It’s interesting with the rising impact of food, fuel and gas prices, how at a time when probably growing your own, and wild foraging is becoming more of a viable option, I hear a programme being advertised on the radio which is about the dangers of gardening! Tetanus, and other diseases which you could catch, even I was scared and I am out in it everyday!! But people lived for years growing their own, foraging etc, before we even knew about these ‘dangers’, and in many respects were very healthy.
I really do think the media just want to create a level of fear around those things which they can’t control, and for which large corporations don’t benefit from in any large way. They of course want you to stay in, you are using up electricity, and gas that way, which we don’t do when we are out all the time! It’s going to be hard enough for some people to afford to live a quality of life, but to have this fear of the unknown continually pushed at you is ridiculous. I’m not saying that there isn’t a level of knowledge and mostly common sense needed, but the rest is scare mongering.
The outdoors is not enjoyed enough, yesterday we were out walking and picking apples, apples which people are leaving due to not really knowing if they are ok to eat or not any more. Isn’t that ridiculous, that people have become so distanced from something which really is so easily identifiable. But it is the fear that you might catch something which is constantly played out through adverts, and the media which has created this cycle.
We enjoy the countryside everyday, eating from it 2-3 times a week, collecting everything from berries, to mushrooms, to herbs, and greens, it is something which we love doing. We met a family yesterday out playing, and they were saying how they were so different from their friends who would never consider taking their children out in the evening to play as they were doing. What a real loss of true world experience, the media scare parents into thinking their children need keeping in the house, within our sight, even tagged, yet I really believe the danger is from the media and large corporations that run them with their business interest solely in profiteering, not from the woodlands that we play in!
Tags: adverts, berries, fear of the outdoors, foraging, greens, herbs, media scaremongering, mushrooms, tetanus
