potential for theft. The bells are to help the night guards keep track of cattle movements.
One of our South African church hosts was along for the trip, and was very impressed with all of the science that was needed to farm. That one fact is something that few who do not live on the farm understand. If we are to raise food for the world we must use every bit of science at our disposal. Margins on the farm are razor-thin, to make a profit so we can feed our families and pay our employees is not easy in today’s price environment. That fact is true in South Africa as well as Minnesota.
Filed under: Ag education, children, church, food, food safety, garden, Ondini circuit, planting, school, Shetek Conference, South Africa
Health and wellness issues are a prime reason for these trips we make. A major part of this project is the promotion of gardens. Queen of the gardens and the largest success story is the garden at Hoffenital parish.
Hoffenital parish church has a school nearby, something very common in the area. The uncommon part here is the orphanage and the 13 gogos (grandmothers) who run it. These ladies have started a garden project to help support themselves and the orphans that has become a shining example of what could be.
One of our earliest groups to make the trip to the Ondini helped them along by installing a pump and pipes from a nearby creek to the garden. When the sprinkler system was turned on, the ladies were dancing in the garden for it meant they no longer had to carry water.
Since then the ladies have expanded the garden to the point that they can not only support themselves and the children, but are also paying back by supporting the Zamani Garden Project (an Ondini Circuit, Shetek Conference joint project) that got them going. Now they are taking another step up by expanding the garden.
Now a garden in this area needs fencing since many goats and cattle roam freely in the area. The animals are owned by someone and carry the brands of those owners, but are basically let out to fend for themselves.
The Hoffenital garden was recently granted money to add new fencing, the sod had been turned over by a small tractor and plow, and we were there to help plant about 100 pounds of seed potatoes.
Now the sod could have used a few passes with a disk as far as we farmers were concerned, but it was planting day and plant we would. Trenches were cut by hand with the traditional African hoe which works well for the job, a bit of fertilizer was placed in the trench, potatoes were placed in next and it was covered. A bit of water from a leaky hose was sprinkled over the top and we were done.
I have no doubt that the ladies will have this part of the garden in shape eventually. Labor is cheap, and they have plenty of people looking for work in these rural areas. Members of the congregation volunteer their time to help keep the gardens going, and the parish pastor is likely to bring gifts of garden produce when she makes home visits.
The pastor has her own garden at her parsonage across the valley. Some pastors can support themselves with diligent and energetic use of the garden. It is part of the way they are showing members of their parish what can be done in a garden plot.
Since it rarely freezes here, produce can be grown year round. Cooler season crops like potatoes, carrots and cabbage in the winter and corn, edible beans and squash in the summer. The key here is access to water and fences.
We are proud to be supporting this project with our labor and money. This is something that can really make a difference in this area of Africa.
Next, we make a visit tot he Weenen Game reserve.
I’ll have to say that South Africans can really party. Now we were not asked to go to any real blasts, but we were invited as guests to a number of church rallies, and those are some real parties.
On Saturday, August 5th, we were honored guests at the Young Adult Rally held in Ladysmith. We had seats along the side in front, and special status at meal time.
One thing I should mention is that although printed materials may be in British English, almost every spoken work is in Zulu. This makes understanding what is going on difficult, but the music always translates as great. For our first timers, this was their first experience with sitting through an event in a language they do not understand, and though our hosts did their best to help us understand, the boredom was easy to understand. Since this was early in our trip, the boredom often translated into sleep.
The rally was held in a campus auditorium, and the place was full. When we arrived a very dynamic speaker was on stage. By the reactions of the crowd he was entertaining as well as enlightening.
I should explain that in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa (ELCSA) A young Person can be from 18 to 35, and the group seems to be mostly female. Every step of ELCSA church life puts you in a group with its own uniforms and gatherings. Most men seem to skip the young adult group since this is a prime work time in their lives. Women move more slowly from the young adult group to the women group and have rallies and parties the whole way. For a link to our experience with the ELCSA Women’s league you can check here for my August 20, 2014 post.
Singing at a rally is part of every step. They sing when they start, during and after. They sing when they give the offering, and they sing when they protest. 
We all got to be part of a South African tradition, a protest rally. A real first for us.
There seemed to be several issues, but one that would bubble up again during our trip was the fact that several million Rand ( $1 = 13.16 Rand while we were there) were missing from the church coffers.
During the meal, we were accorded the honor of having the head of the cow that was butchered placed in from of us. While the platter did not include the skull, it did include the horns, ears, and brains. Some of our party declined to give it a try, while others were more or less adventurous in their eating.
Part of the platter was something that we would see many times at meals, dumplings. Dumplings are mostly cake flour and a few other ingredients cooked in a double boiler kind of arrangement and eaten as a bread. It is definitely finger food since it does not hang together as well as bread.
More of our time spent in South Africa to come, stay tuned.
