Eating concrete, cement and asphalt

Regenerative Culture Dangers & Risks
#1

I was looking around the internet for a cheap metate or grinding stone like a mortar & pestal. Only, all that shit is so expensive.

So I thought, why not use the side walk? Would it be toxic to use cement, concrete or asphalt this way? Are there toxic elements and large quantities of metals that would get round in with the food? What were mortar/pestal/metate/mano made from naturally? Wouldn’t those stones have metals & minerals in them too? Different than concrete or asphalt? Do you know? Do you have any idea who would know? A geologist? A cement pourer? Who should I go to with these questions? I mean, it would be nice to know for an apocalyptic world wether or not we can use all this fucking sidewalk for something. ;D

#2

a sidewalk metate! totally rad. do it. you’ll probably get cash for busking or something. if you’re going to use asphalt i’d go in the middle of a crosswalk, in your loincloth.
i’m feeling feisty today

#3

good ideas and questions. I would assume not to trust all cement manufactures. What if we can eat some. Try to search around for edible cements! Then perhaps try to find out what it look like dry. So we can identify it.

#4

Cement, maybe, asphalt is nasty petroleum based shit though…

#5

Yeah asphalt is kind of gross but cement is made principally of limestone and clay which are both edible. Then they heat it and it changes composition but is it still “edible”? I dunno. Probably. Concrete is just cement with gravel and sand in it. Go for it dude. Eat it. i would. What’s on the cement…grit that gets in your teeth, tire particles, piss, is probably worse than what’s in it.

I don’t concern myself with what is toxic. I pretty much assume everything is. The air, all food, all water everywhere, breast milk, semen, carpeting, upholstery, cleaning supplies, new car smell, perfumes, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, treated wood, electromagnetic radiation, microwaved foods. I don’ trust any of if. So what are you gonna do? Are you gonna buy only organic cotton sheets from the Real Goods Catalog, and special water from idaho in special $3 non-reactive plastic bottles, and heavy metal detox kits from that herb store whose business looks suspiciously like a pyramid scheme. No! You are going to
Rewild. including:
a)Eating whole, healthy, wild foods that are dense in vitamins and minerals and other things to get your body and its filter organs into the best shape they can be.
b) Go outside, less toxins. Treat people with multiple chemical sensitivity as our canaries in the coal mine…they can usually sleep and hang out outside when they can’t be inside.
c)teach other people how to harvest things from the wild and drink the water and then they’ll be less likely to pollute it themselves. maybe.
d)you get the idea

#6

Hey Urban,

I know I read once in ethnobotany class about the central american indians getting good minerals they wouldn’t otherwise get by grinding the corn on stones, but I can’t find anything that looks like that article. I found a different article called “ADVENTITIOUS MINERAL ELEMENTS IN HOPI INDIAN DIETS”. I tried to get it for you via my my university’s online journal system but it’s too old. Anyhow the abstract says:

“Both strontium and lead are geologically present in the Hopi area, but only strontium accumulates in culturally important food plants in the agicultural setting. Lead from natural sources is present in traditional ceramics and culinary ash. In native maize corn foods, iron content was elevated several-fold during home processing. The nutritional environment contains unconventional sources of iron, zinc, manganese and other essential elements.”

So perhaps some of that iron and whatnot comes from the grinding stone.

Oh I just found another article, “Preparation effects on tortilla mineral content in Guatemala.” I can’t seem to get this one either but here is the abstract.

“We have previously reported that in Guatemala, the calcium, iron, and zinc contents of tortillas from rural areas are higher that that of tortillas from urban centers. This study examines variation in the calcium, iron, zinc and copper content of tortilla according to the implements used for making tortillas and inquires as to whether preparation effects mediate rural-urban variation in tortilla mineral content. Tortilla samples and information on how the tortillas were prepared were collected from the female heads of a total of 50 households from three rural, two semi-urban and one low income urban community. Samples of lime used for making tortillas were collected from 31 households. To grind masa, a hand mill was found to be used in some rural households whereas a motorized mill predominated in the semi-urban and urban areas. Most women used grinding stones called the “mano y metate” to further refine the texture of the masa. Tortillas prepared with the combined use of the hand mill and “mano y metate” had a significantly (p < 0.05) higher iron content. Use of the “mano y metate” was also associated with a significantly (p < 0.05) higher zinc content. These results suggest that the use of certain grinding implements may mediate rural-urban variation in tortilla iron and zinc content. The cooking surface, pot used for nixtamalization, source of water, and amount of lime used did not significantly account for variation in the content of these minerals.”

#7

i recall reading or maybe hearing from someone that the grinding process with the metate left grit in the food that also wore down the teeth.

#8

Oregon is the land of volcanic rock thanks to Mt. Mazama. Look for some good pieces of basalt. You might peck out a bowl shape from a flatish piece.

On another note I got a lot of nice pumice down there once. I still have a bunch. When I do school talks and I need to grab the attention, I say “Hey did you ever see a rock that floats?” Then I pull out a piece of pumice and drop it into a bucket of water.

I’d think you would want to give the sidewalk a real good scrubbing before grinding food on it.

#9

my understanding of cement/concrete is that fly ash from power generating and other industrial facilities is a major component of both. this ash contains a zillion differet toxins that you may be fine to walk on, but to ingest on a regular basis?

One of the “custest” pictures of me as a baby is one where I am literally peeing on the sidewalk in front of the house where I still live. Me and who knows how many dogs…

I wouldn’t hesitate to dry food on hot pavement, that seems like superficial and minimal exposure, especially if there is some sort of screen or barrier…

but the act of pounding/grinding/mixing my food into the sidewalk…

i think that I would try a lot of other strategies first