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Doesn’t the marketplace need grain to exist? At this time there is not a sufficient

amount of Paleo food to go around, wont this force the costs up? And so on:

This notion is a general idiom in the Paleosphere. It can come in countless styles, from concern concerning the future of man; the notion that the earth needs grains to survive. Some Paleo eaters look at it via the personalized stage and look at the spread of Paleo Eating outside a modest niche to be devastating for their lifestyles because it will propel the price ranges of real food through the roof. Appreciate, this specific criticism, concern, question comes in quite a few forms, but at the simple level it all comes down to two simple questions:

1.Can the world live on a Paleo diet?

2.If so, precisely how do we change from monocrop farming to sustainable, Paleo agriculture?

 The solution to the first question is, seriously, something I don’t know. I could only hope. I believe the world can survive without intensive monocrop farming because the current way of farming is NOT sustainable. Modern grain farming makes use of petroleum dependent fertilisers to grow intensive crops on dirt that has lost its vitality over the years with thanks to overfarming. 

 We can’t continue to depend on grain farming. The issue is not whether the planet can live not having grains, its a question of when. As the selling price of oil skyrockets and the level of competition increases for this non renewable resource becomes hard to find the price of fertilisers derived from oil will also go through the roof. With them will go the expense of crops grown with those fertilisers, as well as all the commodities resulting from those crops?

 Breads, pasta, processed food, vegetable oils, grain fed cattle. Further, the existing pillaging of all of our topsoil by monocrop farming sucks the nutrients via our most precious resource, the dirt, and finds us with barren wastelands. Time is running out. The more we grow grains the quicker we destroy our soil.

 Thankfully, topsoil is renewable, however this normally takes time. Time we might not have as typically the world population expands and grain production starts to halt. Pasturisation of ruminants is the best way to repair our damaged topsoil, but it is not quick. We have to initiate now if we are going to avert disaster. For more on this I urge you to watch this presentation on the Buckmininster Fuller Institute prize winner of 2010: http://challenge.bfi.org/winner_2010

Renewal of the soil could be performed. But we have to consider action now. We have to let the world know that there is an alternative to intensive agriculture, to a grain based diet, to obesity in one country and starvation in the next. 

Our hope, the worlds only real hope, is that enough non monocrop food, in other words, Paleo foods, can be produced to feed the world. We know we can reverse the damage of grain farming, but even so, can we produce enough food without relying on grains and monocrops?

 Were betting which we can. Most grain production is unnecessary, heavily subsidised, and grown due to the fact of government encouragement, not demand. Cattle are needlessly feedlotted and required to feed on grain, when that very same land might be put into use to raise pastured cattle. Ethanol is grown; using oil derived fertiliser, and then considered an substitute energy resource although its really using up valuable agricultural land this might be harnessed for food production. So, does ethanol really help, or is yet another way for powerful lobby groups to use government backing to fleece the taxpayer and the consumer while ravaging the world?.

 Consider that typically the great vast majority of farmed animals go to waste. Where once we cooked in tallow and lard we all these days cook in hydrogenated vegetable oils? Where once we ate organs, offal, fat we now fill up on bread, pasta and empty carbohydrates. The organs, the offal and the fat are now throw away products. Thrown carelessly away and hence creating an phony need for grain. 

 But bread is so cheap? Is it? What is the actual real cost? Do you know? Does anybody know? We recognize That the US government heavily subsidises monocrop production. When the taxpayer is funding your product then of course you can undercut your competitors. Add in to this production the environmental costs and the price of monocrops commence to rise. Then you have to add in the phantom costs; the cost you spend for oil being artificially inflated by growing a crop the planet doesnt need. And what of the other phantom costs? Grains cause obesity and ruin peoples health and then the taxpayer, you, again are subsidising the healthcare of these persons who have their health, their lives, unwittingly ruined through grain consumption. 

 So, is wheat cheaper? Who knows? May possibly a Paleo method of eating be cheaper? If you take the measures outlined above and stop subsidising grain production, stop using petroleum based fertilisers, stop hearing to the government (influenced by the grain lobby) who tells you to ruin your well being and buy into the con.

 The last point is actually the actual initial value of introducing a lot more individuals to eating Paleo. Economically that comes down to  and demand. In the short term prices will rise as additional people embrace a eating habits of meat and vegetables. In the long term, as demand dictates more pastured cattle, additional fresh vegetables the cost will probably come down as farms shift from monocrop to Paleo. Further, the improved demand will encourage farmers to use underutilised land to grow more grass fed cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, poultry and so on. Further, it will not take long for thinkers ahead of the curve to begin reinvigorating desolate, grain destroyed land with pasturised beef, thus supplying consumer demand and aiding the environment. 

We encourage you to continue your learning into the world of Paleo and the caveman diet. Please any comments or articles you would like to see published please let us know.