We Need Each Other - A Brief Rant by J

As I'm sure many of you know, there are tons of "challenges" and "initiatives" out there in the blogosphere and beyond. Many of them are in some fashion related to living a more sustainably and socially just life, or surviving something like peak oil or an economic/social collapse. A lot of them focus on personal responsibility and individual action in response to these situations. Many of these challenges/initiatives (though of course not all), with the notable exception of Melinda over at One Green Generation (an excellent blog you all should check out), tend to leave something very important out: creating solid communities and developing relationships.

While ensuring our families well being and survival are of the utmost importance, we seem to forget that we cannot, and never really have been, completely self-sufficient. In this day and age, it really is damn near impossible. We need others to provide the services we cannot provide ourselves. But more importantly than that, we are social creatures, who need the company of others to be truly human. What bothers me is this almost "every man for himself" mentality as a reasonable approach to complex situations. I might remind us all, including myself, that this mentality has a lot to do with the current state of things - how we got in this "boat" to begin with.

What are we going to do? Prepare ourselves and leave our neighbors in the dark? Take turns guarding our possessions with a gun while our neighbors starve? Where is the humanity in that? And what do we do when our provisions run out and we do not have the appropriate relationships developed to provide for our own needs? We must remember that others were necessary for us to prepare for these potential calamities to begin with. I am in no way saying that this is what the hosts of these challenges are implying, but by ignoring community and others, this might well be the end result.

I do not know how to form strong communities. I do not know how to get self interested people to work together for a common good. But what I do know is that none of us can go it alone. We need each other, we need to share what we have, whether it is a skill, or food for a neighbor in need should times get really tough. It takes all of us, and we all succeed or none of us do. I hope none of these doomsday scenarios ever come to pass, but want to throw my "two cents" out there about a vital aspect of preparation that we have largely overlooked.

As always, thanks for listening to (well, reading) my rant.

'Til next time.

Globalization, Corporations, and Food

Rural Vegan asked Brett in his last installment of the What Is Food series if he might expand on the globalization of food, particularly how it pertained to “life sciences” corporations such as Monsanto. He asked me if I would write this piece as I have read many books and watched a few documentaries that pertain to this topic, and of course, I am happy to elaborate on any topic that others feel I have something to offer.

First and foremost, I believe in full disclosure. I was raised in St. Louis, home of Monsanto. I also must state that I do not believe that life sciences or large agribusiness companies such as Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, Du Pont, and Cargill are inherently evil; that is, beyond the way that all corporations are evil, they are motivated by profit, and they are legally bound by their shareholders to turn as high of a profit as possible. So in this respect, they are no more evil than any other publicly traded company. What I mean by this is that I do not believe these places are employing mad scientists who wish to wreak havoc and poison the planet; I truly think that many of the folks who work for these companies swallow the public relations material put forth – that their job is to help feed the world and make it a better place. Whether or not this is true is a matter of opinion, really, but what can be said is that there is some blatant hypocrisy and that reality often doesn’t mirror the promises put forth in the advertising campaigns of these companies.

With that said, however, I must note my bias: I am, for the most part, opposed to genetically modified organisms, but most specifically, genetically modified food. I think we are really playing with fire on this one (I will touch on why later), and I do not think they are the panacea to the world’s problems.

I also feel that focusing only on corporations for the purpose of this discussion is too limiting. I think that a brief discussion of the “trade promoting” de facto agency, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is in order too.

Anyways, I think the best place to start is by discussing the promises put forth by places like the WTO in regards to less restricted trade, and life sciences corporations in regards to genetically modified food or patented life. The WTO – which is an agency designated with the promotion and resolution of trade and trade issues – came out of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) during the Clinton administration (here in the US). The idea was that it would help open up borders and thus also open markets upon which more goods could be traded. Many problems have come about as a result of this, many of which I attribute to the fact that the WTO has it’s own dispute resolution mechanism; to me, this is a conflict of interest, and I do not see much value in overriding a nation’s laws for the purpose of forcing a given product upon them – and this has been the result of most grievances brought forth to the WTO. Claims that this would bring many developing nations into the “First World” have largely been proven to be bogus propaganda.

The most notable example is that of Africa. I took a class about globalization when I was still in college and one of the situations that struck me deepest was the story of an African nation – in which the people were incredibly impoverished – that due to WTO trade rules, had to export their food to the Western world while their people went hungry. Another clear example of the problems with the WTO and the globalization of food came as I read Stolen Harvest by Vandana Shiva. In it she discussed how, after what some think was an intentional contamination of native cooking oils, India forbade small producers from processing their own oils and opened their markets up to Western vegetable oils (from, you guessed it, soybeans). Not only did many Indians not want this unfamiliar cooking oil, it drove a lot of small family farmers to the brink. This - combined with the “invention” of GMO crops and the lowered price they could get for their crops on the global market (which I will talk about briefly) – led to a rapid increase in farmer suicides. In fact, there have been multiple instances, illustrated in Raj Patel’s Stuffed and Starved where small farmers have committed suicide outside of WTO meetings to try to get their message across. Just these few examples (and I could go on and on with many more) really call into the question the idea that liberalized trade is good for the Third World.

On to the promises put forth by life sciences corporations about the wonders of genetically modified foods (GMOs)...

Many of the promises have to do with feeding the world. Companies claimed that crops like “Golden Rice” (a type of rice that had been genetically modified to contain beta carotene, the precursor to Vitamin A) would eliminate, once and for all, the high incidence of Vitamin A deficiency (one of the most common deficiencies for folks in the Third World, especially children). Problem is, as noted in Dinner at the New Gene Café by a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Bill Lambrecht, kids would have to eat literally pounds of this rice a day to get the necessary amount of Vitamin A, and that’s only if it could even be adequately metabolized by the body.

Another big argument in favor of GMOs is that they increase yields on crops. There is mixed information on this, but what I can say is that this is not true for all farmers. In many cases, yields increase when GMO crops are initially introduced, but soon, resistant weeds and bugs eliminate any advantage that GMOs had over conventional crops – in some cases, resulting in severely diminished yields. But there are farmers – particularly in America – that swear by GMO crops and claim that their yields have gone up and stayed up, so I cannot make much of an assumption here.

What I can say about these life sciences companies’ claims that they are creating GMO crops to feed the world is this: most of the patents for GMO crops are in regards to the crop being able to withstand application of a pesticide or herbicide (think Round Up Ready soybeans) or that are genetically altered to already contain a pesticide-like gene from bacteria or other substance such as Bt corn – not to increase yields or the nutritional qualities of the food. On top of this, there are extra costs involved with farming GMO crops. Not only must you buy new seed every year (it is against the law to save these seeds, which to me is outrageous), but there are also “technology fees” that go along with purchasing these seeds that make costs prohibitive for small farmers, particularly in the Third World where increased yields are needed the most. This again, strikes at the heart of their claim that they wish to feed the world. How can one really take that seriously when only Western farmers or large agribusinesses can afford such technology?

