BAMBOOZLED!

After hemp came to the attention of the masses, lots of other natural fibres tagged along, such as banana leaf, nettles, and bamboo. The fruit leaves left no lasting impression so far, the nettles were hot for 15 seconds, and then bamboo, the fibre of which was really a plastic, became flavour of the month for a few years. Why, I do not know. Bamboo is a great plant, but it is not the best for fibre, and does not provide medicine and rope as does hemp. Nor is it known to produce great paper. It uses lots of water, so it is not a good idea to grow it where less water intensive crops could suffice. The fact that the fibres are actually plasticised has finally led to its reclassification in some countries, and the trendy panda wanna-bes are realising they were conned. Should have worn hemp! It's been a fibre of choice for over 2,000 years, and was the world's most traded commodity.

But bamboo has many good qualities to it. Its shoots are edible, and make a great ingredient in stir fries etc. It is also very fast growing, gaining up to a metre a day.

Previously on this site I noted the staff at Eco in Chiswick were riding bamboo bikes, which cost about 3,000 pounds sterling. Now this is catching on in the US. A recent article by Ian Ritz in The Epoch Times notes two American companies, Masueli Bikes of California and The Bamboo Bike Studio of New York, which are now supplying these. The advantage to the rider is flexibility, it makes for a smoother ride over rough terrain. But this is not such a new idea; the first bamboo bikers got their start on 26 April, 1864. And of course this is an environmentally friendly use of bamboo, as opposed to making it into a plastic and extruding it as a textile fibre.

Bike frames is one use that hemp does not have, as the stalks are much thinner. The record for a hemp stem is about 3 inches, but even then, the character of the stem, with the outer bast fibres and an inner spongy core known as the hurd, does not lend itself to bike frames. The cellulose content does increase with age, so overgrown hemp stems may have more applications than we know, but for now, bamboo reigns in the making of natural fibre bike frames. It has found another niche for itself and I hope this catches on. Nettles, banana leaves, and even hemp do not compare.

HEALING ONESELF

In the US, a woman has been arrested, thrown in jail, gagged from speaking, and put in solitary confinement - for healing her son. Laurie Jessop used a number of holistic treatments including black salve to cure son Chad of a tumour. Not surprising these days to hear such a story, and then again the Pharisees wanted to arrest Christ for much the same. I guess he was not making the doctors in Jerusalem rich.

This week I had a cold and have been using garlic, so I hope I am not the next victim of the Gestapo. Soon I may be using nettles - which have long been used by mankind. There is a great article about this plant in the current issue of Caduceus [#73] by herbalist Zoe Hawes (pp. 23-24). She notes that it is a 'greedy' plant, taking lots of nutrients from the earth, and thus full of calcium, vitamins B,C & K, minerals and trace elements. The iron content is 4.2mg per 100g. Dandruff is reputed to be cured by an infusion of nettle seeds in water.

Lately there was much buzz about nettles as a fibre, and one UK paper reported on it as if it was the next big thing. However, when I went to the Soho shop mentioned in the article, there were no nettle outfits. The whole thing was sloppy reporting and overhype, but it is very possible to use nettle fibre for clothing, and no, it does not sting when you wear it.

I would like to encourage nettle fiber research, however, so that along with hemp, flax, ramie and jute, it may replace cotton and plastics for clothing and then be recycled as paper. The more natural fibres we use the easier it will be to reduce methane emissions, as clothes made from natural fibres can be recycled into paper, thus reducing logging. What keeps this from happening is the fact that we use a lot of synthetic materials in clothing, so they are not easy to recycle. They are sent to landfills where they decompose and release methane gas.

If we are to heal ourselves and the planet, we need to address this.

GEOMIO AND MINAWEAR PREPARE FOR EARTH DAY

Had a good talk yesterday with Edie Marrs of GeoMio, a natural fibres company in Los Angeles which has recently merged with Minawear Hemp Clothing. She is into hemp and all other natural fibres, with a large selection of bamboo articles in stock to choose from. A very interesting person she seems, telling me that happiness is being curled up with an academic tome about 5,000 year old fibres. Mention nettles, ramie, jute or kenaf to most people and they draw a blank, but to Edie, these are hot topics.

These are not, however, just niche fields for hobbyists, as the cultivation of cotton and the production of plastics threatens to destroy our way of life. Water is becoming more and more expensive, so much so that in the future wars may be waged over access to this simple compound, yet cotton is reducing major waterways to trickles, both in the East and in the West. In the former, the Aral Sea is reduced to half of its size since 1960, and in the West, waterways in California are becoming depleted, with migratory birds unable to find their way.

Edie and her new partner Mina Hegaard will be in Santa Barbara this Earth Day, so if you are able to swing by, say hi and, with a good ocean breeze to take copies of Hemp for Victory to the dock in LA, they will be in hand, the first shipment to America. If you miss them there, copies can be ordered at the links provided above.