PICKING OLIVES AT LAKKIA 2011

DISEASES OF THE 20^TH CENTURY

AND

GOALS OF OUR FARM

www.slowlivinggreece.com               cwillis@hol.gr

 

Background

Each fall we invite people to Lakkia to share community by picking olives. It is an occasion to be in the clean and relaxing atmosphere of the countryside, to have fun, to enjoy a meal together, to make new friends, and to experience a different way of life. This year we were a group of about 40, composed of students from the International Baccalaureate (IB) at Anatolia College under their CAS (Community, Action, Service) project, students from Eastern College attending the American College of Thessaloniki – a division of Anatolia – under the College Semester Abroad program, and Endynami whose goal is to mainstream mentally challenged teenagers into society. Over the meal David talked to the group – a 10-minute summary of the presentation below.

Introduction

Thank you for coming to our farm to help us pick olives, join us for a salad lunch from our garden, and take away some of last year’s olive oil to sell for charitable purposes. During your visit you will learn about the Mediterranean diet and the important role that olives and olive oil plays. You may accompany us to the olive press to see the olives turned into olive oil so that you are aware of the entire process – from tree to plate – and can witness the purity of the product. It is an opportunity to share with you our philosophy of taking control of our lives by growing much of our own food and making a comfortable living from a small piece of land. This talk addresses the rise of new diseases during the 20^th century, their causes, what you can to do to enjoy good health and an active life well into your retirement years, and the goals of our farm.

The collapse of great civilizations

In A New Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations, published in 2007, Clive Ponting tells us that over the last 150 years there has been a remarkable transformation in the pattern of human disease. For most of human history a majority of children died within a few years of birth. Now in the rich, developed world only about 1% of children fail to reach the age of 5. This improvement has been offset, however, by the rise of new diseases that have radically altered our way of death. Today, cancer and cardiovascular disease account for two-thirds of deaths in the affluent societies of the industrialized world.

OUR NEW WAY OF DEATH

 

We are more likely to live into old age

Part of the explanation that cancer and cardiovascular disease account for two-thirds of deaths in the affluent societies of the industrialized world is that people are now much more likely to live into old age and become susceptible to degenerative diseases, especially if, as with some cancers, they have a genetic origin.

Environmental factors

However, some of the explanation, particularly with other types of cancers, lies in environmental factors – the increased pollution, in particular from the highly toxic artificial chemicals produced in the second half of the 20^th century. Another factor, especially in the rise of cardiovascular diseases, has been the major change in diet over the last 200 years.

Change in diet

Many of the dietary changes have been beneficial in eliminating deficiency diseases. The average height of the population of medieval Europe was about 30 cm less than now. However, many of the dietary changes have been harmful, in particular a reduction in fibre intake, a rise in sugar consumption, much higher levels of fat intake and a higher proportion of processed foods.

Rise in sugar intake

Historically, foods were sweetened using honey (or maple syrup in North America). By 1750 sugar intake in Europe and North America had risen to about 2 kilograms per person per year. It is now over 30 times that rate. The rise in sugar consumption is also directly linked to the increase in the number of people suffering from diabetes. Diabetes rates have risen sharply since the early 20^th century where it now affects 3% of the population of Britain and 7% in the United States where sugar consumption is even higher.

Fat intake

Fat intake has increased throughout human history. The first major step was the ‘secondary products revolution’ – the use of goat, sheep and cow milk to create dairy products. Poor grazing and lack of fodder in the early agricultural systems meant that these animals had only a low output of milk and poor transportation meant that it was difficult to move products with a short life. These factors kept dairy consumption at relatively low levels. Technological changes in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries – refrigeration, pasteurization, canning, and faster transportation – made products regularly available to the rapidly rising urban population. The great consumption of meat also raised fat levels in the diet.

The food industry

The technological changes were also central to the rise of a new phenomenon – the food industry, which concentrated on selling processed food rather than distributing fresh food. Over the course of the 20^th century the consumption of processed food by the average American tripled and the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables fell by over a third. Processing food not only removes many of the nutrients and important trace minerals but also introduces additives such as antioxidants, emulsifiers, thickeners, flavour enhancers, dyes, artificial sweeteners and bleaching agents. Many of these are needed to disguise the poor quality of the initial ingredients. The average person in Britain now consumes about 2 kilograms of these chemical additives every year.

Obesity

All these changes in diet, linked to the much greater consumption of food, have had a major impact on human health in the affluent world. The rate of obesity increased dramatically in the late 20^th century. In Britain one in five adults is now clinically obese – a rate double that of the 1970s. In the United States the situation is far worse. About 60 million adults are obese – about a third of the population – with the rate having doubled since the 1970s. In the early 1960s only 4% of American children were seriously overweight – in the next 40 years that rate quadrupled.