And then there are the safety issues – not only for the people who consume these foods, but to the overall environment. We are dealing with a form of genetic manipulation that is very new. We have not been doing this long enough to know the long-term ramifications this could create; and yet, once these genes are out there, they cannot be contained. It has been found that GMO crops “exchange genes” with wild counterparts, weeds, and so on that change the genetic structure of the flora around it, thus creating the potential problem of ever-evolving “super weeds”. There is also concern about the safety of the crops to beneficial insects. There were many stories in the news a few years ago about the dramatic decrease in Monarch butterflies after a large amount of genetically modified crops were planted; Bt corn was the one thought to be causing the problem. Many of these claims have not been completely substantiated, but needless to say, these are grave concerns that need to be addressed.

Then there is the question of the safety of these products in terms of our consumption of it. I remember coming across an article awhile back, a version of it can be seen here, that really made me wonder about the safety of GMOs. Turns out, genetically modified food has been banned in the cafeterias of Monsanto. Now, if the foods are perfectly safe to eat, then why, of all people, are the ones creating these products unwilling to eat them? Just a little nugget to chew on…

There is also the question of the limiting of genetic diversity due to the increased use of a small number of GMO crops. Genetic diversity is the basis for a good portion of the life on this planet, and doing anything – beyond the crazy things we’ve already done, to mess with that is playing with fire. It is interesting to me that many of the companies who are patenting pesticide and herbicide resistant crops are also trying to patent basic life forms.

I recall reading a piece awhile back about a company in the United States had patented a variety of Basmati rice, many, many varieties of which have been grown for centuries in the Punjab region of India and Pakistan . Rice being a major export of India, they found this news to be quite unnerving and have been trying to fight it and other forms of "biopiracy" ever since. This might not seem like much to you, but the patenting of basic foodstuffs, along with the legal ramifications involved with GMO crops, we begin to see what is a “free-for-all” to profit and control the basis of our existence – life and food. Those who own life will have immense power over us, and some realize it and may not be afraid to use it.

Case in point: canola (rapeseed) farmer Percy Schmeiser. Mr. Schmeiser is a Canadian canola farmer who does not farm GMO canola, but found himself being sued by Monsanto. Why? Because nature and genetic material cannot be contained (just ask anyone who has tried to grow two different varieties of cucumbers and ended up with some very funky strains). A neighboring farmer did farm GMO canola, and due to natural forces like wind, some of it got into Mr. Schmeiser’s field. One day, to his surprise, he found himself being sued by Monsanto – for patent infringement. Monsanto claimed that it did not matter that he didn’t know or willfully plant Monsanto’s GMO canola - since it was on his property and he did not pay the required fees, he was subject to litigation for patent infringement. This poor gentleman fought Monsanto and lost almost everything he had, but I am happy to note that, as of this year, he won an out-of-court settlement from Monsanto whereby they had to pay for the clean up of the contamination of his property and release him from the gag order that didn’t allow him to speak about the specifics of his case. This type of bullying by companies like Monsanto is not rare or new. And this is what we have to look forward to if we continue to move along this path with our food system.

The final aspect of GMO crops I will touch on before returning to the topic of the globalization of our food supply and what that means for small farmers around the world – and thus, you and I – is the unwillingness to give consumers a choice. This is particularly the case here in the United States where most of the research on GMOs and other related technologies occur. Many other countries have been successful in forcing companies who use GMOs to label their products accordingly. Not so here in the US: companies are allowed to label their product as “Non-GMO” (something that was fought hard, but thankfully is finally allowed), but no one is required to disclose the use of GMO ingredients in food. This denies a customer the ability to truly know what he or she is eating and, to me, is very dangerous. There was an issue awhile back about a tomato that had been genetically engineered with some genes from a Brazil nut that turned out to cause allergic reactions in those sensitive to tree nuts. Not labeling or fully informing the customer about what they are consuming is not only an infringement on their right to choose, but is also potentially dangerous to those with allergies – especially as research for GMO crops is ramping up throughout the world and rushed into test fields.

Back to the topic of food globalization in general: I do not mean, in any way, to imply that global trade is an inherently bad thing – even in the case of food. However, it has gotten to a point that borders on ridiculous.

I remember seeing a diagram in the textbook we used for the globalization class I took in college that documented the trade of a particular product – in this case, beef. What it showed was that – due to WTO rules and regulations – the US was shipping beef to Europe and many other nations while importing beef from elsewhere. How counterproductive and what a waste of resources for needless shipping! Why is this done? Well, beef from Argentina is cheaper than beef from America – plain and simple, and WTO rules allow for us to ship our higher cost meat to other nations (sometimes even forcing it on them) and allowing us to take advantage of the cheaper product.

Now, this brings me to my final topic of discussion: the impact of the globalized food system on the family farms all over the world and what globalization of food has done for the safety and recall mechanisms of our food supplies.

Large agribusiness companies have been the “final straw” for many small family farmers here in the United States. No longer able to compete with the low cost of a commodity crop due to the flooding of the market by a large, heavily subsidized agribusiness farms, many are throwing in their plows and giving up their farms; they simply cannot stay afloat. Many find themselves bankrupt and with nothing, not knowing what to do because their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were all farmers, and this is the only way of life that they know. It has really destroyed the lives of many small farmers, increased the massive scale and control by a very few agribusiness companies, and decreased the quality of available food. Large agribusiness companies are there to grow what sells. They don’t (can’t really) care about preserving heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables nor the nutritional content of the crop they produce. They want (as a corporation, need) the easiest to grow, most uniform, shippable, and aesthetically pleasing crop they can find; that’s about it. This generally means a lot of monocropping – the “fence post to fence post” mentality of farming – which is a dangerous ball of wax and has contributed to the decline in the nutrition of food, the increase of soil erosion, desertification, and could, in the future, render much of the most fertile land in the world dead and useless. This does not bode well for our future ability to feed ourselves – let alone the whole world (as the US has tried to do) – in the future.

This says nothing of the trials and tribulations of Third World farmers. Many of these farmers are strapped with immense amounts of debt in order to try to compete with the prices of crops on the world market – prices that are driven down due to farmer subsidies in places in the First World. Third World countries do not have the ability to subsidize, often times, as a result of what are called “structural adjustment programs” imposed by international financing organizations – such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – which keep nations from being able to provide much, if any, sort of welfare or safety net systems to their people. I could go on and on about the problems with structural adjustment programs, but that would be a topic for a different post. I do, however, encourage you to research this topic to reach your own conclusions.

In the end, what does this mean for us? Well, it means that we are quickly losing any degree of control that we had over the nature and methods used to get our food from the fields to the table. Those who control food control us, and this could mean that our future is that of serfdom to corporations like Monsanto, ADM, Cargill, or Du Pont, rather than to the companies we work for or our government.

Also, the ever more centralized nature of the modern food system is a disaster waiting to happen; just keep in mind all the recalls of food we have seen over the years. Small, regional distribution systems are not as prone to these large scale outbreaks as the centralized industrial model is; when there are problems within these regional networks, the source is far easier to trace and can often be contained much more quickly.

