A conversation between Gavin Mounsey and Frances Leader. (thought it might interest you)
"Hi Frances! Thanks so much for the thoughtful comment. Yes I have heard that glyphosate related issues are often confused with gluten sensitivity. Thanks for pointing out how glyphosate is used to desiccate crops before harvest. That means that even non-GMO crops can be laced with glyphosate. Here in Canada that irresponsible profiteering tactic is used by legume farmers as well (which means that non-gmo lentils, chickpeas and other pulses are soaked in glyphosate right before they are harvested). While I do not have a gluten sensitivity, my wife and I like to grow as much of our own food as possible and given we live on a small urban lot it just so happens that Amaranth (a gluten free 'ancient grain') is the most productive "ancient grain" (not actually a grain but technically a pseudo-cereal or seed) per square foot so we grow that to make our own flour and bake. Have you ever tried cooking with Amarnath? Thanks for sharing my post, I look forward to hearing what you think of my other posts (and future posts) in the comments section. :)"
Hi Elisabeth, thanks for that. I’ve been diagnosed with coeliac disease and this is mostly likely through genetics and trauma but no doubt other things like glysophate (raised on a conventional wheat farm) and modern life have played their part!
Awesome post Gavin, so good to see all the plants in there as healers. I admittedly don’t make time to read much in the way of human health and scientific papers but appreciate it when people such as yourself can compile lists like this with good backup. A book I loved a few years ago was “Super Immunity” by Joel Fuhrman.
Unfortunately we’re still reliant on imported grains here for chickens (as far as I know organic grains are not available to buy here). It’s more a convenience thing for me as preparing feeds for them would be too time consuming. I’m playing the long game (systems thinking and leverage points) at building our farm food forest to provide all the food they need, and it’s pretty much at that point but keeping the chickens in electric fences is convenient for this human at the moment for a number of reasons, one of them is of course getting them to work for me and fertilize as they go. But In the absence of grains we should be pretty sorted now, and might just be quite a bit of rooster fighting between the three flocks that at the moment are kept separated. Thanks for your encouragement!
Have you tried growing Amaranth before? I have heard good things about using it to supplement poultry diets.
I find that it pretty much grows itself (it readily self sows and is drought tolerant) so perhaps Amaranth may help you to get away from leaning on imported grains for feeding your chickens?
Great article, you have some beautiful varieties. Here I’ve only tried a golden seed amaranth and it grew really well and I’ve been meaning to plant again for sure. Other cereal grains that grow really well here are sorghum (you’ll get a bigger yield then amaranth I reckon as the grains are bigger) and millet, and of course rice which I’m actually yet to have a go of.
I struggle to get anything written down these days as I’m a bit of a perfectionist and follow too many other great writers! Have been sharing occasionally with IG storing sand doing my part in helping human kill any semblance of attention span
Thanks Gavin! Will check it out. When I was a kid there was this one time I remember hanging off the back of the tractor while Dad drove around spraying Roundup! Terrible stuff but back then they were all told it was safe. They’re still getting told it’s safe!!!
I experienced similar and was indoctrinated into similar propaganda on my parents farm in BC (they had an orchard/vineyard in the South Okanagan so round up was used regularly for weed control).
It is amazing when you think about how many corporate products were sold as "safe and effective" all throughout history which we ended up finding out were totally detrimental to human health and/or the ecology of entire ecosystems. DDT was sprayed onto children to keep the flies off them and we used to have doctors recommending their favorite cigarettes brands on commercials.. all sold as "safe and effective". Now we are being bombarded with a spectrum of artificial electromagnetic radiation fields (5G) and being offered experimental genetic injections (synthetic mRNA/viral vector injections) and they are telling us those are safe and effective too... when will people learn!?
but I digress.. on the other side of the coin we have vast libraries of living knowledge to learn from by observing nature, so I have hope those that engage down that path can regenerate, build resilience and transcend the toxic old systems to plant the seeds for something better to grow in its place. It is great to connect with a kindred spirits and like minded people like yourself. Perhaps we can do a seed swap some time, introduce some enhanced genetic diversity to each others food forest projects :)
Something that might be of interest to her is Helminthic therapy. There is a wiki online and many personal stories of all the autoimmune diseases it’s helped with. Lots of good studies to back it up.
