Soil Food Web

What can we learn from observing healthy soil?

Balanced soil is composed of immeasurable amounts of microbial life. Bacteria, fungi, protozoa, arthropods, and algae are a few groups you will find in the garden. All have different roles to play; the reason they are important to us, is because they make nutrients available to the root systems of all plants, and in our case the plants we wish to eat as food or see for their visual beauty.

If we were to take a journey and become a microscopic living organism in the garden, we would see an incredible amount of energy being exchanged at a rate that would make New York City look like a sleepy little country town. The microbes in our soil are constantly being born, seeking and eating food (most often in the form of other microbes), eliminating waste, and eventually dying and being eaten by another microorganisms. This is the cycle or web of the soil. All participants doing their work and constantly consuming or being consumed by one another. Their whole existence is what gives the food on our plate life; life that nourishes, fuels and heals.

In our human communities in the twenty first century, we hear many opinions on what is the proper way to eat, the most morally correct means to fuel one's body and mind? Is it a vegetarian diet? Maybe all raw foods. How about the Paleo way eating?
For our family, a balanced diet of dairy, meat, and vegetables and the occasional piece of fruit has proved the most nutritious and impacting on how we feel and live throughout our day.

What does the soil have to say about the way we eat, our moral questions and placement on the food chain?

The patterns of microorganisms speak loudly to the fact that all participants are well aware of their role in the community, and are happy to do their work; simply by the fact that their death and sacrifice make nutrients available to the plants we eat, says quiet clearly that we are all participants in a food web. That no human is outside of the food web they create, and that just by being alive we have made mutual agreements with mammals, fish, birds, and plant life- to give them life, to feed them and care for them, to show them love in all ways and eventually to take their life in exchange for the nutrients they have made available for us.

We have recognized the value of animal products in our diet. We see no moral difference between eating greens from our garden and a cow raised on beautiful pasture grass. We are stronger, more alert, and far more grateful for their life as our awareness, of the soil food web, and ultimately the food web of all living organisms, grows.

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