We are living in a time when people are further removed from nature than ever before. We spray our vegetables with suicides. We feed our animals junk food. We've put our animals in bad living conditions and we've done so for ourselves.Not wanting to work in a veal fattening cubicle, I became an English teacher, but for how long can I do when there are better things I need to do, I ask myself a lot. For now, I'll stick to food.
I tried different diets in an effort to eat sustainably. But what I discovered that it isn't so much about what thing you are eating but the story of where it came from and its place in the environment. When I started to look more at indigenous people, anthrobiology and I found than the older ways of living were less complicated. I did this while looking at Native American recipes and studuing other cultures foods and I found the same themes, and overlapping themes. Acorns were used by the Native Americans and Koreans.. It wasn't complicated. All of them generally ate plants and animals, sometimes insects and bugs. Some cultures had more plant fats and others had more animals fats. What was important is that there population was control but the limits of the ecosystem and if they were greedy, then there was starvation.
It seems our a sustainable diet is really about what can be sustainable grown in our area. Somethings are lcoally grown but are not sustainable. They need to be both. There are a lot of people using a lot of fossil fuel dependent technology to grow plants or raise animals that aren't suitable for the climate. Cows that are being raised in the Utah dessert may make economic sense but even if we ignore the ethical reasons its insane from a sustainability view point. Buying tomatoes from a hothouse that is grown in Alaska is equally insane. Both require fossil fuel energy.
What does eating local mean. It means that there is less that we can eat but what we know is edible changes as more knowledge is eaten.
To eat local, it means that we have to a better understanding of our local environment and what grows. So in some cultures that means less will be available that we are used to eating.
In Thailand where there is ruminant protein, there is less beef, so they eat more bugs and other things. In the remaining inuit communities fats from sea animals make the difference between life and death.To try to grow plants in the artic circle would be insane. And to eat seal in Korea would be insane. So really there is no naturally right and sustainable diet for one place that is right for another place.
As an ecollogically driven person, I've had to face inconvenient facts. Right now, I can't eat 100 percent austainably. I can only move towards that with more knowledge until I can supply myself with my own food. I ask questions. I look at labeling and ask Is this food grown in Korea? Do I really need to eat it? Can I grow his myself?
It means chaning our diets according to our situation. If you are a vegan in Korea, and you are shipping in hemp protein powder, quinoa, and chia seeds. We can have the same conclusion about omnivores, getting grassfed beef from Australia that is not good either.
Many of us will continue to fall into the traps of just listening to people like myself talk about it, but we will continue to scratch our heads if we don't gain more of a knowledge of indigenous diets.
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