After my niece went to bed, I went to the PETA website and watched a video on meat production. It was gruesome. It shook me up. All of my farm experience was on farms where animals actually had pasture and free range. And I guess I've been hopeful that what animal product's I've used have come from those type of farms. The video shows the other extreme to our pastoral idealized images of farms.
Funny, I first became vegetarian in my early 20s after reading Diet for a Small Planet
. Then my choice was not for me, but for the world. I wanted to do something for the Earth. I was lacto-ovo-vegetarian... still eating dairy and eggs along with vegetables. Looking back, I didn't eat the best foods for me. One of my friends had gotten onto the low protein diet kick, and so I often ate bread and carbs instead of protein. I remember lots of cheap hydrogenated peanut butter, and white bread. My diet improved some as I got into farming and growing my own vegetables. Though I staunchly refused to use pesticides in my farming, I didn't really get into buying organic foods until I was farming in a major potato growing area in upstate New York. It was the worst place I ever tried to grow potatoes. The potato beetles flocked to my fields from my spraying neighbors to evade the death spray. I despised the fact that I had to live next to pesticide ridden lands and air. And I realized that when I chose to buy non-organic produce, I was cursing the neighbors of the farms producing my food.I started putting my money where my mouth was, literally. I also grew much of my own produce. When I landed in San Francisco years later, I ended up in a vegan commune/shelter. And I became vegan for several years. I was never totally strict. If I were visiting someone, I'd eat what they ate to be sociable. But my groceries and cooking were vegan. I drifted back to lacto-ovo-vegetarianism.
In San Francisco, I was very fortunate to have Rainbow Cooperative Grocery. There I could find produce from local farms. And cheap bulk items. There it was relatively cheap and easy to buy organic. I could taste the difference. Organic banana's tasted quite different than the inorganic ones. In general, I found produce to be more flavorful. I also began to feel and taste the difference of quality food. Since farming, I knew how much better fresh produce tasted. In part do to all the minerals in an organically farmed soil, in part due to the variety of seed, and in part due to freshness. Processed foods also tasted different. An organic corn chip was much more satisfying than a heavily processed one. A bite of real ice cream was infinitely more satisfying than a cheap chemical ice cream.
Since leaving San Francisco, I have discovered how lucky I was there. Other places, it can be hard to find good produce period, much less organic produce. Although the organic foods movement is big now, in many places that has translated into industrial prepackaged foods from far away lands. I think I prefer local over transnational organic!
I've found my food preferences to be for fresh, minimally processed foods. I prefer raw nuts, raw organic cheeses and yogurts for high protein sources. I'm dabbling in tofu again. After 2 months in the USA I'm feeling saturated on processed foods. My sister was saying the flash freezing methods reputedly save most of the vitamins. I'm not sure whether that is ideal or not. There is a life force and prana from fresh food. Perhaps it is the phytochemicals or complex amino acids that aren't so often or easily measured. Seeds of Change: The Living Treasure : The Passionate Story of the Growing Movement to Restore Biodiversity and Revolutionize the Way We Think About
is an awesome book, and seed company, that inspired me back in my farming days. Years ago, an eccentric acupressure practitioner told me that refrigerators make food dead within several days because of the electrical vibration. I think he was referring to leftovers. I thought he was crazy. Now I'm not so sure. I feel like the prepackaged bits of carrots and salads don't hold any comparison to whole produce. I find most leftovers taste dead to me after a couple of days. I feel empty after eating the bulk suburban quantity food bought months in advance on sale.After two months of suburban USA living, my body feels stiff, and achy. After watching the PETA video, I'm not anxious to eat any more meat, dairy, or eggs here. It's one thing if it's free range. Another if its from feedlots and slaughterhouses. After researching nutrition a bit, I am remembering how much better I felt when I favored less processed foods... avoiding white flower, etc. I found my brother-in-laws Vita Mixer and have been making smoothie with grapefruits. The fresh food feels vibrant and alive! On the other hand, I also know it is all about love. If you love your food, you love yourself, and you will compensate quite a bit for "food quality". People smoke cigarettes and live to be 100 yo sometimes. So surely if you love your processed white flour cookie full of corn syrup, you can also live a long life. On the other hand, choosing a diet is a way of remembering to love ourselves.
The last couple years I have slacked some in my once vigilance "responsible" shopping. When I farmed and lived on $2000/year I dutifully shopped at the local hardware store in town, shunning WalMarts and other corporate stores. I knew the corporate stores channeled money out of the community. Since then, living in the city, and more significantly traveling about, my vigilance has waned. Allowing myself to slip into scarcity mode, I have shopped in such places as Circuit city, Best Buy, and Wal Mart in the last couple of years. Not alot. I live on less than $4000/year. I find in cities, it is relatively easy to avoid the big chain stores, but in the suburbs, it becomes much harder. I laugh at myself, because I realize it's all a matter of intent and action. Scarcity is no excuse! I've been officially in poverty all my life, and yet living a life of abundance. When I used to only shop at the local hardware store, I had less money than I do now; and yet I've somehow rationalized it's ok to shop at Walmart to save money! Silly me. It's all a matter of choice!
Part of my change has been because I strive not to live by rules and judgments but according to Presence. I know that anti-anything leads to violence. And I know that in one way the green revolution is as much a dream, a perception of reality as the optimist and pessimist. And yet we must live with ourselves. The best is to be in a place of Love. And if, your loving presence leads you into WalMart, so be it. Yet, Loving your Community and choice to support a local business may be more aligned with your spirit most of the time.
Several years ago, one of my friends was embarrassed to admit he was working at Starbucks. I told him, Starbucks needed people like him! What if Gandhi had worked at Starbucks or Walmart... there might just be a revolution from the inside out.
I saw What Would Jesus Buy? yesterday. It's a great movie, both entertaining and thought provoking. It documents Reverend Billy and his Stop Shopping Choir as the tour America to urge people to stop shopping and focus on the true meaning of Christmas. The statistics on what people spend presumably in the name of Christ for Christmas are shocking. Years ago I started joking that people honored Christ with another kilowatt for Christ! Reverend Billy doesn't have any ultimate answers, but he does offer suggestions for what you can do.
What can you do?
Try to buy locally produced goods.
Buy used goods (great for electronics and the like).
Research your choices.
Think about where your money is going and who you want to support? do you want to support your local family run store? do you want to have your local businesses disappear? Do you want to save a few dollars and thereby support sweatshop labor?
Love what you buy if you buy anything! Love makes the world go round!
I've come across these helpful websites to help make more informed choices:
Coop America's Go Green Listing of Green Alternatives:
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/rs/gogreen.cfm
Coop America's Responsible Shopper Profiles of major companies:
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/rs/
Coop America's 10 Things You Should Never Buy:
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/shopunshop/unshopping/neverbuy.cfm
Cornucopia Organic Dairy Ratings: http://cornucopia.org/dairysurvey/Ratings_Alphabetical.html
The Eat Well Guide for your zipcode:
http://www.eatwellguide.org/
The Meatrix pro-veg videos:
http://themeatrix.com
Reverend Billy's Links:
http://www.revbilly.com/links/?cat=1003
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