Filed under: Ag education, agriculture, church, food, food safety, garden, Kwazamohkuhle, Minnesota, Ondini circuit, rain, Shetek Conference, South Africa
On Wednesday, August 2, 2017, ten members of churches in the Shetek Conference of the ELCA left for the Ondini Circuit in the Kwa-Zulu Natal of South Africa. This group from Southwestern Minnesota included 5 farmers, a nurse, a food service worker, a pastor and two young men just headed off to college. For 4 of us this was a return trip, for the rest it was a new adventure.
Roughly, the Ondini Circuit includes the area from Estcourt, Muden and Weenen in the southeast to Bethlehem and Reitz in the northwest. It goes from the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains and up into the mountains. The area is rough. Valleys and level areas are separated by sharp hills in the southeast and buttes and mesas in the northwest. The best farmland is controlled by descendents of white settlers, but many areas with good potential still exist in the native, black settled areas.
Most homes in this area have access to clean water, but in some cases it may be a barrel that is filled by a water truck. Homes vary from those with every convenience we here in the U.S. expect to a steel or concrete walled structure with a steel roof. If you have a job, you have a decent home, if you do not, the living is rough.
Temperatures in the area rarely fall below freezing so homes are easy to heat with a small fire or heater in the winter. Summer temperatures are hot, but not unbearably so, the nighttime cooling easily counters the daytime heat.
This is dry country. What rain they get makes it easy to grow crops in the spring and summer, but this land can support year around agriculture, irrigation is needed to get a really dependable crop, and the area has had a three-year run of drought. Runoff from the Drakensberg mountains fills reservoirs, but not all water is impounded like it could be. Some of the water is destined for drier cities to the north and is not accessible for local use.
Our trip was mainly to visit the black churches of the Ondini circuit, to talk about health and wellness issues, pastoral support and ways to provide other support to the many who live here on government support. It is an important task that local churches have taken on, but they need help. Most expertise to run mission outposts was removed when the post Apartheid government and churches took power. It is to one of these old mission outposts that we were bound.
More posts are coming on our trip to the Ondini. Stay tuned.
Filed under: Ag education, Ag promotion, Animal care, Farm, farm animals, food, Wildlife
I’ve been seeing, and perhaps you have too, these posts about animal free meat put out by groups like PETA and others. They are promoting a product that is grown without killing animals. Their contention is that even organic labels do not go far enough and we need to produce our meat proteins in the lab, not on the farm.
But lab meat is not all that great for the environment. Lab meat must be “exercised” to grow, that takes electricity, which requires fossil fuels. Animals have all kinds of built in immunities to disease, lab meat needs antibiotics to keep it clean. There are waste products associated with the production of lab meat that must be disposed of. The most confusing part for me however is just where do they think this meat will come from, thin air?
You need a food source of some kind to make this meat. It takes sugars and amino acids to grow this stuff. Where will they come from? Right now land that will grow food for people is already in production. If we must produce sugars and other products for a factory to produce meat, it is going to take land that is currently not tilled to make the raw materials, land that is currently in pasture or forest. We’re going to have to clear forests and cultivate land that should never be worked to produce meat in a factory that can be produced so easily by just letting the cows eat that grass.
Oh yes, the cows are eating that grass right now despite the talk you get from PETA about animals housed in filth, our beef is grass fed for most of it’s life. It is only in the “finishing” stage, when the fat needed to make a burger or steak juicy that cows go in to confined feeding, and even then most of what they eat is whole plant based, not grain (corn, barley or wheat) based, and that filth is removed quickly to be used as nutrients for growing more grass and grain.
Livestock (cows, sheep, goats) grazing environmentally sensitive lands is what the vast majority of the meat eaten in this world is based off of. The bison of North America and the huge herds of African grazers helped develop the grasses that they can make into meat. Our domesticated animals are just picking up where they left off.
The difference is that man has helped make his grazing animals much more efficient than the vast herds ever were. Modern animal husbandry is producing more meat on less grass and grain than the wild herds ever could. Today in the U.S. there are fewer grazers on the land than there were in the wild days of human expansion, yet they produce many times more meat. Careful management of pasture land has great environmental advantages over just letting the herd go.
Man protects his livestock from predation and disease. Man shelters them from the sun and cold. Waste products are spread on the land to grow more food for the animals. It all becomes much more efficient than the smaller farms and ranches ever could be and the environment and those who enjoy a bit of steak or hamburger at a low price are the winners.
Filed under: Ag education, agriculture, birds, Farm, Farm Bureau, farm life, FarmFest, fish, food, food safety, Minnesota, Minnesota Farm Bureau, Politics, rain, science
I spent this last Wednesday at FarmFest near Redwood Falls, Minnesota. As always, there were lots of displays and things for sale, but I always take time for some of the forums on current issues. 
The 1:15 session was titled “Buffers, WOTUS* and other Water Quality Issues.” Now when you get farmers talking water, you get all kinds of concern. We are always talking about how little or how much water we have. Water is life for both our crops and our livestock. Water is a big deal on the farm. Now if you add in government control of our water, you are likely to get fireworks. (*Waters of the United States, it refers to a bill that could increase government control of water way beyond what is reasonable.)
