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METABOLISM Literature Bites and Comments  PhytoestrogenALERT! Think Again about Cholesterol Famous Cholesterol Study Shows Surprising Results Fat and Breast Cancer Link Challenged Questioning the Evils of Salt Protein and Osteoporosis Sugar High Triglycerides Indicate Risk for Heart Attack Carbohydrates and Heart Disease Fat:  Friend or Foe? Long -Term Maintenance of Weight Loss Redeeming Animal Fats Eggs, Butter and Cream Fiber UNDERSTANDING YOUR METABOLISM JACK and JILL:  METABOLIC OPPOSITES WATER and SALT CALCIUM and MINERALS IODINE: Getting It Right  from theNewsletter Vol.2  Spring  1997 Vol.3  Fall  1997 Vol.4  Spring  1998 Vol.5  Fall  1998

	METABOLISM
	metabolism...   1. the complex of physical and chemical processes involved in the maintenance of life.  See anabolism, catabolism....     American Heritage Dictionary

Nothing stands still.  Everything moves.  There is only change.   There is the day and there is the night.   There is the in-breath and there is the out-breath.

So it is with the metabolism.  Movement in metabolism is the interplay between anabolic and catabolic processes.  Anabolism means construction, building up.  Catabolism means destruction, breaking down.  Catabolic processes create simplicity.  Anabolic processes create complexity.  Both processes are necessary to sustain and renew life.

The continuous creation and destruction of cells in the body is an example of how anabolic and catabolic processes sustain and renew life.  Consider the red blood cell.  The life span of a red blood cell is 90 days.  Ninety days from now all of your red blood cells will have been destroyed ÷catabolism, and will have been replaced with new cells ÷anabolism.

You tear a muscle. Inflammation ensues. This inflammation destroys the damaged muscle and anabolism builds new fibers or scar tissue to replace it.  Pregnancy is an example of anabolism.  A fetus grows in the womb. Similarly, the growth of a child is anabolism.  So is weight gain.  Aging and weight loss, on the other hand, are examples of catabolism.

What is the significance of the anabolic and catabolic processes in health and disease?  The right balance between anabolic and catabolic processes is necessary to have the right number of red blood cells at any one time.  Excesses or deficiencies in anabolism or catabolism relative to each other would either result in too many or too few red blood cells.  One could gain or lose too much weight if these processes are not in healthy proportion.  Or if inflammation exceeds that necessary to remove damaged tissue, a chronic inflammation might result.

Dr. Emanuel Revici, a Rumanian born physician whose work spanned two continents and a century, brilliantly defines the anabolic and catabolic processes in the body.  Dr. Reviciâs research documents that all lipids, i.e., fats, in the body, including all hormones, are either catabolic or anabolic.  Both anabolic and catabolic lipids are always present in the metabolism.  It is the amounts and ratios of these lipids at any one time, either locally or systemically, that determine the direction of the metabolism.

According to Dr. Revici, the anabolic and catabolic lipids are not only necessary to maintain life, these lipids are also a crucial part of the bodyâs defense system.  The common cold or flu are excellent examples here.  When exposed to viruses or bacteria, the catabolic lipids are necessary to destroy the viruses or bacteria.  Subsequently the anabolic lipids neutralize the catabolic lipids and symptoms resolve.  However, if either or both the anabolic or catabolic lipids persist beyond what is necessary, chronic symptoms and eventually chronic disease develop.  Or, if either the anabolic or catabolic defense is insufficient, symptoms and disease will follow.

From the example of the common cold or flu it becomes apparent that the catabolic lipids, i.e., the defense mechanism, cause the symptoms, not the virus or bacteria per se.  Fever, chills, aches, mucus, diarrhea and appetite loss are all symptoms caused by the catabolic defense.  This is, in fact, true for all symptoms and disease.  Chronic symptoms and disease, as opposed to an acute cold or flu, always result from an excess of anabolic or catabolic lipids relative to the other.  Dr. Revici has documented this in a wide range of conditions, from allergies, pain, nausea and depression to high blood pressure, cancer, psychoses and arthritis.

Imagine what it would feel like to release more air every out-breath than you presently release, without taking in any more air each in-breath.  Imagine the repercussions to all life forms if the days never shortened again following a summer solstice.  Imagine the tide coming in and never going out.  Life processes would indeed be disrupted, and ultimately come to a standstill.

