Not All Seeds Are Equal
Less than 10% of Americans grow a vegetable garden on a regular basis. The average age of a gardener in the U.S.A. is in their mid-fifties. Most do not know anything about open pollinated heirloom varieties because they have only had access to hybrid seed varieties. However, a new and exciting trend is developing and even the large century old hybrid seed companies are beginning to now offer the original and healthier seed varieties. A new gardener is emerging in America and they are focused on all-natural products and good health. Perhaps best of all is that they come in all sorts of ages but most are 25 to 45 years old, meaning that this evolution in gardening will only increase in magnitude and as it does the nation will benefit tremendously as people turn off the television and return to the earth and start growing their own food for pennies on the dollar.
In case you are in the majority and are not familiar with non hybrid vegetable seeds, it is time for a brief history lesson. Hybrid seeds were developed because the industrial revolution brought machines that could plant and harvest on a large scale, replacing human labor and driving down cost. However, although all vegetables previous to the industrial revolution were what we now call open pollinated heirlooms and even non hybrid in order to differentiate between the two options. Since heirlooms not only tend to be beautiful and delicious tasting vegetables, they also are fragile and often vary in size and shape which is a major problem when machines are involved. Machines like everything common or duplicated because it is easier to process. They also need tough produce because it is being bounced, dropped and tossed during the harvesting and production process. What the large corporate farms needed was a vegetable that could endure the harsh process. And the botanist sprang into action and began merging vegetables with uniformity and skin toughness traits and the HYBRID vegetable was born. Hurray for our growing face-paced new America!
However, as we all know, there is always a little give in every take and when it came to giving or shall I say “sacrificing” among the things that were lost or given up for the uniformity and skin toughness was taste and nutrition. Some researchers are pointing to the lack of nutrition in our hybrid fruits and vegetables as the source of a decline in human health and an increase in obesity as the human body overeats in order to make up the difference. There you have it. Not all seeds are created equal, some are naturally evolved and others are man-made. The choice of course is up to you.