The forum brought together nine speakers from various backgrounds, mainly commodity and farm group leaders, plus the local legislator (who wrote the “Buffer” bill) and an assistant to the state secretary of Agriculture. So here are a few nuggets of wisdom and some comments on water issues from the forum.
“We all want water quality, we just want someone else to pay for it.” Now isn’t that the truth. But who should pay for it. Well it boils down to blaming the least vocal, least politically connected voices, lately that seems to be farmers.
“Currently in Minnesota about 80% of the waters that need a buffer already have one.” That was a revelation. When the governor started pushing for buffers along all the waters in Minnesota you would have thought we had a real problem, but most of the job is already done. But the next one really did open my eyes.
“In many cases, waters that do not have a buffer, need something other than a buffer to protect water quality.” Now isn’t that interesting. So again we have politicians pushing for something that is only needed in a small number of cases and they end up creating a big fuss when the job is almost already done.
“There are no waters in the state of Minnesota that are clean enough to drink risk free, and have most like never have been.” Now I’ve been canoeing in the “pristine” waters of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and I know that even there you deal with fish, mammal and bird poop in the water and the bacteria they have that can cause distress in humans. That is a remote area, in areas more densely populated and warmer that density of potential problems increases. Waters that contain fish, entertain birds and have swimming and wading mammals, amphibians and reptiles will always contain risks for disease transmission, this is not new.
Groups that regulate farmers seem to be seeking out ways that they can push for multi-million dollar fines for doing activities that are not even in their rules to control. Normal farming activities that are up to date and environmentally friendly to most are being levied with suits to see if the regulation will stick. If farmers cave in, it becomes law. “They want to face individual farmers, not farm groups. If we contact our farm group we can combat these illegal taking of farm activities.” As a group we can face up to those who wish to push the law too far. The courts have been on our side, but one farmer cannot afford all of the costs of lawyers, that is where your commodity or farm group can help. Do not suffer alone.
Now the comments turn more hopeful.
“The changes in U.S. Agriculture since the passing of the Clean Water Act in 1972 have allowed agriculture to have a smaller environmental footprint.” Farmers get all kinds of bad press when they get bigger and increase the density of their endeavors, but the truth is once we get bigger we get more concerned about controlling all of the possible elements on the farm. Two issues from our own farm.
1) When we raised pigs outdoors, pens were not designed to control manure runoff. It was spread on fields at anytime of year with no concern for whether it may end up in a stream or lake. Now every bit of manure is controlled and used as the precious resource it is.
2) Newer machines have allowed us to control crop chemicals in ways we never could before. Now we can control our crop chemicals down to the fraction of an ounce. This means using only enough, never too much of that expensive crop input.
“Water quality is improving in Minnesota, but as more obvious point sources of pollution are eliminated (factories and city sewage systems) the search for the next point of pollution goes to more and more diffused sources.” In other words, we have already done the large part of cleaning up our act, if anti-pollution groups are to keep their funding they must find more places to put the blame that may not amount to much in the overall picture.
“Farm groups are being asked ‘Are we sustainable.’ Well, yes we are. We have over 40 years of work on being sustainable. We are not yet done on improving on our sustainability. We now produce more food on less acres and with fewer animals than 50 years ago.” We have less waste and fewer inputs for more yield than at anytime in my life, that means we are doing something right.
At times when we talk water issues and government policy, it seems as if everything is hopeless. There are too few of us and we are so small. Still if we band together, our voice can still be heard. The courts have been good to us, if we get a chance to make our case. Alone we are helpless, together we can protect this precious way of life that provides food for so much of the world.
Filed under: food, gluten | Tags: book review, fad diets, Food, gluten, religion, The Gluten Lie
I often read book reviews but do not often find time to read the books they talk about. Because of all the fad talk about gluten in diets and my mom’s celiac this one caught more than the usual interest.
Author Alan Levinovitz is a religious studies professor who has been dismayed by the proliferation of gluten free everything. The book is not really all about gluten, but more about our demonizing of foods. There have been times when MSG, fat, salt, sugar and eggs have all been held forth as bad for us, today it is gluten and GMO’s. Basically this book is a exposure of the shame based diet fads we see everyday. His contention is that we feel better on these diets, not because we are actually eating or not eating something, but because we think we should feel better. Fad diets become a religion.
The basic contention, and I think it is a valid one, is that the power of belief, not the diet, creates the benefit. The intersection of faith and food is powerful stuff. If you are sold the belief with the religious zeal of a true believer, no matter what the truth is, you will get better. For those of us in science, this is irrational.
I’ve watched the changes in food fads for most of my life. I’ve lived long enough to see many of them go full circle, from bad for you, to good for you and back to bad for you. The truth of the matter is that for most people the mantra of “all things in moderation” is the best path. Getting caught up in the latest fad diet is worse for you than choosing to eat sensibly.
I’ve never been much of one for fads. Once I got past my teens they have not meant much to me. I find more than a grain of truth in The Gluten Lie. I think you will too.
Minnesota Farmer 