Heart disease

Obesity, excess food consumption and a diet high in fat significantly increases death rates, especially from cardiovascular diseases. Heart disease was almost unknown a century ago except among the rich who could afford a diet high in fat and sugar and ate too much food. Even in 1930 coronary heart disease was responsible for only 1% of British deaths. By the mid-1990s this had increased to just over 30% and it is continuing to rise.

Tobacco products

Part of the rise in heart disease, bronchitis and other lung diseases can be attributed to the rise in smoking which also increases the risk of contracting cancer by about a third. In the 20^th century tobacco products probably killed 100 million people.

Cancer

Cancer is now the second most common form of death in the industrialized world – 1 in 3 Americans contracts cancer (compared with 1 in 27 in 1900) and 1 in 4 dies of the disease. Half of all the world’s cancers now occur in developing countries and here treatment is poor – about 80% of patients will die of the disease compared with 50% in the industrialized world. Huge amounts of money have been spent over the last 50 years in an attempt to find cures and treatments for different types of cancers but overall the results have been disappointing except in the cases of some rare types of the disease. Most of the effort has gone into high-technology medical research and very little has been done to reduce the environmental factors in cancer apart from anti-smoking campaigns, which have had limited, though increasing, success in some countries.

REDUCING YOUR RISK OF GETTING CANCER AND HEART DISEASE

 

My cancer experience

Shortly after retiring in 2004 I was diagnosed with cancer, followed the next year by the death from cancer of six good friends. Conducting a considerable amount of research, I found many books identified poor diet and lifestyle as a cause of cancer. The following insights are from Cancer & Nutrition: A Ten-point Plan to Reduce Your Risk of Getting Cancer by Charles B. Simone, MD.

A Ten-point Plan to Reduce Your Risk of Getting Cancer

POINT 1: NUTRITION

POINT 2: TOBACCO

POINT 3: ALCOHOL

POINT 4: RADIATION

POINT 5: ENVIRONMENT

POINT 6: SEXUAL-SOCIAL, HORMONES, DRUGS

POINT 7: LEARN THE SEVEN EARLY WARNING SIGNS

POINT 8: RETAKE SELF-TEST

POINT 9: EXERCISE AND RELAX REGULARLY

POINT 10: TAKE EXECUTIVE PHYSICAL YEARLY

 

 

Point one: Nutrition in more detail

• Maintain an ideal weight. Lose weight even if it is just 5 or 7 pounds.
• Decrease the number of daily calories.
• Eat a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet: fish, especially those rich in omega-3 fatty acids; poultry without skin; and skim-milk products (not whole but 2% or 1% milk). Limit red meat, including luncheon-meat. Limit oils and fats.
• Eat lots of fiber (25 to 30 grams a day). Include fruits, vegetables, cereals, and a supplement of fiber to obtain a consistent amount each day (guar gum, bran, etc.). High-fiber cereals are the best.
• Supplement your diet with certain vitamins and minerals in the proper dosages and combinations for your lifestyle.
• Eliminate salt and food additives.
• Limit barbecued, smoked, or pickled foods.
• Avoid caffeine.

 

Food processing

Clive Ponting tells us that the average person in Britain now consumes about 2 kilograms of chemical additives every year in processed food.

Diet related death

The U.S. surgeon general has told us that of the 2.2 million deaths in America each year, 1.8 million are diet related.

Olive oil and the Mediterranean diet

This information is taken from Olive Oil: Way of Long Life by Mediterraneo Editions. A study carried out in Crete, the US, Japan, Italy, Dalmatia, Corfu and Holland showed that in Mediterranean areas there is a lower death rate from coronary disease – 38 per 100,000 in Crete; 462 per 100,000 in Italy and 773 per 100,000 in the US – and cases of cancer are much fewer – 17 per 100,000 in Crete; 622 per 100,000 in Italy and 384 per100,000 in the US. The difference was put down to dietary habits based mainly on the greater consumption of olive oil, vegetables, fruit, pulses and cereals. The Mediterranean diet has become a model for good nutrition.