	UNDERSTANDING YOUR METABOLISM
	THE CATABOLIC AND ANABOLIC INDICES

The Catabolic and Anabolic Indices are items on the Score Plot (graph) of the Health Equations Blood test Evaluation.  These Indices are composites of all the individual component scores in the blood test that indicate catabolic and anabolic activity.

Catabolic processes breakdown body tissue.  Anabolic processes build body tissue.  It is a balance between these processes that insures health.  Excesses or deficiencies in either result in symptoms, and eventually chronic disease.  An Anabolic Index above 20 or a Catabolic Index below -20 means you have an excess in the anabolic or catabolic processes.

Many component scores contribute to the Catabolic and Anabolic Indices.  The lipids in the blood, i.e.cholesterol and triglycerides, are of particular value.  Lipids are the primary players in determining the catabolic processes.  Both cholesterol and triglycerides are anabolic lipids.  Therefore if either or both of these lipids are high (above +20 on the score plot) there is excess anabolism.  And, if either or both of these lipids are low (below -20 on the Score Plot) there is a lack of anabolism and therefore, relatively speaking, an excess of catabolism.

There are no catabolic lipids measured directly and routinely in the blood.  However, insulin increases the production of certain catabolic lipids.

Therefore any indicators in the blood scores of excess insulin indirectly mean an increase in catabolic lipids.  Excess insulin in many individuals will cause elevations in cholesterol and triglycerides (above +20).  Hence insulin, which increases certain catabolic lipids, also increases cholesterol and triglycerides, anabolic lipids. Therefore, elevations in cholesterol and triglycerides mean an excess of both catabolic and anabolic processes.

Protein is anabolic.  It builds tissue.  Therefore any blood values indicating protein deficiency also indicate anabolic deficiency and hence relative catabolic excess.  These include a protein below -20 on the Score Plot, a nitrogen below -20 and a phosphorous below a -20.  Paradoxically, a protein above +20 may also indicate a protein deficiency.  The liver increases the production of albumin, the major blood protein, in response to dietary deficit.

Sodium is an electrolyte.  It is an anabolic element.  Therefore, just like cholesterol and triglyceridcs, a sodium excess of +20 indicates excess anabolism.  A sodium less then -20 indicates excess catabolism relative to anabolism.  It is the interplay of catabolic and anabolic processes that sustains and renews life.  It is the interplay of the catabolic and the anabolic defenses that resolves stress.

All stress induces a catabolic defense.  The origins of stress can be physical, such as trauma, infection, or excess activity and exercise.  It can also be of mental or emotional origin.  Once a catabolic defense is induced, the body rallies an anabolic defense.  The purpose of the catabolic and anabolic defenses is to resolve the stress.  Once the stress is resolved, the catabolic and anabolic defenses themselves subside.

Excesses or deficiencies in the catabolic and anabolic defenses manifest as symptoms and chronic disease.  These excesses and deficiencies in the defense mechanism usually result from chronic lifestyle stress combined with dietary deficiencies and excesses.

Table 1 (below) lists indicators, "what you pay" so to speak, for excesses and deficiencies.

Table 2 lists choices you invariably make every day that promote anabolism or catabolism.  Practically speaking, let us say you have allergies or a tendonitis, chronic inflammation.  These are indicators of catabolism.  You would want to avoid excess caffeine and alcohol, avoid excess exposure to the sun, and manage and reduce your stress.  You might take hot baths, eat more saturated fats, use more salt (especially if your sodium is below -20) and increase your dietary protein (especially if your protein, nitrogen and/or phosphorus are below -20).
 

	JACK and JILL: METABOLIC OPPOSITES
	ANABOLIC vs CATABOLIC

Here are the Score Plots of two Health Equations clients.  The most significant difference is Jack's high Anabolic Index versus Jill's low Catabolic Index.

A high Anabolic Index means there are excess anabolic lipids (fats) in the tissues.  A low Catabolic Index means there are excess catabolic lipids in the tissues.  Excesses of either anabolic or catabolic lipids impair oxygen and calcium utilization and cause electrolyte imbalances.  The consequent severe impact on cell function results in symptoms and disease.