It basically comes down to being aware and looking at these issues in a holistic manner – look at the big picture, not just the pieces of the puzzle; the “whole” in this case, is far greater than the sum of its parts. We still have control, even if only to a small degree, and we still have some time; we have time to resist so that the future of our food is one where we have choices, and I don’t mean a choice between Round-Up Ready Soybeans or Bt Corn.

I hope – Rural Vegan – that this was what you were looking for, and I look forward to any dialogue this may spark.

'Til next time.

What is Food? - Food is Power

In the previous post, I put forth the notion that food is energy. For my last installment, I would like to argue that food is also power. I’ll admit, however, that “food = power” is an unsubstantiated statement. I must first begin with a brief overview of one of the two most prominent sources of power: dependency (fear is the other).

The most prevalent example of this is in the parent/child relationship. Parents would have no power – indeed, no need to exercise power – if their children were not dependent on them for their livelihood. A child who no longer needs anything from their parents has no reason to obey the rules of the home; they can simply leave.

Often, the sense of independence precedes actual independence, which explains why children frequently return home after their first attempt to go it alone, but it also explains – in part – how those who live in the industrialized world can have an exaggerated sense of freedom, liberty, autonomy, and independence. Basically, teenagers and “free peoples” suffer from the same problem: a failure to recognize their own dependency.

So, let’s now trace a line of this argument to the current food system. In Stuffed and Starved, Raj Patel points out that – with modern, on-time delivery systems – most grocers carry only a three-day supply of most goods. I understand this to mean that, if the shipping industry were to shut down for any reason, the shelves at our local grocers would be emptied in under a week. I think this is especially likely given the tendency for people to hoard in such a scenario. This would also mean all restaurant establishments would be effectively shut down. There would be very little food available to most people. What would you do?

You might think there is plenty of food produced in your area, which may be true, but it is not likely that – with a highly industrialized and homogenized agricultural system – you would find adequate diversity of produce in your area to support the local population. There are farmer’s markets, but I can’t imagine any in the “modern world” which could feed their community as they stand right now; the market is simply too small.

In short, we are largely dependent on the global industrial food system for our very livelihood, and therefore, that system holds power over us. If the empty shelves scenario described above were to ever come to fruition, anyone who did have access to food would have immense power over those who did not. I, for one, am quite certain that I would do almost anything for food if I were hungry enough; I doubt it would be any different for anyone else.

But what’s the problem with feeling freer than we actually are? Well, I would not argue that there is a problem with that. The problem, as I see it, is that the food system upon which we all depend has a dependency of its own: fossil fuels – a finite resource. Thus, the system cannot be sustained. So, it is not that the system makes us slaves (although, I believe it does); it is the potential to be enslaved by our dependency. A brief look at third world nations and the structural adjustment programs that have been forced upon them in times of need should provide all the examples one would need to see this reality.

So what’s the lesson from our masters? Take matters into your own hands; look out for your own interests (which includes the establishment of reciprocal relationships within your community); and avoid – at nearly any cost – becoming dependent on anyone or anything for the energy which sustains you, your family, your community, your nation, or the whole of humanity. Independence is the basis of freedom; establish it, and you are liberated. What’s more is that – with the way the system is structured – your independence can also do much to help those in less fortunate parts of the world to establish their independence because it is a co-dependency which is created and easily exploited by the global class of elites. He who controls the distribution of resources has all the power; but if you are in control of your own resources, you are not as vulnerable to being exploited because you are not dependent on the distributor.

Of course, one cannot expect to be able to provide ALL they need for themselves; trade is a necessary part of civilization. So how is my relationship with a purveyor at my local farmer’s market any different from my relationship with farmers from outside my community? Isn’t it still dependency? Well, yes it is, but in the global industrial food system, there is a “middle man”: the trader. Both “ends” (producer and consumer) are dependent on the trader – not one another. The farmer depends on the trader to buy their product, and the consumer depends on the trader for their goods. But the trader has no concern for the interests of either party; their concern lies with maximizing profits and nothing else, so they pay as little as they possibly can and sell for as much as they possibly can. When I buy directly from the farmer, however, there is accountability in the transaction. As a consumer, I am accountable (responsible) for a fair purchase price, and as a producer, the farmer is accountable for the quality of the product. It is a mutually beneficial relationship instead of a mutually exploitive relationship mediated by an unconcerned party.

In closing, power goes way beyond food to all resources, but I emphasize food for many reasons: it is one of the two most vital resources on the planet (along with water); it is a relatively easy matter to control for oneself; it is the basis of one of the most corrupt, unstable, and unsustainable institutions of civilization; and, well, it’s a common subject on this blog.

Any questions? I’d love to engage them. For me, this (what some call “food sovereignty”) is a fascinating and all-too-important topic to just swim around in my head.

What is Food? - Food is Energy

Now that I’ve attempted to make a case that culture and food are closely related, I’d like to change gears a bit while also (I hope) strengthening my case by broadening and deepening food’s relationship to the greater reality. I do this by regarding food as energy.

So, I’ll begin by giving a brief example of an energy cycle. You’ve got this big ball of gas – so big that it is a perpetual nuclear reactor, fusing hydrogen atoms into helium under its own weight. Immense quantities of energy escape this reactor, most notably, in the form of light which travels outward through “empty” space, dissipating as it goes. (You can ignore the quotes; they are there only to deflect any arguments from physics nerds insisting that space is not “empty.”)

A tiny – and I mean tiny – fraction of that light is shone upon our planet where plants, or producers, use it to fuel their own growth. Some plants are eaten by animals; others die and become food for other plants. Some animals eat only other animals, but regardless, they all pee, poop, and die – food for something in the end.

The lesson from functioning ecosystems and the proverbial food-chain is modestly simple: waste is food. Waste that is not food – pollution – is wasted energy, and wasted energy on a fixed budget of solar energy is a recipe for decline and even death for entire ecosystems. (I have to give props to William McDonough for this concept)

Clearing forests, tilling soil, and redirecting waters are but a few of the strategies employed by humans to make the environment more suitable to our needs; erosion, salinization, and desertification are but a few of the consequences of these actions. The result is the destruction of ecosystems which represent large storehouses of energy, but more importantly, they represent the opportunity for future energy income. All the while, we inundate these ecosystems with unusable wasted energy we call pollution.

Coal is the fossilized remains of old forest growth: trees, shrubs, and the like. Oil and natural gas are the fossilized remains of ancient algae which were cooked “just right” to be made into usable and recoverable resources. Together, the fossil fuels constitute a huge savings account of energy stored by ancient plant life, and the forests and other ecosystems which convert sunlight into usable energy (food) are our source of energy income.

So, every time you clear-cut some forest or till some soil, it’s like going to check-into-cash and getting a high interest loan that will keep you coming back, resulting in a continually declining income. And every time we utilize fossil fuel energy to build things, heat things, transport ourselves, or grow food, we are making a withdrawal on that massive savings – a savings we are only now coming to realize has an end and one we no longer make significant deposits into.