A conversation between Gavin Mounsey and Frances Leader. (thought it might interest you)
"Hi Frances! Thanks so much for the thoughtful comment. Yes I have heard that glyphosate related issues are often confused with gluten sensitivity. Thanks for pointing out how glyphosate is used to desiccate crops before harvest. That means that even non-GMO crops can be laced with glyphosate. Here in Canada that irresponsible profiteering tactic is used by legume farmers as well (which means that non-gmo lentils, chickpeas and other pulses are soaked in glyphosate right before they are harvested). While I do not have a gluten sensitivity, my wife and I like to grow as much of our own food as possible and given we live on a small urban lot it just so happens that Amaranth (a gluten free 'ancient grain') is the most productive "ancient grain" (not actually a grain but technically a pseudo-cereal or seed) per square foot so we grow that to make our own flour and bake. Have you ever tried cooking with Amarnath? Thanks for sharing my post, I look forward to hearing what you think of my other posts (and future posts) in the comments section. :)"
Hi Elisabeth, thanks for that. I’ve been diagnosed with coeliac disease and this is mostly likely through genetics and trauma but no doubt other things like glysophate (raised on a conventional wheat farm) and modern life have played their part!
I put together some info on glyphosate detox in this post https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/glyphosate-and-dioxin-detox
Though given your apparent love of fermented foods it sounds like you already have many of the glyphosate detox foods in your diet :)
I look forward to checking out more of your posts related to creating in the kitchen and in the forest garden in the future.
Awesome post Gavin, so good to see all the plants in there as healers. I admittedly don’t make time to read much in the way of human health and scientific papers but appreciate it when people such as yourself can compile lists like this with good backup. A book I loved a few years ago was “Super Immunity” by Joel Fuhrman.
Unfortunately we’re still reliant on imported grains here for chickens (as far as I know organic grains are not available to buy here). It’s more a convenience thing for me as preparing feeds for them would be too time consuming. I’m playing the long game (systems thinking and leverage points) at building our farm food forest to provide all the food they need, and it’s pretty much at that point but keeping the chickens in electric fences is convenient for this human at the moment for a number of reasons, one of them is of course getting them to work for me and fertilize as they go. But In the absence of grains we should be pretty sorted now, and might just be quite a bit of rooster fighting between the three flocks that at the moment are kept separated. Thanks for your encouragement!
Have you tried growing Amaranth before? I have heard good things about using it to supplement poultry diets.
I find that it pretty much grows itself (it readily self sows and is drought tolerant) so perhaps Amaranth may help you to get away from leaning on imported grains for feeding your chickens?
Here is a link to an article I wrote on Amaranth incase you want to learn more https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/amazing-amaranth
Please keep up the great work with your food forest efforts and writing.
Great article, you have some beautiful varieties. Here I’ve only tried a golden seed amaranth and it grew really well and I’ve been meaning to plant again for sure. Other cereal grains that grow really well here are sorghum (you’ll get a bigger yield then amaranth I reckon as the grains are bigger) and millet, and of course rice which I’m actually yet to have a go of.
I struggle to get anything written down these days as I’m a bit of a perfectionist and follow too many other great writers! Have been sharing occasionally with IG storing sand doing my part in helping human kill any semblance of attention span
Thanks Gavin! Will check it out. When I was a kid there was this one time I remember hanging off the back of the tractor while Dad drove around spraying Roundup! Terrible stuff but back then they were all told it was safe. They’re still getting told it’s safe!!!
I experienced similar and was indoctrinated into similar propaganda on my parents farm in BC (they had an orchard/vineyard in the South Okanagan so round up was used regularly for weed control).
It is amazing when you think about how many corporate products were sold as "safe and effective" all throughout history which we ended up finding out were totally detrimental to human health and/or the ecology of entire ecosystems. DDT was sprayed onto children to keep the flies off them and we used to have doctors recommending their favorite cigarettes brands on commercials.. all sold as "safe and effective". Now we are being bombarded with a spectrum of artificial electromagnetic radiation fields (5G) and being offered experimental genetic injections (synthetic mRNA/viral vector injections) and they are telling us those are safe and effective too... when will people learn!?
but I digress.. on the other side of the coin we have vast libraries of living knowledge to learn from by observing nature, so I have hope those that engage down that path can regenerate, build resilience and transcend the toxic old systems to plant the seeds for something better to grow in its place. It is great to connect with a kindred spirits and like minded people like yourself. Perhaps we can do a seed swap some time, introduce some enhanced genetic diversity to each others food forest projects :)
I believe Frances had been diagnosed with coeliacs as well. She is in the U.K. now.
I should have sent you her comment. My data is at a crawl though. This is a perspective I wasn't aware of, silly me, since glyphosate is so pervasive.
Something that might be of interest to her is Helminthic therapy. There is a wiki online and many personal stories of all the autoimmune diseases it’s helped with. Lots of good studies to back it up.
Thank you Leon, I'll pass this along!
Thanks for sharing Elizabeth :)
Curiously I'm noticing quite a few comments that have been sent to me in threads., which I seem to have missed.