The entire body metabolism  --and all life for that matter-- is an interplay between catabolic and anabolic processes.  This interplay governs everything from daily hormone cycles to fetal development, birth, growth, aging and death.  Whenever the rhythm of this interplay is interrupted, i.e., whenever there are excesses of catabolic or anabolic lipids in tissues, the result is symptoms and disease.
Cholesterol and triglycerides are two anabolic lipids measured in the blood chemistry screen.  Jack has excesses of both ? cholesterol score 76, triglyceride score 204.  Jill has deficiencies of both ? cholesterol score -59, triglyceride score -41.  Jack has excess anabolic processes.  Jill is lacking in cholesterol and triglycerides and therefore has excess catabolic processes.

Jill will benefit from cholesterol rich foods --eggs, butter, cream.  These same foods are also rich in saturated fats.  The saturated fats (not the cholesterol) will increase her own production of cholesterol.  Jack, on the other hand, will not benefit from these foods.  A decrease in his sugar and carbohydrate consumption, plus elimination of alcohol and caffeine, will decrease his high cholesterol and triglycerides.

This table indicates other measures Jack and Jill can take to restore the balance between their anabolic and catabolic processes.
 

	WATER and SALT
	I come from the sea... from the place between sky and deep...   The sea is a living music... It is all music...    I am a part of the long song.  "The Music of Dolphins"Karen Hesse

Q. How much water should I drink?   How much salt should I eat?

A.  The answers are quite simple. Drink water according to your thirst and eat salt according to your taste.
 

Q. What does it mean if l do not have a taste for salt and(or) water?

A.  If you do not want salt, or if you have an aversion to salt, you are deficient in salt. The same is true for water.  Lack of thirst is a certain sign that you are dehydrated. The further the chemistry is out of balance, the less the tastes can be trusted.  For example, individuals with a Sodium Score of minus 50, on the Health Equations Blood Test Evaluation invariably have an aversion to salt.
 

Q. What do water and salt have to do with the body chemistry?

A.  The body is mostly made of water.  The body chemistry IS "the living flow of body fluids." The body fluids are water in which all the dissolved elements and molecules continually interact with each other.  Active water, moving water, is alive.  ãWhere water is deprived of rhythm and can no longer flow freely ...it begins gradually to grow weary and die...ä according to Theodore Schwenk in Sensitive Chaos.  Salt  is the primary activator, mover, of water.  Salt is dissolved in the fluids outside of the cells in the same concentration found in the ocean.
 

Q.  What if I don't want salt or what if I don't like salt?

A.  Start by eating a little more salt than you currently use.  Then keep increasing the amount you use a little at a time.  Never use so much salt that it ruins the taste of the food or the pleasure of the meal.  Keep increasing your salt intake until you desire salt. Once you have a taste for salt, FOLLOW YOUR TASTE!  If you are indeed salt deficient, you may use a lot of salt for a while.  Once your body is replenished you might find your salt use decreasing. When you follow your taste your salt use will vary, from day to day and season to season.  It will also depend on the foods that you are eating and your water intake.
 

Q.  What if salt makes me retain water?

A. You are probably eating too many carbohydrates or not enough protein.  Or your calcium is low and(or) not working.  The Health Equations Blood Test Evaluation is recommended if you retain water from salt use.
 

Q.  What if my Sodium Score is near zero, or high ... do you still recommend salt to taste?

A.  Yes. The Sodium Score is governed by many factors, not just your salt intake.
 

Q.  What if I am not thirsty for water?ä or ãWhat if water makes me feel bloated?

A.  Start by eating salt.  Increase your salt use as described above --until your desire/taste for salt kicks in.  Now start drinking water.  You might have to drink water habitually at first.  In other words, you might have to choose to drink water because you are not yet thirsty or desiring water.   You will eventually develop thirst. For some it may take months, or years.  Sometimes hunger, or the, feeling you want something to eat but youâre not quite sure what, is actually a signal you need water.
 

Q.  Should I drink enough water until my urine is always dilute, i.e., very pale yellow?

A.  No.  In a healthy chemistry the concentration (color) of the urine varies throughout each day from a pale yellow to a deeper yellow.  If your Catabolic Index is low or your Anabolic Index is high, you might not have the normal variations in urine concentration and the amount of water you drink may not affect the urine color.  Use water and salt habitually until your thirst and taste kick in.  Then follow your tastes.  Also, drink Lyte Solution and follow the Recommendations from your Health Equations Blood Test Evaluation.
 