Viewed in this way, it’s clear what must be done: we must increase our planet’s income while decreasing our dependency on its savings if we wish to avoid getting ourselves into serious debt. We need to increase energy production, just not in the irresponsible and wasteful way that governments, corporations, and the media would have us do it – by increasing our withdrawal rate and getting more payday loans. What ought to be done may not be in the best interests of power interests, and who can blame them for looking out for themselves? Well, perhaps it’s time we take a lesson from our masters…

What is Food? - Food is Culture

This time, I’m going to try making a more difficult case, so I need to define some terms first. A society is a large group of creatures acting as a single organism, but with specialization, or “polygeneity.” So, ants and bees live in societies, but algae and fungus do not. A civilization is also a society, but its distinguishing characteristic is culture. Culture refers to how society is organized: its political, economic, and social structure, but more importantly, its customs and traditions. It is necessary for humanity to have culture to be a society because humans are not naturally born into their specialized roles like bees and ants; we must choose.

Now for my thesis: our culture does not dictate our relationship with nature. Rather, it is reciprocal such that our relationship with nature also dictates our culture.

An organism living on this planet must interact with the rest of nature in order to get what it needs to survive. Its behavior and adaptation are, therefore, subject to laws of natural selection; in other words, nature dictates the direction of that organism’s development. Together, civilization constitutes a society which, as stated above, acts as a single organism – an organism as subject to natural laws as any other. It must procure the energy and resources it needs to grow, survive, and reproduce. As the natural world changes, it must adapt or suffer in any or all of these areas. That’s the name of the game.

So, as a series of logical arguments: Culture makes civilization possible; civilization is a society which makes it an organism; organisms are subject to natural laws and must adapt to changes in the environment; therefore, culture is a product of society’s relationship with the environment. Culture is how the human organism adapts.

Looking back, we can find societies whose culture more clearly reflected their relationships with nature; customs and traditions were easily recognized as having significance to resource procurement, particularly (and for obvious reasons) food. Today, society is far larger and more complex, but hints of our past relationship with food still peek through in our cultural heritage if we’re willing to look for it.

Today’s culture is also a product of our relationship with nature. Modern humans exploit every level of the food chain and even more levels that few would call food (fossil fuels). Today’s culture is one that separates us from the natural horrors our existence extols on our environment. We no longer have the heart to look.

Humanity’s relationship with nature is one of consumption, and our culture is one of consumption. Our relationship with nature is one of usury, and our culture is one of usury. Our relationship with nature is one of power and submission, and our culture is one of power and submission. Our relationship with nature is one of reckless abandon, and our culture is one of reckless abandon. You get the picture…

And what is our most intimate relationship with nature? What aspect do we depend on most? Why, it is the energy which sustains us, of course; it is our food.

What is Food? - You are Food

As I said in the introduction to this series, most of what I talk about here is common knowledge. Most of what is wrong with humanity today is not just that we are ignorant, but that we also fail to give due consideration to what we already know.

So, here, we start with something simple that we already know – a cliché most of us have heard at one time or another:

“You are what you eat.”

I prefer to say, “You are food” because it actually goes both ways, but the gist of it is that every molecule in your body is made of matter you’ve consumed. Primarily, matter is ingested, although it is also inhaled and absorbed through skin and other membranes. But little beyond what we eat is under our control as individuals, so to emphasize air quality when talking about lifestyle choices would be a practice in futility. Basically, you, your growth, your health, your sanity, your personality, everything about you is made of what you eat.

A healthy body is dependent on having good building materials around. If all you have are bricks lying around, you get nothing but brick buildings; forget windows, doors, sinks, toilets, or anything else that makes a structure function properly. Too much or too little of essential materials makes for dysfunctional structures that affect the whole of the system; deficiency or excess = disease. In some matters, there is no such thing as a deficiency – such as would be the case with poison, but I do believe there to be such a thing as too much of anything.

We in affluent nations are all aware of how easy it is to suffer from diseases of excess related to meat consumption. America, in particular, is nearing an epidemic of obesity related medical problems because we eat nothing but corn, wheat, soy, milk, cows, pigs, and chickens. These seven items are consumed in ridiculous excess while most everything else is in deficiency. So, we have osteoporosis, anemia, heart disease, cancer, and morbid obesity all in the same nation – sometimes in a single individual. Aside from polluted air, tainted water, unfiltered sunlight, and a bit of genetics, we have little explanation for our poor physical health except for a poor diet (and maybe a little radiation).

Diet also plays a major role in our mental health as well, for obvious reasons. This reality gets little attention perhaps because it is not the only actor within our spheres of influence. For our sanity, we also need a better social environment, but food done right can come to our aid in this matter as well; I’ll have to get to that later…

For now, just spend some time thinking about what you are – not your job or anything fascinating like that; I mean your existence…

You are food.

What is Food? - An Introduction

Whatever the fate of our environment, our social systems, our political systems, our economic systems, or our legal systems; history and my experience as witness to industrial civilization have taught me that the fate of humanity – from one individual, to one family, to one community, one nation, and so on – is dependent on one thing: how we extract, distribute, and use energy. It not only determines the fate of all living things, but also determines how all things live and evolve. Despite all the magnificence of artificial lighting, heating, cooling, running water, sanitation, refrigeration, computers, televisions, telephones, washers, dryers, stovetops, ovens, microwaves, cell phones, planes, trains, automobiles, and all other modern luxuries, our existence is rather mundanely dependent on the same things as everything else: food and water.

Because these two things are so vital to our existence, our relationship with them largely defines who and what we are. Look around at any species of plant or animal and you aren’t likely to find any aspect of its structure or behavior that can’t be argued as relevant to the acquisition/storage of water and energy (and perhaps a chance to reproduce). For us, it is no different. Like anything else, we are defined by how we get our energy from the environment, survive, grow, and ultimately reproduce.

Growth and subsequent reproduction is impossible without the availability of energy (and water). So, energy is what drives life and will therefore be the focus of this series; it is the focus of this entire blog, actually.

Wait one second; did I just say that energy is the focus of this entire blog? Am I in the right place? This is a food blog, right? Well, yes it is; but it’s also an energy blog. Food is, after all, energy isn’t it? Food is the energy that sustains life, but modern humans tend to think of things like electricity and gasoline when someone mentions energy. To me, that’s a narrow view of the most vital resource we’ll ever have – a view that relegates energy to the role of powering technology and nothing more.

Peak oil – or peak energy, really – represents a major threat to almost every human system and institution on this planet simply because we’ve come to rely on fossil fuels for virtually everything. Every aspect of our livelihood is at stake, but when the chips are down, I want to know that I’ll have at least two things: food and water. I suspect anyone else would want the same. I don’t know what to do about industry; I don’t know what to do about the economy; I don’t know what to do about climate change; I don’t know what to do about the rise of neo-fascist corporatocracies, fundamentalists, and mercenary armies; I don’t know what to do about our transportation networks; I don’t know what to do about an incompetent media that looks more and more like a propaganda wing with each passing day. But frankly, I could handle a disaster in any or all of these areas better than I could handle a collapse of the food system, so that is the threat which frightens me most. Besides, I believe energy (mostly food) to be a basis from which we could address all of the preceding issues, so even though I don’t really know what to do about a food crisis either, that’s what I’d like to see us working on.

