Omni Mountainskyrainbow: How Nuts Can Save the World

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

― Chinese proverb

Above: Filbert trees in the park

I like nuts! Nuts like me! Nuts like you! Nuts can save the world.

We know that food sourcing is at least as responsible for global warming as transportation and energy use. Yet it need not be.

A satisfying meal of vegan food can be many times better for our shared environment than a meat or dairy plate. But some of your satisfaction comes from the concentrated protein and fat that animal body derived food offers. The animal eats a whole bunch of grass, and concentrates it into a liquid food that is whole, complete, and rich in everything a little mammal requires.

Nature is abundant, usually providing extra, so humans soon found they could share some of that milk. Fair enough. I know a fellow who was brought up in India and he tells me that as a child, he remembers the loving eyes of those holy cows. He would literally nap in the fields, cuddled up with the mama cows, who would let him nurse alongside the baby cows.

Diversified small organic farms are in fact the ONLY way to feed all the population of the world, according to a UN study.

But that is a far cry from the horrors of the meat and dairy industry factory farm model that most people use as the main source of their food. We don’t need this. We can have really yummy food without the meat and dairy industry.

Nuts like us can save the world! We need to fix global warming as well as feeding the people, and nuts are the answer. Some say we must design “plants”, factory style plants, to pull carbon out of the air. I do not think we need to build more factories for that! Planting trees locks up carbon. Some say all those trees would take up living space we need to grow food. What if they were nut trees!?

Money may not always grow on trees, but I assure you, food most certainly does grow on trees.

Different kinds of nuts grow well all over the world, even without extra water or care. Obviously the factory farm model can be applied to the production of nut crops, in some cases to the detriment of the environment, but you can also grow nuts in backyards, and use native compatible varieties and organic methods that not only do not harm the environment, but actually improve it!

I recently saw an analysis of the global warming/carbon values of different food sources. Meat and dairy were off the charts. Other foods were smaller contributors to the problem. Only nuts, done right of course, actually reversed global warming causes.

Conventional row crops can deplete soils and contaminate the air and water with poison, and even factory farm style organic row crops can cause erosion and other problems. Trees for nuts can be dramatically different from row crops for food. Instead of depleting the soil, trees enrich the soil by sending roots deep, breaking up compacted soil, and bringing up minerals that then end up at the surface.

While row crops of say, soybeans, require clearing forest, exposing soils to drying, increasing the heat on the surface of the land, trees provide shade, cooling the land, helping retain moisture. There is evidence that forests and trees actually “make“ rain by releasing tiny droplets into the air when they need some water!

While row crops raze the land for monocroping, destroying the micro environment that preceded them, trees actually provide habitat for a myriad of creatures, large and small.

Trees clean the air and make oxygen for us to breathe. And we would all rather look at trees we plant, than a factory “plant” with noisy fans sucking in millions of pounds of air to chemically remove carbon, (even if it did actually work).

Above: walnut tree in the park

Best of all, switching to nuts for food gets us out of the ugly business of the enslavement, torture, and murder of our fellow beings, which is harmful not only to them, but is also a moral hazard to any conscientious person.

Let’s all go nuts for nuts!