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The C-Free Diet: If we didn't have California, what would we eat?
Slate ^ | July 10, 2013 | Brian Palmer

Posted on 12/24/2016 12:15:54 PM PST by EveningStar

Food scientists at Cornell University have produced a strain of broccoli that thrives in hot environments, which may make it possible for states with stiflingly hot summers to grow the vegetable. California, where cool coastal fog is perfect for growing standard broccoli, currently produces more than 90 percent of the broccoli grown in the United States. If California were to disappear, what would the American diet be like?

Expensive and grainy. California produces a sizable majority of many American fruits, vegetables, and nuts: 99 percent of artichokes, 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots (and the list goes on and on). Some of this is due to climate and soil. No other state, or even a combination of states, can match California's output per acre. Lemon yields in California, for example, are more than 50 percent higher than in Arizona. California spinach yield per acre is 60 percent higher than the national average. Without California, supply of all these products in the United States and abroad would dip, and in the first few years, a few might be nearly impossible to find. Orchard-based products in particular, such as nuts and some fruits, would take many years to spring back.

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: California
KEYWORDS: agriculture; artichokes; broccoli; california; carrots; cauliflower; celery; diet; food; foodsupply; fruits; garlic; kiwis; lemons; moronicidea; nuts; plums; slate; spinach; stupidpeople; vegetables; walnuts
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To: EveningStar

CA is not going to disappear. Dumb article.


121 posted on 12/24/2016 1:53:35 PM PST by kabar
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To: Neoliberalnot

I imagine that if you could grow cauliflower here it would not be in our brutally hot summers. Mustard greens and turnip greens are a winter crop, corn in the summer and tomatoes in the early summer. That is about the extent of my vegetable gardening. Except for onions and green onions.


122 posted on 12/24/2016 1:54:08 PM PST by Ditter (God Bless Texas!)
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To: EveningStar

If Calif seceded, we would still eat imported foods from CA. If CA wanted to ruin their farming sector by not allowing exports from CA, then our market would adjust over time. Black market food from CA would astonishingly be available nation wide in the short term. And, amazingly, people in Iowa, Kansas, Colorado might notice food shortages and increased prices and start producing more food. So we would have food even if our masters in Washington and Sacramento don’t pass a law ordering food to be delivered.


123 posted on 12/24/2016 1:55:27 PM PST by ModelBreaker
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To: editor-surveyor

“Just saying that the needed level of production is not possible.”

That’s not true. The Midwest, the northern part in particular, used to grow pretty much all the vegetables needed in the US, plus plenty for export. That’s where Green Giant and other produce companies started.

The Midwest got out of truck farming because labor was expensive and monoculture corn, soybeans and wheat were cheaper and easier to grow.

California’s sub-tropical orchards would be hard to replace, but millions of acres of citrus and almond groves have disappeared, due to suburban growth and water restrictions, since the 1940s. That hasn’t really affected their availability.


124 posted on 12/24/2016 1:58:03 PM PST by VanShuyten ("a shadow...draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous eloquence.")
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To: Ditter

You kiddin? No okra, silver hulls or black eyed peas?


125 posted on 12/24/2016 2:01:49 PM PST by Neoliberalnot (Marxism works well only with the uneducated and the unarmed)
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To: StAntKnee

“Cali would fold if it couldn’t sell to the rest of the country”

That simply isn’t true!


126 posted on 12/24/2016 2:05:36 PM PST by vette6387
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To: VanShuyten; editor-surveyor

Actually parts of Iowa and Illinois have the best test soil in the world. The US is an agricultural monster. It is our #1 industry and export.


127 posted on 12/24/2016 2:06:40 PM PST by Neoliberalnot (Marxism works well only with the uneducated and the unarmed)
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To: EveningStar

There already is a movement to split California into 7 separate states. It would be a blessing for Californians and a blessing for the USA.

I think I would end up in Reagan, which would be fine with my family.


128 posted on 12/24/2016 2:07:24 PM PST by blackpacific
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To: VanShuyten

Who’s kidding who? An ‘independent’ California would be importing fruits and vegetables within a generation.