There are several points about food that I hope to make over the coming weeks. My goal is to shed new light on common knowledge, but more importantly, it is to give an understanding of where Jennifer and I are coming from, who we are, why we do what we do, and why this is a food blog instead of an issue blog when we’re clearly interested in more than just cooking. We are concerned with all crises facing humanity in the coming century, and of all the things we could be doing (you know, being ‘politically active’, etc.), an energy blog in a cooking blog’s clothes seems most appropriate for us.

What is required for humanity to weather the coming storm of declining energy from fossil fuels is a shift in thinking. That is why, aside from food and energy, this blog can sometimes be psychological, sociological, personal, and even political in nature. For each of us, it will be journey. Sharing that journey with each other will make it easier to cope with. Sharing and community are truly the heart of this blog – what started out, for me, as a remote repository for Jennifer’s recipes in case our computer crashed. Anyway, turning on topic street…

Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I recall being told that the Chinese symbol for crisis is the same as the symbol for opportunity. It is opportunity that I hope to capture in the coming series. Among the potential solutions to an almost apocalyptic horizon, I see opportunity for positive changes that most, I believe, would find unfathomable given our current circumstance. And much of this, I think, will happen without our even trying. Necessity will dictate many of our most opportunistic adaptations; it will be up to us to recognize them for what they are.

Science has taught us that valuable knowledge can only be gained by breaking something down into its constituent parts – a process called reductionism. Connectedness, synergy, and interactionism are lost in the shuffle of x’s and y’s, and we’ve come to believe that numbers hold the only truth. If it can’t be measured, it is not worth our attention; if it is broken, we must correct “this part here” to make the equations work again. I, for one, consider myself a ‘deductionist’; that is, the parts are of less significance to me than the system as a whole. Breaking things down into small parts leads us to treating symptoms rather than causes.

This has gone on for so long now that most symptoms we see in society today are symptoms of other symptoms, and so on. It seems like everything is caused by something that is, itself, a symptom of something else. Through this maze of cause and effect, I’ve come to see energy as having incredible importance to all things, and for living things, we call it food.

On Gradually Achieving a Sustainable Local Diet - (Mostly) Local, Sustainable, and Affordable

This post in the series will focus on how to eat a sustainable, mostly local diet, in a way that is affordable. But first, I must encourage you to check out Chile’s latest piece in her series on food security. Many of the things she touches on are relevant to this topic, and there is no need for me to “re-invent the wheel”, so I strongly recommend checking out her post.

Perhaps the biggest way to make a sustainable, local diet affordable is to cook your own meals and eat at home. I cannot stress this enough, Brett and I used to eat out a lot, let’s just say more times a week than we cooked at home, and it was pricey, not to mention unhealthy. Since I’ve started cooking my own meals, I have seen our food expenditures drop. Processed foods, while sometimes cheaper than whole foods, often lack in nutritional value and have a lot more packaging. If you look for organic or “natural” processed items, you are going to pay a premium and the packaging issue remains. I must also state, in my humble opinion, a varied whole foods diet is far more healthful than one largely comprised of processed foods - even the "healthy" ones.

I am assuming most of the people who read this blog (since it is predominately a cooking blog) know how to cook, but if you don’t, start simple – learn basic skills like chopping, sautéing, roasting. From there you open up many doors. For those of you with even basic cooking skills, you have a lot of tools at your disposal. I believe very strongly in “full disclosure” (acknowledging your biases) so I will state for the record: I am a pretty lazy girl most of the time. As much as I love cooking, after working all day, I don’t want to spend forever in the kitchen on weeknights, especially not during the summer when it’s hot. So I have a cache of easy meals, things that don’t require a whole lot of preparation or too many ingredients. If you can’t see yourself getting in the kitchen every night, might I suggest the “one day in hell = a whole week’s worth of easy meals” method. Basically, pick a day of the week, say Sunday, plan on soaking all the beans you wish to eat that week on Saturday night, on Sunday, get up, cook all your beans, cook all your rice, even chop up veggies if you like – you’ll be in the kitchen most of the day, but you’ll have easy meals for the rest of the week. And we’re talking homemade, easy meals.

Another way to save big, both in dollars, and on packaging and energy usage, is to buy your beans and rice in bulk. Most grocery stores have at least a small bulk section, and there you will find a selection of dried beans, rice, legumes, perhaps even nuts, fruit, coffee, and spices. These goods are far cheaper than their canned counterparts and even the 1 lb. packages of beans and rice you can buy from the “regular” section. If you don’t know what you like, take Chile’s advice and just buy a little bit of each at a time until you find out. You won’t waste money or food that way.

Once you’ve determined what you like, buy larger quantities of it. Perhaps there is a local co-op in your area where you can make larger purchases from. This takes planning as buying things in bulk can cost quite a bit up front but if you have the means to do so, or can save to do so (as Brett and I did), you can save even more than you do buying from the bulk section of the supermarket. Brett and I have dedicated a closet to storing our rice and beans. In determining what to buy and how much, we took an inventory of our most oft used and favorite recipes to see what beans and grains were used most often. We then bought 25 lbs. of organic black beans, adzuki beans, pinto beans, and long grain brown rice, and 10 lb. bags of organic Anasazi and cranberry beans. Stored in a tightly sealed containers in a cool, dry place (such as a closet), they will keep for a couple of years. Brett and I also don’t own a car, so doing this is also more convenient for us. In a few trips we can lug home a year’s worth of beans and rice, and we eat a lot of beans and rice, so this saves us lots of time.

Before I go on, I feel like I have to state for the record that I am not advocating the vegetarian or vegan diet; sorry folks, that’s not how I roll. There are better people out there for the job and I personally do not care how others choose to eat; I think it is a personal decision. With that said, however, eating less meat, and more things like beans and rice is another way to save a lot of money on sustainable food. Local meat and dairy products can be quite pricey, and meat in general is just far more expensive than grains and legumes. Perhaps consider having a few meatless meals a week. Need some ideas? Check out my recipe index, and peruse any of the amazing veg*n food blogs on my blogroll.

You might also consider purchasing a CSA share. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. You can find all sorts of great information about CSAs here, but the gist of it is this: you and a farmer enter an agreement where you pay, at the beginning of the season, for a “share” in the farmer’s harvest. You will get a proportionate amount of fresh produce over the duration of the growing season in your area on a weekly basis. Buying a share in a CSA does involve some risk, but being a farmer involves a lot of risk, and I don’t feel bad about sharing it with the farmer. What I mean by risk is, if there are floods, droughts, pests, anything that reduces or destroys the harvest, well, you don’t get any produce. But in a good year, you are likely to get more than you paid for. When produce is abundant, our farmer adds a little extra to the bag, if he’s doing well, he figures we should too, since we put our trust and “faith” in him.

Since you have to pay up front, this is another seemingly “costly” way of eating. At first it felt that way to us, but it is something we wanted to do, so we saved the money, and we have seen the savings ever since. In the end our quarter share of a CSA works out to about $5-6 a week. If any of you read this blog on a regular basis and see the weekly pictures of our CSA booty, you can attest that – as of late – we are getting much more than $5-6 worth of produce. Sometimes, as the lovely Jessy knows, there are more people who want shares in CSAs than are available, and you get “wait-listed”, sometimes for a long time, poor Jessy and her husband Dan have been waiting for 2 years! My advice is to be patient and get on a waiting list, but in the meantime, shop at the farmer’s market. (My fingers are crossed for you guys! Maybe next season!)

