Don't just stand there, grow something! Be a food grower in some small or large way! You'll connect to nature, our "daily bread", and some fundamental political realities. You'll educate yourself and redefine your relationship to fundamentals - and I didn't even mention "cheap" yet! |
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I use the word "growing" in preference to
gardening because gardening sounds like a hobby. The good news about gardening can't stay underground forever - it's going to grow! Growing food - and eating local and simple food - is at the heart of relocalization. Growing has a way of plugging you into that beating heart. It's a simple and deceptively multi-layered activity that you can find a way to be part of whatever your background. Growers get that they're connected to a deep natural process, as of course they are, and that connection is close to the heart of relocalization. The two interconnected ways to relocalize your eating The two interconnected ways to start are 1) to grow something right now, and 2) to learn to enjoy eating simply and low in the food chain 1) Grow something, whether it's sprouting, growing a few pots of tomatoes, putting in a garden, joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) group, or connecting to a local gardening group or food initiative. Once you start looking you'll see that lots of new ways to grow and eat all around you. Here's a newish initiative in Ottawa, the major city near where I am: folks grow food in other people's yards, giving the owners a portion of the produce and finding a market for the rest. 2) The other part is to eat in a way that respects natural realities and limits - not just because it's "a good thing," though it is, but because eating a low-impact, mostly local diet will be the future in a world defined by peak oil, shifting climate, and high population and unrest from all of these. It'll be your future and certainly your kids future. Eating simple is simply getting with the program, which in turn helps others do the same. We've been eating a simple, tasty, nutritious and inexpensive diet for a while now. My friend Lynn has been experimenting and refining how to do this for years and I recommend what she's developed as something to explore and adapt. It's a total system that makes it easy to cook healthy food conveniently while keeping your grocery bill under $150 a month per person. That's from the get-go, before you grow your own. It's a way to fast track to a simpler, more local and more peaceful life. It's totally possible to really enjoy food while eating more like the majority of people in the world. It's a vegetarian diet, but you can add meat where you will. No shame but stopping eating meat is one of the simplest ways you can make a real difference in what you personally are putting into the atmosphere. Full disclosure, I do eat meat if I'm at someone's home and it's offered and I eat game when it's given to me. Subscribe to the newsletter for reminders, updates, and more on those who are doing this. There are many political ramifications to food and soil too . . . .think "peak soil" to go along with peak oil. As Wendell Berry says, "If we continue to be economically dependent on destroying parts of the earth, then eventually we will destroy it all." |
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