'How to Become Food Self-Sufficient' Competition

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To give you an idea of just how different things could be, you should haunt the secondhand stores until you find a copy of a book published in 1939 and titled How To Give On $1.00 A Week or How To Earn $100.00 A Week. The guide was written by a fellow named Elmer C. Rice and it's a little weird to follow (Elmer invented "stream of consciousness" writing years before Jack Kerouac was invented). But it just happens to contain a few real gems tucked down in among Rice's personal flights of fancy. Turns out that Elmer figured anyone could make $100 a week (even back in 1939 when—as they say—a dollar was a dollar) raising squabs. And he had solid proof (since he had done it) that an individual could eat quite royally on $1.00 a week (say $5.00 a week now).

The secret of enjoying quality food on so little was something known as the Atkinson Oven. This was simply an insulated metal box designed to sit on a metal table which was just high enough to clear the chimney of a kerosene lamp. By filling a pot or two with the cheapest cuts of meats and the least expensive (but nourishing and filling) vegetables obtainable . . . and then covering the pots, stacking them in the box and burning a very low flame in the lamp . . . a nutritious meal could be prepared. Automatically. Without watching and without burning. Slow-cooked and tender with all the gravy, flavor, vitamins and minerals left in. With no need for an expensive "real" stove or oven. Without any packaging waste. Without any waste of food And—to stress the point once again—from the least expensive meats and vegetables available.

Now then. There's no arguing the fact that a number of people have done—and are currently doing—some interesting work in grow-your-own-no-matter-where-you-live food production and low-energy-low-waste food processing and consumption.

The question is: Have their efforts given you any ideas? Can you do better than the examples cited here?

We hope so. In fact, we hope so much that THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS® is hereby putting up prize money totaling $5,000 for the best "How To Become Food Self-Sufficient" concepts which work that we can find.

You'll find the rules of the competition and the prize money guarantee spelled out in the accompanying box.

So OK, all you budding Clifford Ridleys and Helga Olkowskis and Jim DeKornes. And OK all you real Clifford Ridleys and Helga Olkowskis and Jim DeKornes. Here's your chance to help the little people of the world . . . and maybe put a few bucks in your pocket at the same time. We're waiting to hear from you.

The Mother Earth News "How To Become Food Self-Sufficient" Competition Rules and Regulations

This competition is open to anyone except current and former employees of THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS or any of the magazine's subsidiary operations and shall run from midnight, September 30, 1974 to midnight, September 30, 1975. All entries shall become the property of THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS and may be used—or not used—in the magazine or featured in any of the publication's subsidiary operations at the discretion of the editorial staff of THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS. Any entries so used and which are not awarded a competition cash prize, will be paid for at the currently prevailing rate paid by THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS for free-lance material.

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