Olive oil, the secret of good health

Olive Oil: The Secret of Good Health by Nikos and Maria Psilakis tells us that research shows the great value of olive oil as a perfect food for man. Consumption of olive oil instead of other fats or oils, reduces the concentration of LDL cholesterol in the blood without decreasing the levels of HDL, the so-called ‘bad’ and ‘good’ cholesterol respectively. Olive oil reduces the level of triglycerides in the blood. A collection of bad cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood can block the arteries which transport oxygen to the brain and heart. In general, olive oil protects against heart diseases. Olive oil reduces blood pressure, both systolic and diastolic, thus decreasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

 

GOALS OF OUR FARM

 

Learning from my cancer

After my cancer experience and with the background knowledge from my research, we took action to prevent my cancer returning and for other members of the family to reduce their risk. We established two goals for our farm: to grow wholesome food in good fertile soil without the use of chemicals; and to increase our intake of fresh vegetables and fruit free from chemicals. 

The first guiding principle

In B17 Metabolic Therapy in the Prevention and Control of Cancer Philip Day quotes Sir Robert McCarrison, Chairman of the Post-Graduate Medical Education Committee at Oxford University: “I know of nothing so potent in producing ill-health as improperly constituted food. It may therefore be taken as a law of life, infringement of which shall surely bring its own penalties, that the single greatest factor in the acquisition of health is perfectly constituted food. Given the will, we have the power to build in every nation a people more fit, more vigorous and competent; a people with longer and more productive lives, and with more physical and mental stamina than the world has ever known.”

The second guiding principle

Albert Howard is seen as the founder of the modern organic movement. Healthy food comes from healthy agricultural systems; the problem of health in soil, plant, animal and man has to be treated as one subject. Published in 1943, Howard says: “In An Agricultural Testament I summed up my life’s work and advanced the following views:

1. The birthright of all living things is health.
2. This law is true for soil, plant, animal, and man: the health of these four is one connected chain.
3. Any weakness or defect in the health of any earlier link in the chain is carried on to the next and succeeding links, until it reaches the last, namely, man.
4. The widespread vegetable and animal pests and diseases, which are such a bane to modern agriculture, are evidence of a great failure of health in the second (plant) and third (animal) links of the chain.
5. The impaired health of human populations (the fourth link) in modern civilized countries is a consequence of this failure in the second and third links.
6. This general failure in the last three links is to be attributed to failure in the first link, the soil: the undernourishment of the soil is at the root of all.
7. The failure to maintain a healthy agriculture has largely cancelled out all the advantages we have gained from our improvements in hygiene, in housing and our medical discoveries
8. To retrace our steps is not really difficult if once we set our minds to the problem. We have to bear in mind Nature’s dictates, and we must conform to her imperious demand: (a) for the return of all wastes to the land; (b) for the mixture of the animal and vegetable existence; (c) for the maintaining of an adequate reserve system of feeding the plant, that is we must not interrupt the mycorrhizal association.
9. If we are willing so far to conform to natural law, we shall rapidly reap our reward not only in a flourishing agriculture, but in the immense asset of an abounding health in ourselves and in our children’s children.
10. These ideas, straightforward as they appear when set forth in the form given above, conflict with a number of vested interests.”

 

 

 

The third guiding principle

The American Farm School was founded in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1904 by John Henry House. The American Farm School creed, adopted around 1910, is our third guiding principle:

I BELIEVE

in a permanent agriculture, a soil that grows richer, rather than poorer from year to year.

I BELIEVE

in living not for self but for others so that future generations may not suffer on account of my farming methods.

I BELIEVE

that tillers of the soil are stewards of the land and will be held accountable for the faithful performance of their trust.

I AM PROUD

to be a farmer and will try to be worthy of the name.

Making a comfortable living from a small piece of land

In Five Acres and Independence: A Handbook for Small Farm Management, M.G. Kains quotes Abraham Lincoln: “The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.” This quote became the foundation stone of our response to financial chaos and poor quality food. Christine and I conceived our own version of agro-tourism. “Our mission is to share with others our joie de vivre in making a comfortable living from a small piece of land. David grows much of our food. We live the Slow Philosophy. Christine is a ceramic artist who gains her inspiration from ancient Greek and Byzantine pottery. She exposes guests to the incredibly warm and welcoming locals, lovingly prepared, slowly savored Mediterranean food and the uniqueness of ancient and modern Greece.”

Everyone can reduce their dependence on processed foods

Becoming a good gardener is a life-long learning experience. It also takes time for fruit trees to become established. But nature is very kind as even an inexperienced person can put seeds in the ground and immediately get excellent results. City dwellers can have pots on their balcony. Everyone can reduce their dependence on processed foods and save money.

Troubled times

Like many others in Greece, I have had my pension reduced. While we may never be 100% self-sufficient, growing much of our own food has protected us from the financial chaos that affects us all. As our world experiences increasingly troubled times we believe that more people will adopt Abraham Lincoln’s advice: “The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.”