The farmer’s market is a great place. There is an atmosphere at the farmer’s market. It is so refreshing to talk to people who actually know about the products they sell, lots of folks gathering and talking, and there is almost always live bluegrass music (this is Missouri). Atmosphere aside, this is the place to find some of the best deals on some of the highest quality produce during the growing season. Most people assume that the farmer’s market is more expensive than the grocery store, and they are right, to an extent. If you buy meat, dairy, bread, or anything like that, these items may be more expensive than the grocery store. In my experience with the bread, it is really about the same. My basic point about this is – if you are buying a premium product – expect to pay a premium price, no matter where you procure it.

Buying in season is very affordable. When sweet corn really starts coming in here, the farmer’s are almost giving it away. Same with tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, squash. There are many resources at your disposal to get an idea of what is grown in your area and when (this is for the US). Buying local has many positive advantages: first, in my opinion, it just plain tastes better; second, fewer miles are traveled from farm to table, saving resources; and third, it is better for your local economy which affects you directly by way of schools, roads, and other public services. Most of a dollar spent locally ends up recycling in the community as the person you gave that dollar to is likely to spend it locally as well. Whereas most of a dollar spent at Wal-Mart immediately leaves town.

A great way to take advantage of the abundance of summer and the low prices of local produce is to preserve it. There are many ways to preserve food from drying and canning to freezing. Sweet corn’s in season? Buy it up, boil it, take it off the cob, and put it in freezer bags. You’ll have local sweet corn for the winter. Consider purchasing a boiling water bath canner if you wish to preserve acidic foods like fruit, pickles, or even tomato products, or a pressure canner if you wish to preserve low-acid foods like veggies or meat. Peppers and fruit can be easily dehydrated in the oven, a dehydrator, or even on your porch or a cool, dry room in your home. Chiles can be dried without a dehydrator. Simply cut a slit in the back of each chile, run a string through the base of the stem, and hang ‘em up someplace that isn't humid. In a couple of weeks, you will have dried chiles. Put them in a bag or container and store them in a cool, dry place. A word of caution: if you do decide to can, be safe, make sure you have the proper equipment, that you read the directions fully, and do not deviate from the recipe (you can still be creative, most recipes will say something like “1 ½ lbs. of hot peppers", you can choose which hot pepper you wish to use). Failure to follow procedures could be harmful and potentially fatal. Do not be scared of canning though. When done properly (i.e. following the directions), it is perfectly safe and a great way to not only save money, but to eat locally even in the dead of winter. If anyone else has any food preservation suggestions or tips, please leave them in the comments area.

The final area I will touch on briefly is gardening. Not only is this a way to save money on (very) local, sustainable food, it is just damn good fun, and a great workout. It’s a great activity to do with children (especially in conjunction with vermicomposting) as well as a partner. Even if you live in very small quarters and don’t have much in the way of sunlight, you can still grow things, limited as the options are. You just have to learn what is possible, and learn to use all space as efficiently as possible. The next and final piece in this series will be a brief introduction to gardening in small spaces.
'Til next time!

On Gradually Achieving a Sustainable Local Diet - Waste = Food

In the second part of this series I will discuss ways of making sustainable, local food affordable. I was hoping to be able to keep this to one post, but as I’m long-winded and tangents always arise that are worth exploring, the second part of the series will come in two posts.

Before we discuss how to make sustainable food affordable, it helps to have a different perspective on our diets and what a sustainable food system is. As I noted in the introduction to this series, much of eating (and living) sustainably is psychological, we must learn to look at our diet in a more holistic manner, but also as just another way we interact with nature on a daily basis. For a long time, we have viewed food (and many other things really) as a distinct set of parts (the ingredients) put together to create the “end product” (the meal), rather than food as a system and our preparation and consumption of it as just one part in the whole cycle. We rarely think of what happens before we obtain our food or when our food goes “away” in our garbage cans, to the landfills, out of us as our “solid waste” (we all know what I’m talking about here, but I’m a lady - hehe) and so on. We rarely stop to think about (or perhaps do not even know) how unheard of this is in the natural world. “Waste” is not an issue in the natural world. “Waste” is food, which is the focus of this post.

I would argue that the term “waste” simply describes improperly used food. Whereas in our societies waste = pollution, in nature waste = food (a concept coined by William McDonough, author of the really good book Cradle to Cradle), and this is one of the reasons that natural systems are able to sustain themselves and rarely experience issues of excess or “pollution” (concentrated, improperly used food). For example, when one plant dies, bacteria, bugs, and other organisms break the plant material down into food for other plants. Legumes fix nitrogen in the soil, making it fertile and available for plants and other organisms. Earthworms break down dead material, while also aerating and fertilizing (with their castings) the soil.

The sustainable, waste = food system is a cycle by which nutrients and energy are continually being reshuffled and reconfigured for the best and most efficient use. The healthiest systems are the most diverse, where creatures on every level make remarkably efficient use of the available resources.

Waste and Organic Material

There are some very simple steps to take reduce waste in two fairly obvious areas. The first is to plan, and stick to the plan, as discussed in the previous post. The second is related but worth reasserting: try not to buy more food than you can reasonably eat, that is, unless you have plans for preserving it.

Be realistic about how much produce you can handle as well as how long it will last once you bring it home. When you buy local food, it often doesn’t stay “good” for as long since it wasn’t sprayed with a myriad of gases to extend shelf life and reduce spoilage. So, it works best to go the market or store multiple times a week, if this is an option. Perhaps, if your farmer’s market doesn’t set up shop more than once a week, there is a store in town where you can procure locally grown items. A few minutes spent with Google will generally help you determine the “health food” stores in your area. Call ‘em up and see what you can find. A few minutes talking with a purveyor at the farmer’s market could be even more helpful. Aside from knowing where to seek local goods, they might also have some advice on how to best store and prepare the goods they produce.

Despite our most valiant and creative efforts, there is still an unavoidable amount of organic waste: you can’t eat apple cores and seeds or spoiled veggies, and there is little reason why a meal that didn’t turn out should simply have to end up in the trash. Compost it!

(Now, as I'm sure you are all aware, I eat a mostly vegan diet; animal products are rarely consumed in our home (aside from the occasional egg, or some cheese for Brett), so I’m not sure as to the safety of composting animal ingredients So, I would recommend doing some research before throwing those tired looking steaks in the compost.)

The method of composting I recommend is vermicomposting, or composting with worms. This can be done in small spaces, indoors even, as it does not stink, and is an effective way of reducing your waste because you turn your food scraps into worm food, and the worms turn it into very high quality plant food.

