Nowadays we say, when out of sorts for a day or two: "It's that bug that's going round", or even claim that it's by no means the one that you had, it's more virulent or distressing. It's a bug - anyway. Another word is: "It's something that I ate." A lot of people are coming to believe that we are all eating substances that are harming us. People who believe in organic farming. And they have every right to take that line. We had terrible warnings from Rachel Carson over thirty years ago with her book Silent Spring. She may have overstated some things. Maybe not. The awful consequences of chemicals on those who have dipped sheep are now so well known. Can we even work towards a reduction in our use of these chemicals for feed? What of the possibility that some of our indispositions are from constantly taking in the residues of chemical agriculture from the foods we eat every day? All the sprayings. All the artificial fertilisers. Not a bug. One horticultural friend has to be argued with before he will use a simple weedkiller on the drive.
He is thinking of the effect on all around him. He is also thinking of the effect on him. He may take precautions today. If he becomes careless? In spite of this you hear people on gardening programmes blithely telling us to clear weeds around, say, a young growing tree, with a chemical spray. Why not with a hoe? Or with a mulch?
Richard Douthwaite has a long article in a sparkling little booklet or pamphlet of less than a hundred pages labelled "all food matters". Some of it pure fun, as in an aphrodisiacal essay "Eight Passion Proteins With Care", and a poet's look at Belgian cuisine. Baudelaire's, translated by Derek Mahon. But the theme piece is Douthwaite's "Life from the Land." He starts: "Modern industrial agriculture cannot be continued for much longer because of the excessive use of fossil energy, the damage it is doing to the soil and the way it is undermining its genetic base. Community farms could be the only answers." It is long, and well worth reading.
This is the winter 1995/Spring 1996 / issue of element: all food matters. And it makes its points well. Published, it says, once every year by mermaid turbulence, from upper mount street, Dublin.