Soil and Your Health

Front Cover
Basic Health Publications, Inc., 2004 - 122 pages
"In "Soil and Your Health," eminent health writer and environmentalist Beatrice Trum Hunter discusses the natural resource that grows our fruits and vegetables. The quality of food depends on the quality of the soil in which it is grown. Is organically produced food superior to conventionally grown food? How do earthworms and trace minerals benefit the soil and the food and feed grown on it? How do intentionally applied fertilizers, pesticides, and sludge, as well as inadvertent contaminannt affect soil? Hunter responds to the mounting soil-quality crisis with hopeful answers and measures beginning in our own gardens and farms."--Publisher description.

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Selected pages

Contents

Soil and Your Health
3
Conserving the Soil
9
Conservation Tillage
15
Earthworms Natures Soil Builders
23
Building Good Soil
32
Soil Quality Organic vs Conventional Farming
42
Soil Fertility and Weeds
60
Consuming Soil
70
Sludge An Inappropriate Soil Fertilizer
91
Soil Contamination with Drugs
95
Losing Soil in Global Dust Storms
101
Bioremediation of Contaminated Soil
107
Main Sources
112
Additional Readings
117
Index
118
Copyright

Toxic Trace Minerals in Soil
77

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Popular passages

Page 25 - The plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions ; but long before he existed the land was in fact regularly ploughed, and still continues to be thus ploughed by earth-worms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures.
Page 23 - For, to say nothing of half the birds, and some quadrupeds which are almost entirely supported by them, worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rains and the fibres of plants, by drawing straws and stalks of leaves and twigs into it ; and, most of all, by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm-casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine...
Page 24 - ... by worms. It is a marvellous reflection that the whole of the superficial mould over any such expanse has passed, and will again pass, every few years through the bodies of worms.
Page 10 - The Objective of the Program The goal to be achieved is a more stable agriculture, more dependable sources of income, and progressively satisfactory livelihood for the people of the region. To achieve this goal, there must be widespread use of good soil management and water conservation practices and adjustments in sizes and types of farms which will enable farmers and ranchers to effectively cope with the climatic hazards of the region.
Page 24 - ... slopes, probably to avoid being flooded. Gardeners and farmers express their detestation of worms; the former because they render their walks unsightly, and make them much work: and the latter because, as they think, worms eat their green corn. But these men would find that the earth without worms would soon become cold, hard-bound, and void of fermentation; and consequently sterile...
Page 91 - viscous, semisolid mixture of bacteria- and virus-laden organic matter, toxic metals, synthetic organic chemicals, and settled solids removed from domestic and industrial waste water at a sewage treatment plant.
Page 17 - Briefly, this book sets out to show that the moldboard plow, which is in use on farms throughout the civilized world, is the least satisfactory implement for the preparation of land for the production of crops.
Page 15 - When water erosion is the primary concern, a farmer can meet the minimum requirement of conservation tillage by leaving 30 percent or more of the soil surface covered with crop residue.
Page 13 - Congress passed the Soil and Water Resources Conservation Act of 1977 (RCA). The act mandated a continuing appraisal of the Nation's soil, water, and related resources.
Page 44 - Professor of Soils and Chairman of the Department of Soils at the University of Missouri at Columbia, and Frank A.

About the author (2004)

Beatrice Josephine Trum Hunter was born in Brooklyn, New York on December 16, 1918. She received a bachelor's degree in English literature from Brooklyn College in 1940. She learned to read Braille while accompanying a blind student on the subway to and from campus and wanted to teach visually impaired students. She studied at the Perkins School for the Blind and received a master's degree from Teachers College at Columbia University. She taught in New Jersey and New York City schools until she and her husband moved to New Hampshire in 1955. She wrote several books including The Natural Foods Cookbook, Gardening Without Poisons, and Our Toxic Legacy: How Lead, Mercury, Arsenic, and Cadmium Harm Our Health. She was the food editor of Consumers' Research Bulletin magazine. In 1973, she delivered mini-lessons on nutrition on a television program called Beatrice Trum Hunter's Natural Foods on the Boston public television station WGBH. She died on May 17, 2017 at the age of 98.

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