Vermicomposting is a fairly simple method that doesn’t require a whole lot of tending. The “source” for vermicomposting still seems to be the book Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof, since it is accessible and suitable for anyone above a 5th grade reading level, you might laugh at this, but complex scientific concepts that can be explained in terms younger people can understand works for me, I’ll take pictures too :-). You can make a composting box (sometimes called a "worm bin") out of a plastic or wood bin, or you can purchase special boxes from selected locations. I would highly recommend looking into this system, especially if you live in an apartment where most of your waste is comprised of food scraps, not yard waste.

Waste and Non-organic Matter

One cannot take a glass jar outside, put it on their garden, and hope to grow food. Some of the things humans create are inappropriate for use as food. So, a good starting point would be to look for goods with the least possible amount of packaging (a quick example would be to choose dried beans over canned). Whatever packaging is necessary works best if it is either reusable or recyclable. #7 plastic, for example, is neither reusable (due to safety concerns) nor recyclable in our area. So, we stay away from it. Strawberry containers are not recyclable here either, but we can take them to the farmers at the market who will reuse them. Be resourceful and creative, and remember reusing always beats recycling.

The list that follows contains some ideas for reusing and is by no means complete. If you have any additional ideas, please leave them in the comment section; we are all here to learn from each other.

• Twist ties from produce or bread bags can be used to tie herbs in a bunch to be dried.
• Use the back of receipts, junk mailers, flyers, and “mess up” paper from the printer (something didn’t print right, use the back) to make lists.
• Take your shopping bags, berry containers, and egg cartons to the farmer’s market. Oftentimes, farmers will happily take them for use for their product.
• Glass jars, such as spaghetti or applesauce jars, peanut butter jars, mayo jars, olive or nut jars can be rinsed in soapy water, their labels removed can be used for other things. Uses we’ve found for glass jars include: storing bulk nuts, seeds, flours, and odds and ends. We even use the appropriately sized ones as drinking glasses. And Heather (from the awesome blog Simple – Green – Frugal) had the excellent suggestion of using peanut butter or mayo sized glass jars to take soup as a lunch to work. They also double as something to safely heat the soup in, as well as a bowl.
• Containers that starter plants come in or things like cut to size milk cartons make excellent places to start next year’s garden seeds.
• Old, worn out pantyhose (sadly, I don’t have any), can be used to store onions, as Chile demonstrates here. Actually, just have a look around Chile’s blog, she has a wealth of advice, tips, and alternative uses for materials that would normally end up in the garbage.

Since we’ve been working to reduce our consumption – live more sustainable lives and all that – our trash output has been significantly reduced. Most of what ends up in our trash can these days is food scraps, which not only makes for a very heavy garbage bag, it is also a waste of valuable “plant food in the making”. Our apartment complex has recently come under new management (the old management said we could not vermicompost), so Brett and I are hoping to start making our own plant food soon.

Now that we’ve discussed looking at one’s diet as part of an energy cycle – the idea that all waste should either be food for something else or be put to another use – I will spend the next post discussing how to eat locally and affordably.

'Til next time.

Garden Update #13

A couple of notes before I start the Garden Update: First, thank you to all who commented on my last piece (and any musings piece for that matter), talking about issues of importance to me, touchy or otherwise, is therapeutic and always a learning experience, I hope you all feel that you get something out of our rants as well. I always hope for more dialogue, but understand that this is not why many of you come to this blog. However, if you have opinions (which I know you all do), whether you have something to add to the conversation or you disagree, please, please, don't be afraid to comment here. That is what we want when Brett and I rant or muse, we aren't just trying to put our opinions out there. You will not be chastised here, and rude or profane commentary will not be allowed, basically, what I am saying, is that if you have something to say, you have a safe outlet here, even if you disagree with us, we won't take it personally.

Secondly, please check out the challenges on the right side of the page, and seriously consider partaking in one. These challenges are an excellent way for us to reduce our consumption and live better with less. Doing these things in 'challenge' form is a good way for folks to get together to pledge to do something, be there for one another as a support and accountability network, and give tips and hints to make these challenges easier. The end result is simple, to reduce consumption and increase awareness, which doesn't end at the culmination of the challenge, at least my hope is to continue, beyond the challenges, to limit my consumption of the things that I minimized during the challenges.

Enough about all that though, on to the Garden Update and a wrap-up of this week's CSA/Farmer's Market Booty.

My lesson of the week this week is "respect and appreciate your farmers, they work very hard." As I noted in the last Garden Update, due to the seemingly constant rain we've gotten in the Midwest this year, the weeds and grass seem to be thriving, while the crops growth is stunted due to excess moisture. Yes, things are moving along, but I just had to note that the grass and weeds seem to be doing much better all around than any of the crops. So anyway, some serious weeding was in order and we needed to put down a much thicker layer of hay.

Now, our community garden is humble, we don't have the best tools and equipment. So weeding the garden involved Brett loosening up the grass and weeds with a half broken "Garden Weasel", and me scraping off the hay and broken plant detritus with a hoe. I also used the hoe to get the roots of the grass. This was hard work seriously, hard work. Our garden plot is small, and we were only at this for about an hour, but can home sore, and I have blisters and chafing all over my hands despite having worn gloves. I can't imagine what it's like to tend to larger areas even with equipment.

Which reminds me, I've been doing some research on permaculture, and though I can't do much now as we don't own our own place and we only have so much liberty with what we can do at the community garden, this is eventually what I would like to do. The positives seem to be endless with this type of agriculture, you work with the soil, with nature, with the plants, to create a living organism that will eventually be able to take care of itself. And small areas of land dedicated to permaculture can yield surprising quantities of food.

The container garden is doing excellent, well, aside from the broccoli, but more on that in a moment. The peppers haven't had to experience the negative effects of 'too much rain' this year, and the mild summer thus far has meant that not only do the plants have optimal growing temperatures, but between the mild temps and the Keep Yer Cool Challenge, we haven't had the window air conditioner running, drying out the soil.

We finally figured out what was stunting the growth of the broccoli and causing the leaves to yellow. Though we didn't find out until the culprits hatched and began eating the broccoli plants. The culprits were caterpillars, which we have removed. I think the broccoli might be beyond hope this point, but you live and you learn, right?

Here is some of their handy-work:



















We also got our first peppers this weekend. I only got a picture of one, but we picked all the large peppers off of the banana pepper plants at the Community Garden. The pepper plants there are so short and look very unhealthy, Brett and I thought that maybe taking the peppers off would give them more energy to devote to plant, not pepper growth. We'll see.















This little guy went in another batch of our traditional vegan refried beans this weekend. The beans turned out super tasty. We love this recipe for refried beans as it's incredibly versatile. This week we plan on having bean burritos, taco salad, and Local Veggie Burritos again with the huge batch I cooked up over the weekend.

Check out the container garden:





















Container banana peppers, moving along.















Cayenne peppers going nuts. I hope these start to ripen soon. I plan on dehydrating them and making ground cayenne and crushed red pepper out of them.















This chocolate bell pepper has grown so much this week!



















Some pictures of all the Hungarian Wax Peppers. The last in the series of three pictures is the tiny pepper that was peeking out from behind a bloom last week. They don't stay little long, do they?















Jalapenos.



