Take a look at wealthy Venezuela, and that would be the best that could happen. Chinese and Mexican slavery would be more likely.


129 posted on 12/24/2016 2:11:49 PM PST by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
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To: EveningStar

Califorina farms would still need to sell it.. if 90% goes to other states.. Califorina is not going to eat it all

The flip side is an independent California driven by nutty environmentalist would cut of the water to these farms and so the end of any of this produce for anybody


130 posted on 12/24/2016 2:12:00 PM PST by tophat9000 (Tophat9000)
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To: Cobra64

Dude, I am from MA. They say it about those few of us here too.

You must be used to it by now.

Your state is the one talking about secession. And no country should have 99% of Anything done in one place.


131 posted on 12/24/2016 2:13:13 PM PST by Vermont Lt (Brace. Brace. Brace. Heads down. Do not look up.)
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To: Grimmy

“It’d be nice if we could get some assist in breaking the massive leftist voter fraud and illegal alien voter registration drives here in Cali. Most of us aren’t leftard. It’s the fraud that makes it appear so.”

+1,000

Don’t blame us for what has happened to our state.

We have been fighting the illegal alien invasion that has changed this state since Prop 187 back in 1994.

Californians passed it.

Our pro-invader opponents included amnesty loving Texan GW Bush, New Yorkers Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett.


132 posted on 12/24/2016 2:14:06 PM PST by Pelham (the refusal to Deport is defacto Amnesty)
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To: Grimmy

“If we don’t win here, you also loose wherever you are.”

Exactly? These inbred dumb$hits here somehow have the mistaken idea that what’s happened in CA can’t happen where they take their daily dumps. Even that “paragon of rightness,” Texas, is well on it’s way to follow in CA’s footsteps. Texas already has several of it’s major cities run by black RATs or Mexican RATs. And just as soon as their major cities control the majority of the state’s votes (like they have here in CA), Texas too will fold unless they do something fast, and it doesn’t look like they are going to. What amazes me is the stupidity that is rampant here in some quarters that they are “immune” to liberalism. I have a clue for all of you, I didn’t think back when Ronald Reagan was our governor and CA was first in the nation by any measure in almost everything, that it would never be any different. My Bad!


133 posted on 12/24/2016 2:14:58 PM PST by vette6387
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To: EveningStar

California has a lot of Conservatives and they are the ones growing the food so I don’t think it will be a problem.


134 posted on 12/24/2016 2:15:33 PM PST by Moonman62 (Make America Great Again!)
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To: Neoliberalnot

No okra, or black eyed peas, I buy them at the store.


135 posted on 12/24/2016 2:15:37 PM PST by Ditter (God Bless Texas!)
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To: VanShuyten

AND Chile.


136 posted on 12/24/2016 2:16:42 PM PST by Stand Watch Listen (ELITE IMMUNITY: how the puppetmasters / puppets continue to function)
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To: Ditter

I understand you can buy anything at the store, but we were talking about growing your own.


137 posted on 12/24/2016 2:25:53 PM PST by Neoliberalnot (Marxism works well only with the uneducated and the unarmed)
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To: EveningStar

With California’s allotment of Colorado River water Arizona could grow everything America needed.

Besides, California is not going anywhere without a war. The first day of hostilities you will see millions of illegal aliens streaming south over the US-Mexican border just like you saw the illegal rats do it right after 911 in 2001.


138 posted on 12/24/2016 2:32:49 PM PST by WMarshal ( Schadenfreude, it feels so good!)
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To: EveningStar

They need our dollars more than we need their produce.


139 posted on 12/24/2016 2:37:18 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (President Trump is coming, and the rule of law is coming with him.)
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To: blackpacific
There already is a movement to split California into 7 separate states. It would be a blessing for Californians and a blessing for the USA.

I think I would end up in Reagan, which would be fine with my family.


I've heard about six states. Where did you hear about seven states? 

140 posted on 12/24/2016 2:45:10 PM PST by EveningStar
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