Independence Days Challenge

I told you I was going to issue another challenge and here it is. Some of you will have already participated in this challenge with Sharon back last year, but for those who are following me through Mothering and those who are following me directly from here, may be interested in joining in.

The words "Independence Day" conjure up deeply patriotic feelings no matter if you are born and raised in American, India, South Africa or Pakistan. To be independent is to be seperated from that which you were joined at one time. American seperated from England and we still celebrate with great passion in our country. But as American's, we have sadly become dependent on manufactured food, which is closely controlled by the FDA. With all the control that the FDA has on the food in our country, this government entity still can not keep our food supplies safe, as seen by the most recent peanut scare. We can choose to keep allowing a goverment to mandate our food supplies, or we can seperate ourselves from that system and start creating our own food. Manufactured food is not lovingly grown, watered, weeded or stored. Why don't we grow our own food and take the element of control and risk away from the government?

The Independence Days Challenge is not new, but it might be a new idea to you.

Take a moment to read through this blog post by Sharon Astyk, to see where you can begin to take your independence. http://sharonastyk.com/2008/04/29/independence-days-my-first-challenge/

One of the simplest things I can do on a daily basis is to learn to make something that I am already buying. I can learn to repair something that I would replace, grow something that I can harvest, and finally harvest something I can store.

Such simple choices can make valuable changes in our lives. So I challenge you to do something every day. If you plan to take the challenge, let me a message to let me know what you hope to do.

*** By the way, the recipe for the No Knead Bread featured in the photos from the previous post:

3 cups of whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp of yeast
1 1/4 tsp of salt
1 1/2 cups of warm water

You can watch the video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU and I'll point out that they used white flour here. But you can use whole wheat, it just won't get the "crumb structure" that they are talking about. Still everything is the same. Read all the comments too, if you have a chance. What could be easier???

Jyotsna