Tag: Nature

Commentary: Food Is Nature’s Medicine

Virginia Star Staff
Healthy Eating

It’s tomato season on our hobby farm. This year I planted an unprecedented variety of tomatoes since I got some for free from the local feed store. So into the ground they went. I figured if I got some fruit, great, and if not, it was worth a try anyway.

I’m pretty relaxed about my gardening efforts due to limitations from the two autoimmune diseases I live with. I’ve been dealing with a flare- up for some time, which has led me to reevaluate how I’m eating in an effort to reduce inflammation. That’s where the homegrown tomatoes come in.

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Commentary: The Financialization of Nature

Virginia Star Staff
Power Plant Money

Financialization: “A pattern of accumulation in which profit making occurs increasingly through financial channels rather than through trade and commodity production.”
– Greta Krippner, Economic Sociologist, University of Michigan

There are plenty of examples of how America’s economy shifted from a production-based economy to a financially-based economy over the past forty years. Starting around 1980, with the economies of post-World War II Europe and Japan fully rebuilt and roaring, and emerging Asian economies turning into powerhouses of manufacturing as well, America chose financialization as an alternative to rising up to meet the competition.

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