“We’ve gone so far down this road of eating pesticides and non-nutritional food, that we’ve forgotten what real food is. We’ve forgotten what it feels like to eat real food and I want to preserve that.” Evert Minnie shares. The co-founder of Earth Forest is passionate about reversing the damage genetically modified (GMO) food and monocrop agriculture has done to the human body, and he’s doing it one plant at a time.
“We’re trying to share our knowledge of the forest,” the local eco-warrior explains on a nippy Tuesday morning. After realising a bad diet was causing his high blood pressure and panic attacks, Evert took a hard look at his lifestyle and decided it was time to change. “By nature, I question things. I realised that it wasn’t just the food I was eating that was causing the problem, but it was how the food was grown that was a big issue,” he explains.
Confronted with the sobering reality that the food industry is shamelessly distributing goods that are nutrient deficient, Evert began taking matters into his own hands. The tenacious environmentalist worked with his partner, who is a passionate nutritionist, to educate himself on what a healthy diet consists of. He began experimenting with permaculture at a few eco-villages he still enjoys a great relationship with. Now, you can either find the brain behind Earth Forest picking fresh produce from the garden at one of the two stores (Cintsa and East London) to add to his juices, or chatting to customers about the restorative properties of food grown in healthy soil.
“What we’re doing here is not selling juices at all, in fact the juices became a by-product of what we are trying to do at Earth Forest, which is teaching people how to grow their food and nutrition at home,” Evert insists. “We want to share the secret system of the forest, which isn’t so secret,” he jokes from inside his store made from 100% reclaimed wood. “We can utilise our energy like a forest does. There are no labourers in a forest. If it is left uninvaded by man, a forest will expand and continue to provide food and shelter for everything that lives there. The code that it’s using, in my opinion, is diversity and unity,“ the plant-based eater shares.
The diversity Evert speaks of, a diversity that permaculture hinges on is easily achieved if the correct grassroots are put in place - so to speak. “The waste from the butternut or pumpkin or mielies that you use in your kitchen, can literally be chucked out the window and into your garden. Those seeds will then grow or turn to compost. What you like eating will eventually become rooted into your garden,” Evert says. If you sent up a drainage system that catches all your grey water and runs it into your garden, then you’re not using excess water or energy to keep your garden quenched. “We want to create systems that sustain themselves,” the environmentally responsible entrepreneur clarifies, and Earth Forest wants to share this with the community so that it can begin to adequately feed and nourish itself.
“Food literally alters your DNA. If you’re eating nutritional food, you’ll perform better,” Evert concludes. We’re both peeling freckled bananas Evert has grabbed from inside the shop in East London. “If I gave you a memory stick and it just so happened to come in the shape of a seed, and I told you it contained the secret to multiplying your life in every aspect. I’m talking on a level your mind couldn’t even comprehend. Would you throw that away?” The metaphor Earth Forest subscribes to has left me stunned. “We’re throwing away the information that could completely change our lives, everyday, just because it comes in the form of an apple pip or banana peel,” Evert says, folding the limp leftovers of his fruit. I suspect the peel will soon be compost, feeding the herb garden and avo tree growing freely in and around the two Earth Forest store.
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