Constantly being on internet news sources is wildly stressful...more than one can ever imagine if one never shuts it off. After trying to follow everything for a year during Covid, my rule of thumb has become: if it's in the news right now and has any significance, it will still be in the news tonight and probably for the next week or so. In other words, I won't miss anything important by just reading the email notifications from major news sources every day or two. And, it's MUCH more relaxing.
People who have never gotten food anywhere but a grocery store don't realize how much one can do with a garden bed, a few chickens and your hands. Having a large family, I've gone to some lengths to cut food costs and especially improve quality (coming from a farm, no one is ever going to convince me that the meat sold in grocery stores is healthy. After a year on that, I was overweight and feeling depleted.) The trick is to source meat in bulk from small Maritime farms where meat is still raised fairly naturally (but which are increasingly being pushed out of existence by laws such as that a small farmer may now raise only 25 turkeys in a year! That's not enough to feed *my* family, nevermind for a small farmer to feed their family and still sell small-scale.) To call the basis of such laws "food safety" is rubbish - has anyone in the Maritimes ever actually gotten sick from some home-slaughtered product they bought at a farmer's market?? IMRO, it's about handing more power to the food system (those same grocery chains that, according to the news, are increasing prices more than they really need while Nova Scotians skip meals to pay rent).
Being able to look after yourself and raise a sparse, but sufficient supply of your own food is an invaluable skill which will likely become more so over time, while resources to do so become increasingly inaccessible as they lie in the hands of ever larger companies.
Constantly being on internet news sources is wildly stressful...more than one can ever imagine if one never shuts it off. After trying to follow everything for a year during Covid, my rule of thumb has become: if it's in the news right now and has any significance, it will still be in the news tonight and probably for the next week or so. In other words, I won't miss anything important by just reading the email notifications from major news sources every day or two. And, it's MUCH more relaxing.
People who have never gotten food anywhere but a grocery store don't realize how much one can do with a garden bed, a few chickens and your hands. Having a large family, I've gone to some lengths to cut food costs and especially improve quality (coming from a farm, no one is ever going to convince me that the meat sold in grocery stores is healthy. After a year on that, I was overweight and feeling depleted.) The trick is to source meat in bulk from small Maritime farms where meat is still raised fairly naturally (but which are increasingly being pushed out of existence by laws such as that a small farmer may now raise only 25 turkeys in a year! That's not enough to feed *my* family, nevermind for a small farmer to feed their family and still sell small-scale.) To call the basis of such laws "food safety" is rubbish - has anyone in the Maritimes ever actually gotten sick from some home-slaughtered product they bought at a farmer's market?? IMRO, it's about handing more power to the food system (those same grocery chains that, according to the news, are increasing prices more than they really need while Nova Scotians skip meals to pay rent).
Being able to look after yourself and raise a sparse, but sufficient supply of your own food is an invaluable skill which will likely become more so over time, while resources to do so become increasingly inaccessible as they lie in the hands of ever larger companies.