Q.  Do other beverages count toward water intake?

A.  No, any beverage other than just plain water will have effects that water alone will not have.  In particular, caffeinated beverages and alcohol cause loss of water.  Dark sodas, with or without caffeine, contain phosphorus that will disturb the calcium to phosphorus ratio and hence decrease calcium function.  Any beverage that contains sugar will cause a shift in fluids from the circulation to the tissues.  This may result in edema or fluid retention.
 

Q.  Can water or salt ever be dangerous?

A.  Yes. There are medical conditions such as kidney and endocrine diseases in which restriction of water and(or) salt is absolutely essential.  Also, a small percent of individuals with high blood pressure (HBP) can have a sudden increase in their blood pressure due to salt.  However, most individuals with HBP who monitor their chemistry with the Health Equations Blood Test Evaluation and follow the Recommendations usually benefit from salt use.

	CALCIUM and MINERALS
	THE  HEALTH  EQUATIONS CALCIUM AND  MINERAL FORMULAS ARE  "ONE OF A KIND."  THE ALMOST COMPLETE  ABSORPTION  OF CALCIUM AND MINERALS HAS BEEN  DOCUMENTED  BY HUNDREDS OF REPEAT BLOOD TEST EVALUATIONS.   THE CALCIUM  AND  MINERAL  ABSORPTION  IS AS EFFECTIVE  IN  THESE  FORMULAS  WITH  OR  WITHOUT  FOOD.

How are the Health Equations Calcium and Minerals made?  The calcium, magnesium and other minerals are attached to clay particles which serve as carriers.  Heat is used to bind the minerals to the clay.  The complex, minerals plus carrier, has a negative charge.  The negative charge is the result of grinding the clay particles to a very small size.

What is the advantage in taking Health Equations Calcium and Minerals?  The negatively charged complexes, clay plus mineral, go through the stomach intact. They pass through the stomach and the minerals get absorbed in the small intestine. Minerals in other supplemental forms dissolve in the stomach due to the acid.  Then the free minerals readily attach to fatty acids in the stomach which render them unabsorbable.

Does the clay get absorbed?  No.  Although the clay particles are small they are not small enough to pass through a living membrane such as the gastrointestinal lining. The minerals are freed from their clay carrier in the small intestine because the contents of the small intestine are alkaline. Minerals in their free state have a positive charge. They are now attracted to the surface of the small intestine which has a negative charge, and are subsequently absorbed.

Does the clay remove wanted minerals? Minerals are absorbed in the small intestine.  They will not bind to the clay here because of the alkaline environment.  The clay passes through the gastrointestinal tract and leaves the body undigested.

Is the aluminum found in the clays used to make the mineral products safe to ingest?  The clay used to make the Health Equations Calcium and Minerals contains less than .005 ppm aluminum. This is an insignificant amount, and remember, the clay does not get digested or absorbed.

Can the body only use 'organic' and not inorganic minerals?  An organic mineral is a mineral bound in a matrix that contains carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and/or nitrogen.  Minerals in the cells and tissues of microorganisms, plants, animals and humans are all in organic forms.  However, all life forms absorb minerals as ions, atoms that are free and positively charged.  The most important factor in absorption then is the availability of the ion at the site of absorption.  The Health Equations Calcium and Minerals deliver the ions to this site in the small intestine.

	from the Newsletter

Lynne's Latest  from Vol.2, Spring 1997

The exponential rise in the use of nutritional supplements is alarming.   Companies are promoting and the public is buying.  PILLS, pills that can presumably replace what we used to get from food, and from fresh air, and from beauty and culture and nature.  These are soul foods.  Pills are chemicals.

Chemicals do not exist in nature and foods as such.  Yes, we can break down the plant into constituent chemicals, molecules, even atoms.  However, each chemical, molecule and atom is interwoven in an intricate matrix, a matrix of dynamic compounding complexity, manifesting form and function, wholeness and grace.  Simply put by Aristotle, the whole IS greater than the sum of the parts.

