Food Redefined=Life Redefined

I am late with this post today and I'm not sorry about it. I'm not sure how I ended up there, but I have spent the last two hours reading a blog that many others have been reading for almost a year now: No Impact Man. I'm agitated with excitement just to read what he has to say. He and his wife and baby girl have engaged in a year long project to live a life creating no net impact on the environment. This family lives in a tiny apartment in New York City. The practical terms of their challenge mean that they have no air conditioning, eat only food produced and grown within a 250 mile radius, they produce NO TRASH (buy no products that come in disposable bags or packaging which means no yogurt, no store bought condiments, etc.), and they don't use any transportation that is not self propelled (which means their own feet and bicycling wherever they need to go).

What I'm noticing is that so much of our environmental problems stem from our agricultural practices and anyone wanting to make big change has to come face to face with the question of where they are getting their food, how it is produced, how far it has traveled, and what kind of packages it comes in. You simply cannot get away from it. Consumerism is certainly the broader issue in our culture, but when it comes down to it, some of the most enormous problems come from how we raise beef, and the fact that our culture demands so much beef eating. Beef comes at a great cost to us all. To our land. How we use our land, how we treat it, how we cultivate it, has an incredible impact on our air quality, our food quality, our health.

I can't type fast enough.

Choosing to eat locally will automatically make positive change in both your own life and health, while also making positive change for the environment and your local economy. But mostly it will redefine how you eat and what you eat and more than likely it will improve your diet, rather than make it worse.

There's a message that is beginning to write itself in the air in front of my face from some of the blogs I've been reading, specifically Riana's blog These Days In French Life, and No Impact Man which is that when you turn off the Television, when you unplug your cell phone, when you use your own feet to get places, when you have to prepare almost all your food from scratch and when you only buy used things, when you live a life that takes so much more time to live- you have a lot more time to enjoy your life. Hmm, that is not elegantly said at all.

Riana was just writing recently about how so many people see the life she's living as one of deprivation and drudgery. Her response is that living a slow year has helped her become happier than she's ever been before, to connect with herself, her community, her husband, and it has forced her to slow down. Living life takes time. When you spend your time being resourceful, preparing your food thoughtfully, you no longer have time to waste watching television or chatting on the phone or rushing around trying to save time so you can spend time doing more rushing around. When you slow your life down, your rhythm changes, your focus changes and you no longer have to rush around trying to eek out quality family time because everything you do is quality.

Colin at No Impact Man has essentially the same message. Rather than life getting harder, and sadder, and emptier, it has gotten fuller and healthier and happier. They are more fit because they don't use elevators, cars, buses. They use their bicycles and their feet which means they don't have to try to squeeze time in to get to the gym. They are working out all day long getting from point A to point B and enjoying it. Eating local means their diet gets a little less varied in the winter (he speaks of lots of apples and cabbage on the menu) but it also means that their diet is much healthier and cleaner and when new fruits and vegetables come into season they taste infinitely better not only because they are only eating them when they are in season, but because they haven't tasted a berry for months. It's made all the little details in life become more meaningful.

Amber at Berlin's Whimsy was just recently talking about how discouraging it can be to try to make a difference when every time you do one thing, you find out that there's this other thing you didn't do that is completely negating the positive changes you thought you were making. It's frustrating and it is easy to get discouraged. To lose hope. I think we all have to remember that there is a huge machine out there trying to keep us tied to the great commercial engine that our culture depends on. Or thinks it does. Information is purposely obfuscated by industry in order to confuse us into an apathetic stupor. If we lose hope, industry doesn't change.

Colin says that part of what inspired he and his wife to do this no impact challenge was to see what they could personally do to help make change because waiting for the big industries to make good environmental choices was taking too long. Politicians are taking too long.

I know this is going to sound hokey, and I don't care, but think about this: there are billions of people on this planet. If every single one of us was choosing to live as Colin's family is, or as Riana's family is, Industry would be FORCED to change because they are nothing without us. Without our dollars they will collapse. The power really does always lie with the people in the end. We are the pockets that are truly funding McDonald's and cheap crap from China, we are the ones who are funding poor treatment of animals, we are the ones who are funding oil consumption and war.

I don't think everyone needs to change their entire life immediately. Not all at once. But everyone needs to make change. All of us. No one excluded. If you only make one change this month, you make a positive impact. The minute you get accustomed the change you made, where it becomes easy (because it will become routine), then you challenge yourself to add another change to your life. Make your own yogurt, for example. Or only buy local produce. Or grow a few things on your balcony. Or compost your table scraps. Or buy only used things. Or walk your kid to school every day even if it's half a mile away. Not only will your life begin to improve in quality, your actions will help you feel more hopeful, your actions benefit us all.

I'm not trying to preach at you. I'm just trying to tell you that those "little" things you already do, they matter. Capello of No Appropriate Behavior once commented that eating locally for them was a real challenge* but that they finally stopped buying their favorite imported apples to buy the locally grown ones. She mentioned this as though this tiny little change amounted to nothing. So what I'm saying is: all these little things we do are important and don't belittle yourself for starting someplace. Every single time you buy an apple that was grown by a local farmer is money you spend to support that local farmer. It's gas you have opted not to spend on importing your food. Every single apple counts.

I'm saying that once you've made one little change, it's not that difficult to challenge yourself to another one.

That being said, I must look to myself first. Always look to yourself first. I am so inspired right now by doing my eat local challenge- even though it is a big adjustment. I just bought what may amount to all the produce I will be buying for the next month from Oakhill Organics. Do you know how happy it makes me to have bought 10 stalks of Brussels Sprouts, 6 bunches of chard, 6 bunches of kale, 15 pounds of carrots, 6 heads of garlic, 2 bags of salad (oh man, I am so excited to get salad this week!!!!), 3 heads of cauliflower, and 4 celery roots?

What makes me happy is that every time I make something with that food I see the faces of the people who grew it. Casey and Katie are growing a lot of the food I eat right now. I love being able to talk to the people that grew my food, ask them questions about their practices, and it's great to know that since Casey and Katie know most of the people who buy their food they can gage what their customers want the most, they know what's important to the consumers of their goods. This is how food buying should be.

Here's my next challenge: ride my bike to go grocery shopping. I have to take the scooter out at least once a week to keep the battery charged but I have been using it way more often. Considering how much weight I need to lose, this is the ideal plan. I used to do most of my grocery shopping on my bicycle in Sonoma so it isn't as though I have never done it. I sent Philip out to Winco to get 14 pounds of baking soda for bath bomb making and he bicycled there (at night, in the rain) which made me ask myself why I don't do that more often? Getting my exercise while I get my groceries is total efficiency.

I'm finding inspiration everywhere. Even from my own husband. (I need to tell him that!)

All I need to do is get myself some rain gear. I think I'll check out my local used clothing place first and see if they have any slickers, if they don't maybe I'll just get wet. Getting wet really isn't all that bad.



*I feel it should be mentioned that she also shops her local farmer's market which is such an important thing to do.