Macrobiotic Life

Few interesting informations around the agricultural topic.

But before them, let me show you one eye-opening fact:
In the place of 1 combain-harvester, you would need 120-300 people (using no oil powered machinery), fully engaged from the beginning of harvest season till Christmas.
The combain is probably the number one invention that caused a rapid human multiplication and massive shift from agricultural occupations.

John Michael Greer posted at his blog:

The productive potential of intensive gardening, especially under emergency conditions, should not be underestimated. A team of researchers at pioneering organic-gardening group Ecology Action found, on the basis of extensive tests, that it’s possible to feed one person year round on a spare but adequate vegetarian diet off less than 1000 square feet of intensively gardened soil. (The details are in David Duhon’s book, listed in the resource section.) In the more troubled parts of the future ahead of us, some of us may have to do just that; a great many more of us will need to be able to garden in order to pad out potential irregularities in a food supply that’s desperately vulnerable, over the short term, to fluctuations in the price and availability of fertilizer feedstocks and fossil fuels. The victory gardens of past wars are likely to be a useful template for the survival gardens of the deindustrial future.

I have read reaction to this theory from one very experienced farmer and he thinks, that the statement is right, but only if you are talking about the supplemental food production (vegetables, herbs). For the full scale food sustainability, read this:

Oldfarmecmac wrote:

… If it should become necessary,any reasonably accomplished gardener living in the more temperate parts of the US where the soil is decent and rainfall is adequate can produce most or all of the food necessary for herself and her immediate family,given enough land and sufficient time.The amount of land needed might be as little as one quarter to one half acre per person in the deep south where double cropping and even triple cropping may be practical,but such high yields are very much the exception rather than the rule,and can only be accomplished by very proficient farmers devoting very long hours to very small acreages.Chinese and Korean subsistence farmers in thier best farming areas are known to obtain even higher yields on a regular basis,but they are the 6 under par pros and work more or less continually at feeding themselves.You will need several times as much land in less favored areas.Our personal rough last ditch plan on our place here in the Blue Ridge mountians is two acres or so per person in field crops and fruit trees,which will provide us a little excess production for use as chicken feed and for sale,as well as a stored carry over safety cushion.
The more land you have, the more options you have in terms of varieties,crop rotations, fallow periods,cover crops, field manures,etc.More land also means that you can use less labor intensive techniques and get the same yields with fewer hours of labor.This will probably be a critical consideration for most people.In our case we will need to spend considerable amounts of time gathering firewood and other chores not directly related to food production. …

Oldfarmecmac:

…It is extremely unlikely that you can support yourself in Maine on a half acre.your twenty acres would probably be enough for a family of four or five if at least ten acres are reasonably level,cleared land with good soil.
You simply cannot believe how many things will go wrong until you are on the land and you need huge safety margins to protect yourself.

Breakfast

I have whole grains leftover from the previous day. It was 70% rice + 30% millet cooked with piece of kombu and 2x of natural spring water in the pressure cooker for 50 minutes.
I simply modeled balls from the grains by hand (wet your hands), just for the decorative reason.
And the vegetable is very simply boiled too. I have choose to quick boil it in the big amount of water (can’t remember the cooking style of this). It’s just different than steaming the vegetable in a pot with little water in the bottom. Because you need to pick narrow smaller pot and fill it 1/2 or 3/4 with water, let the water boil and bubble and put one type of vegetable in it. Cook the vegetable types separately. The cooking time is short, to let the veggies be crunchy and nicely coloured with strong flavour. For the green veggies, 1-3 minutes is enough. For the root vegetables let them boil a little longer. You will learn by practice, just experiment. Pick the veggies out with a strainer. I usually put my grain balls at the end to the hot water too, to get them warm, because I usually use leftovers from fridge for breakfast.

Lunch

For the lunch I have spent a little longer time today. It was about 40 minutes for preparation.

Whole grains
I prepared these whole grains today: 70% rice and %30 emmer grain (it’s one of the oldest grains used for cooking on this planet – Paleolithic Age 17,000 BC), kombu, 2 times of water, cooked in pressure cooker for 50 minutes.

Vegetables
I have used the water from the morning breakfast and for the veggies choose mostly full pot of kale and 1 piece of onion. I am repeating again, these are not hardstone written recipes. I am thinking them up daily, according to my tastes, but very often my tastes are out of range of my stores, so I cook whatever is eatable at my house at that moment Let your intuition guide you and mix any sorts of vegetables together as long as they are macrobiotic sorts of veggies (you know the prohibited ones are night shades – capsicum, tomato, potatoes, eggplant etc. and use only the ones from your climatic zone). I have sidetracked a little…
I also add to the kale+onion+water these other things: red lentils (like 3-4 tsp), wakame (3-4 cm), pumpkin+sunflower seeds (1-2 tsp).
Let it boil for 12 minutes and put 1 tesp of barley miso and squeezed 1 tesp of ginger. Rest for 2 minutes and ready to serve. But I had to postpone my lunch a little because I wanted delicious, crunchy, fatty tempura with a lot of protein.

Tempura
I have decided to deep-fry small pieces of seitan, tempeh and nori. I use white flour for deep-frying, something that I have learned at Kushi Institute in Holland. They teach us, that white flour absorbs very little of fat in comparison to whole grain flour. And it’s really true from my experience. We have very good electrical grain-mill at home. It was bought at Vienna, but I don’t know where exactly, it was a gift. But it’s really superb grinder, all the others I have seen here are very small and very costly. This one is big and precisely made and according to the man who bought it, it was cheap, but I am not sure about the exact price. Just let me know in comments if you want to get more info or to see a picture, I will gladly help. So if you have your own grinder it’s very good, because you can always prepare the very fresh flour, that’s not in the rancid process. I made white flour by milling the white rice. Then I just mix with a little of water and make thin paste. In the small narrow pot pour enough oil so your tempuras can be deep-fried easily and be covered by oil from all sides. I am using sunflower oil, but I am not sure if it’s the best one for frying. I have read about big advantages of rice bran oil for the deep-frying. The Ilanit Tof article about oils – Reflections on oil consumption – is very good reading in general. Back to the tempura making. Simply cover the seitan, tempeh, nori pieces in the white flour paste and let it deep-fry for 2-4 minutes in the hot oil from both sides. Place on a plate with spongy napkins to absorb the excess of oil. And you can see my Wednesday result at the pictures.