The wondrous miracle of plants is their capacity to create substance from air, water, light and earth. This substance is our nourishment, our energy.  Indeed, when we eat the plant, or when we eat the animal that has eaten the plant, we are ingesting the energy of the air, water, light and earth, energy we could not ourselves access without an intermediary, the plant.  How plants create substance from these four basic elements is ultimately a sublime mystery.  It is not explained by any or all equations.  It is not explained by the C, H, 0, N content of air, the nature of light, the mineral content of the soil or the structure of water.

Sugar is a good example. There are several different kinds of sugar and each has a specific, and all a similar, molecular structure. In nature these sugars come from different parts of the plant. Beet sugar is from the root of the plant, cane sugar is from the stem, and honey from the flower.  According to Anthroposophy, the spiritual science of Rudolph Steiner, MD, the root of the plant nourishes the human nerves and senses (head), the flower activates the will (limbs) and metabolism, while in between are the rhythmic functions of breathing and circulation (feeling) nourished by the stem.  This bears profound significance, according to Anthroposophic literature, if one considers, "The whole man is needed to support the life of soul and spirit.  We 'grasp' in thought and feel out with our breathing the things around us that our hands take hold of in activity of will."

We are addressing here the difference between quantitative nutrition and qualitative nutrition.  Quantitative means it can be measured.  Qualitative means it is sublime.  How can you measure the rapture of a Beethoven symphony, a Michelangelo painting, or winter's low sunlight filtered through a snowy pine forest?

According to Dr. Wm Albrecht, a distinguished agronomist earlier this century, from the University of Missouri, the soil is the source of our well-being.  Human health is equatable with soil health.  Dr. Albrecht unequivocally documented that feeding crops with "partial and imbalanced chemical fertilization" and then removing the crops, "mines" the soil.  Soil that is mined is soil destitute of nutritional value.  Albrecht's work originated sustainable, or regenerative, agriculture.

Dr. Weston Price, a dentist, traveled world-wide in the 1920's to primitive cultures whose native diets were as yet uncontaminated by civilization.  These primitive peoples were free from dental disease and from modern diseases, but... only up until they were introduced to sugar and refined foods.  Compared with modern diets, native diets had much higher concentrations of vitamins, minerals and proteins.  Moreover, whether from the mountains or from the sea, these native diets were all very rich in the fat soluble nutrients, obtained from one or more of the following foods: fish, roe, birds' eggs, organs of animals, butterfat of mammal milk and insects.

Not one of these distinguished seers/see-ers...physician, agronomist, dentist... recommended chemicals or pills as the answer to the declining health and the rise of degenerative diseases in the modem era.  They all resounded the same clear and simple message ... health is in the soil, nature is our matrix.

The days are getting shorter.  The pasture is bathed in moonlight by the time I finish evening chores.  I linger.  The damp air fomis luminescent vapors.  The vapors condense and dissipate, envelop and dissolve.

I milk Butterscotch, the old Guernsey cow.  The calf is tethered.  I trace the strong vibrant Iines of her silhouette against clouds bt by moonlight.  There is the rhythm of milk streams filling the steel bucket.  There is the rhythm of Buttefscotch's breath, sorting through hay and silage for the last of the flaked corn.

I am reflecting on chore time.  Chore time invites me to respect what is. There is day, there is night.  There is summer's scorching heat and winter's deep freeze.  There is pasture to graze and pasture not to eat.  There are full water buckets, empty water buckets and frozen water buckets.  There are happy trail rides and hard trail rides.  There are deer flies in dry heat and black flies in wet heat.  There are punctured hooves, lame joints and red hot teats.  There is calving and there is the ending of a life.

I think of LB.  She started farmng animals almost fifty years ago.  Chore time has configured her body to the landscape as much as a gnarled tree out in the pasture.  Stealing over hills and down gulches in the cab of her old bucket loader filled with hay, she is as alert, poised, and electric as a dancer at the peak of perfomance.

I am also thinking of Sylvia.  She was driving horses with her grandfather by the time she was three.  Folks say she is part horse.  Sylvia brought me Johnny on trial last fall, an old western quarter horse, a cow pony. Johnny was impossible to handle and a fnght to nde.  Sylvia told me he was worried.  She also told me he had no resentment in his eyes.  I respected his worry.  One day I told Johnny he could stay and have a home here if he wanted.  In less than two weeks he started turning into a pussy cat.