I am still impressed that we were able to keep this serrano pepper plant alive over the winter and now it's fruiting again. It's amazing what a little care and pruning can do. It already looks like its set to exceed last year's yield.

















Super Chiles. These guys will be used in the same manner as I use the cayenne peppers.

















Orange bell peppers.

And the Community Garden:

































Notice the caterpillar on the plant in the last two pictures? I didn't when I was there taking a picture of the tomatoes! We're going to go back down to the garden after I get off work today to check on the tomato plant. If caterpillars are snacking on the leaves, we will need to relocate them elsewhere.



















Continuing my fascination with OPGs, here's a neat development we found this week. The picture makes this look really big, but it's actually about the size of a small lemon. We think it's a baby watermelon. Cute, eh?

















This week's CSA included: collard greens, lettuce, spinach, more leaf lettuce, a cucumber, a zucchini, green onions, green beans, beets (no greens this time) and new potatoes. It keeps getting better and better each week!















And the rest of the farmer's market booty includes: local cherries (we found another purveyor!), some gorgeous baby kale, broccoli, fresh garlic (picked the day before we got it!), more green beans, and a summer squash.

'Til next time!

On the Joy of Simple Living

I’ve been thinking for awhile about lifestyle changes and all the little things people are doing everyday to lighten their burden on the Earth, to be better stewards of the planet and everything and everyone on it. There are many reasons we all do the things we do; we tackle problems from different angles, and there are many positive aspects of our actions that we might not often stop to think about. But I, still trying to find joy in the benign, everyday experience, have thought about it quite a bit lately.

To me, even if suddenly issues like peak oil and climate change were no longer a problem, I would still continue to live the way I do and continue to try to live better with less, to me it doesn’t seem right that just because I live in an affluent nation I should be able to consume so much more than my fair share of the world’s resources. Let’s go out on a limb even further and say that global hunger and inequality were suddenly eradicated overnight, I would still live this way as I feel a wonderful sense of calm, freedom and homeostasis with the world around me.

Let me explain further. There is a concept Barry Schwartz talks about in the book The Paradox of Choice. It basically states that choice is a positive thing, to an extent, but it can get to the point where there is so much choice that even the simplest decision is suddenly not so simple. And if one is a conscious consumer of either products or information, there is even more anxiety that goes into decisions such as “what type of cereal should I buy? I have 75 different choices?!” or even more difficult “what source of news should I trust?” Living simply reduces a lot of these choices, though one’s choice of media is no simple decision no matter what, but when you buy locally, say at the farmer’s market, there is a variety of choice, but it is still limited in many ways. You won’t find lemons at the farmer’s market in Missouri, nor will you find 5 different kinds of them! If you subscribe to a CSA as we do, well, you get what they give you, and that makes things pretty easy.

But living simply goes far beyond consumerism; it has a lot to do with what you don’t do. Giving up our car was perhaps the most liberating thing I’ve ever done. Getting somewhere on my own accord is such a rewarding feeling. I know I am doing my part to reduce the negative aspects of gasoline. Not to mention, I don’t make useless trips, and thus get useless stuff, I have to think twice before I go somewhere as my ability to get there depends on the bus schedule, the weather, and if I feel like walking. At first this was tough, but then I began to appreciate having to figure out other things to do with my time. I began to do things like watch the birds in the neighborhood, even though they are just ‘lowly’ house sparrows, starlings, robins, cardinals, etc, and let me tell you, they are truly fascinating. Some of my favorite things to do now include taking a walk to the garden after dinner or reading a good book on a Friday night with the windows open and a nice cool breeze, not very exciting, but truly enjoyable and peaceful activities.

I spend time growing my own food, attempting to play music, learning about the people I care about, spending time with my animals, cooking, really very basic things.

I know so many people who feel overwhelmed by the ‘hustle and bustle’ of life, and I feel truly bad for them. We only have one life, and there is so much around us that we miss, small gestures from kind neighbors, baby squirrels making their way around one’s neighborhood, these small things are truly what matter in the end. We often complain about how we ‘have no time’ and for many this is a valid complaint. However, I often feel like we spend an awful lot of time talking about how little time we have, and we have to remember that we choose how to spend what little free time we do have. It feels wonderful to slow down, spend more time preparing meals, reading, enjoying nature, good friends, family, and neighbors.

Why am I waxing poetic like this? I guess it’s that I’ve seen a lot of signs of changes in our world to come, things that could be very bad like potential wars or climate catastrophes, possibly economic depression or collapse. But I also see signs of a change in the conception of reality for many people, close friends and family are coming around in ways I never thought possible, and I’m constantly amazed at the caring and resourceful people all over the world doing their little part. Not to mention, living in fear or with intense anxiety over a future out of one’s control can leave one feeling helpless and hopeless and cause many people to either just give up or become paralyzed with fear.

I live simply for many reasons, but I’ve found that as I’ve simplified my life, I’ve also limited the things to be anxious about but expanded the things I can get joy out of because I now appreciate things I used to take for granted. I’m truly happy, and I think many others too find immense personal satisfaction and joy in doing what they think is right: living simply, doing more with less, and having an identity defined by much more than the stuff they own or the size of their paycheck, or even how they earn that paycheck. I am much more than an Institutional Research Analyst.

I can only hope that if our world is forced to live a more humble way of life in the future that it can resemble something similar to the scene in my neighborhood last night. It was a gorgeous night; folks were out on their porches, cooling off and enjoying the weather; families were gathering to chat in the parking lots; a group of kids from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds were playing a rudimentary game of soccer in the parking lot; kids on bikes, a common nighthawk screeching and diving for bugs, you get the picture. It was a wonderful scene and it again illustrates how rich and beautiful a simple life can be.

I must also make note of the amazing sense of community the internet has fostered. It seems that many feel isolated in their physical communities. Not many people share our interests or values; we are vested in different things. Some of us, as we move through different levels of understanding about the world around us, begin to become distanced from those that used to be close to us, as we no longer see reality in the same ways. The common ground upon which we once stood is no longer there. Our neighbors are more like strangers. But what we’ve forged here in the blogosphere, though not real in the physical sense, has all the aspects of a functioning community, and I can’t speak for others, but you all have taught me so much, enriched my life, and given me a sense of belonging that is hard to feel when you are ‘out of the mainstream’. I think, given the specialized, self interested nature of many of our Western societies, like minded people may not be found next door, they may be across the world, but so long as we are there for each other, continue to teach each other, to continue to help each other through the troubles we all face, personal or as a whole, we have a common interest and common goals that bind us in ways our physical communities used to. That is not to discount our physical communities – anyone from Columbia, Missouri who reads this blog and is interested in what we stand for or have to say, please contact us; we would love to connect with more like minded people – but until things change, by choice or necessity, at least we have something, and as humble and minimal as it is, it is something to be thankful for.

So what do you guys think? In your journey to live a more ethical, sustainable, and socially just life, have you experienced any unexpected positive outcomes? Has living simply made your relationships easier, more satisfying or a nightmare? What has the blogging community brought to your life? To your sense of belongingness and ability to influence those around you? Do you see positive change on the horizon or more of the same? What keeps you all plugging away, doing what you can to make the world a better place?