This Fall's Utne Reader features an excerpt from Robert Levy's book "A Geography of Time," entitled "How to Tell Time Like a Cow."  Levy points out that only "the industrialized countries... use the hour on the clock to schedule activities...... Everywhere else people live by 'event time.'"  Events include cows going out to pasture in the morning, cows going to the watering hole mid-day and roosters singing for the first time.

Levy goes on to point out how those of us on clock time sleep, eat and even train our babies by the clock.  In other words, our biological events are set to external rather than to internal cues.

Modern time is agenda time.  It is not cow time or chore.  In contrast, nature's time moves with an inevitable ebb and flow of things -- between augmentation and recession, between complexity and diversity, between the rise and fall of the pulse -- the tide of all things.

The animals live in the present.  I meet them in the present.  I discover they never wish the present to be any different than it is.  I also discover each time we meet that there is no fear and there is no hope in the present. Fear, other than present danger, is always fear that the future will be other than what I expect or want ... and of course it will be different.  Hope is always hope that the future will not be different from what I expect and want...and of course it will be different.

Without future, without fear of what it might be, without hope for what it might not be, there is freedom.  There is freedom to choose to be in the ebb and flow of things, with either resentment or with an open heart.  There is also what Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun, teacher and author, calls "the wisdom of unconditioned, unbiased truth."  And it is the wisdom of unconditioned, unbiased time.

Spring rain. Sunday morning.  The creek is full.  They say it is going to be a dry summer, a very dry summer.  The cows will use the creek this July and August, if it doesn't dry up.  I've never known it to stop.  And if the downstream neighbors don't mind.

This morning I read about "a whole generation in their 40's who have only vague ideas where their food comes from and how it gets to them."  Hugh Sidey, a contributing editor and columnist for TIME Magazine, goes on to say that our "great cultural foundation of plentiful food..." is taken for granted.

I've been to three farm meetings in the last six months.  The first, an ACRES USA national annual meeting. ACRES, a self-acclaimed "voice of eco-agriculture" for over 25 years.  But the event was a trade show.  Supplements for the soil, supplements for this crop and that crop, supplements for the cows, for the pigs and for the horses.  Supplements for the people.

The second meeting, the Vermont Northeast Organic Farmer's Association (NOFA).  I learned that the USDA's "Proposed Rule" for national organic certification tramples the guidelines of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB).  NOSB was legislated in 1990 to compile the best of organic practices from farmers and certification requirements from existing state agencies and private groups for the USDA.  I also learned that the USDA (ie., the government) is, not surprisingly, the puppet of big business.  The food industry wants "in" on "organic."  There's now proven profit to be made.  How can "organic" remain "organic" in an organic food industry?

Ah, yes, the third meeting, also a NOFA meeting.  The second annual "Alternatives in Animal Health," this year "The Farm as an Organism."   What parts are necessary, and sufficient, for a healthy organism?  How do all the parts become a whole?  How large?  Or small?  Animals?  What animals?  How many animals?  Pasture?  Hay fields?  Compost?  Crops?  Machinery, draft horses or oxen?

Why is soil fertility greater if you spread manure, or better still, composted manure, than if you add NPK fertilizer or optimum quantities of nutrients?  How does bull fertility increase threefold within one year of conversion from chemical intensive farming to organic farming?  What happens to the health of the people when the cow is fed grain from the local (national and chemical) feed supplier, hay from distant fields that are forced with lime and commercial fertilizers, and whose manure is bagged and shipped for sale in the cities?  Is measurement necessary to determine why or how?  Or, in Goethe's words, is "the fact its own explanation"?

The cow is a creature of place. The cow creates the soil, the vegetation, its own feed.  The place also creates the cow.  Ultimately the human organism is likewise created by the soil and the farming practices thereof.  Can there be health of a population when we have only "vague ideas" where our food comes from and how it gets to us?

In Hugh Sidey's concluding words, he refers to the spiritual as well as physical crisis of our time, calling for "...bold action to use and preserve this greatest of all resources --our land and those people who tend to it." Ironically, Sidey spoke these words, and those quoted above, as a Wallace Lecturer.  Henry A. Wallace, as the New Deal Secretary of Agriculture (1933-1940), reduced the number of people on farms, increased the productivity of those that remained, and made them more dependent on the state and the corporations.  However, in the later years of his life, Henry concluded it had gone too far.  He realized then that the cultural necessity to "always remain a farm people," as Thomas Jefferson so fervently advocated, had been abandoned.  Only five years after Wallace's death, a Senate subcommittee report correlated the declining health of the American people with the declining quality of the food.  The declining quality of the food is completely attributable to large-scale corporate industrial farming.

When the integrity of the farm organism is lost, so is soil life.  Our soil mineral content is now lower than any lows in Wallace's lifetime.  Thirty cents of every consumer dollar spent for food goes for chemicals and technology.   And sixty-five cents for packaging, marketing, and transportation, leaves five cents for the farmer.

The farm organism.  The inextricably woven welfare of soil, plant, animal, farmer, and community. The inextricably woven welfare of all living things.  The fact is indeed its own explanation.

§
Fred Tuttle won the Republican primary election to run for U.S. Senate from Vermont.  This is most encouraging news after a summer and fall wrought with economic and political dramas and crises.

Fred Tuttle is a Vermont farmer.  He is now 79 and retired.  I don't suppose he's ever worn anything but the overalls he sported recently en route to the Jay Leno show.  What inspired so many of us to make it to the polls just to vote for Fred?

You see, Fred Tuttle's notoriety began when he starred in the film, "A Man with a Plan."  Fred Tuttle plays Fred Tuttle.  His plan?  To run for Congress in order to make money to pay his farm debts, including his taxes, of course.

So why is Fred really running for the U.S. Senate?  Some say it's the producer/director who needs to promote the film to pay off his debt.  Some of us truly believe Fred is running to defeat his opponent, an "outsider" from Massachusetts who took up residency in Vermont just one year ago, a wealthy businessman who spent hundreds of thousands on his campaign compared to Fred's $220  -- which I read was for port-a-potties at Fred's $16-a-plate barbecue --or perhaps it was a pig roast-- his campaign's only organized event.

Fred's true moment of glory came during the candidates' debate.  Fred asked his opponent how many teats a cow has.  His opponent answered, "Three!"  It was an easy slide for Fred into home plate from there.  Since then the only voters favoring Fred's opponent, now running as an independent, think Starr does the judicial system justice.

There is one flaw --or is it a trump card?  --in Fred's plan.  Fred himself favors the reportedly unbeatable Democratic incumbent.  Fred is such a fan of this senator he might even withdraw his candidacy, especially if the producer's debts are paid.

§
I re-read a talk by Ursula Franklin, a Canadian peace and anti-nuclear activist, printed in the first Annals of Earth this year. She speaks of the displacement of war into the economic sphere since the end of the Cold War. "The full arsenal of the publicly financed technologies of war... have become the instruments of a new transposed war for global commercial power... The new battlefields are 'the markets'... the stock and currency markets of electronic transactions."  The enemy is now anything not about buying, selling, profitting, and privatizing and parceling property.  The new enemy is the common good, art, scholarship, friendship, caring, compassion, justice, and joy.  The absence of fear is the real enemy.

§
Donella Meadows, a biophysicist who teaches environmental studies at Dartmouth, writes in her weekly column this October that all the theories to explain the "global financial implosion... point to causes outside the financial system.  They don't challenge the model, now dominant everywhere, of capitalism as a nearly flawless machine..."  She concludes "The fault is not in some outside glitch. The fault is in the machine itself, which has a morbid sensitivity to glitches... Actual human needs would be the fine focus" of the new economics Meadows envisions.  And, "it would admit the novel idea of 'enough."'

§
The solution lies in local economies and in local agriculture, in sustainable agriculture and a people who have relationship with the source of their food.  The solution lies in fairness, in personal accountability, in community.  It also lies in reclaiming our agrarian roots, culture and wealth.  This means money and technology are the servants to --not the dictators of-- the quality of the soil, food safety and security, the ecology and our deepest values.  When we are no longer, in Donella Meadows' words, "...mesmerized by the old economics ... desiring ever more" and limitles growth-- we can become, in Ursula Franklin's word "...people who look at community, at work, at nature and at other human beings as sources of meaning an interaction and not as commodities."