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Environment/Body dichotomy
Nov. 25th, 2021 12:22 pmQuick fb repost here, since I haven't written on this much:
I just want to acknowledge how many core beliefs food touches on how our bodies relate to the world and its creatures, and how big and significant restructuring that relationship can be, and finding good meaning in a new type of relationship. Especially if it's been such hard work to preserve the old relationship for so long.
I've never been vegetarian or vegan. There were many years where I was known-source-animal-products-only, which many times looked like functional veganism.
Two things led me to my current system, which is to grow 75% of my calories and carefully source about 15%, then let the last 10% be what it will:
I've always had a very deep relationship to plants where eating their bodies and products feels equally significant to eating the bodies and products of animals. It feels more comfortable for me not to divide creatures into two categories and treat those categories differently, but instead to develop a relationship with each type of plant and animal and fungus and understand how it fits into the environment as part of it also fitting into my body.
I began to let go of 100%ism in everything. I'm allowed some softness and some ease. That roughly 10% is so I don't need to count my calories, go hungry when my mind or circumstances won't allow certain foods, or stand apart from social sharing. I've allowed myself to make choices that are easier sometimes. Allowing myself this grace changed my relationship with food from one of control and scarcity to one of recieving bounty.
When prompted further
It's not a stretch to think of the biotic part of the environment (plants, animals), myself, and the abiotic part (rocks, mineral dirt) as basically a flow of molecules through various patterns, enabled by solar energy that comes in from various routes (photosynthesis and then burned in mitochondria, water driven through heat energy into the air and then back down again, gasoline from so long ago). Anything I eat is a set of molecules that becomes part of my body because of the way it was previously part of the biotic (usually) world: genetics and sunlight and water and soil and heat work together to make specific plants and combinations of plants grow here, which are sometimes in turn eaten by certain animals, which are in turn eaten by me. The environment is always becoming part of my body through this process, and then my body is always becoming part of the environment in return.
Growing most of my own food it's easy to understand this because I can see it. I've been drinking primarily my own well water for over 4 years, and watering my plants and animals with it. "Extra" water ends up in the sewage lagoon on my property, where it evaporates into the air and then falls as snow. I'm not sure where my aquifer comes from but it may well be recharged by the snowshed that tends to concentrate moisture here. I've been eating my own meat for several years: a lot of that is a nutrient flow in the form of grain from the next town over but some is from local grazing etc.
We all know that this happens in an abstract sense. The relationship I'm developing is about knowing how it works in particular, starting with my body and tracing forward and back: both the flow of actual molecules and the diverse and amazing energy and pattern sources that allow patterns to perpetuate. So: my environment becomes really cold in the winter and a lot of energy is needed to store food to use during that time to keep the system moving. But also: animals use a portion their food energy to collect and store food energy in their bodies really efficiently; they can collect all the leftover cornstalks and tomatoes from the garden and turn that into food for me that's ready anytime I can do a slaughter, and they self-perpetuate and self-heal. Plus, my body itself prefers a lot of fatty and meaty types of energy to high-carb foods. Emotionally, I have a set of beliefs about evolution and life that includes the acceptability of raising animals for meat. The Ossabaw hogs I raise are particularly good at making use of the energy and conditions I have to self-perpetuate, unlike maybe pink commodity hogs would be. And finally, my body is more able to produce the right kind of energy to feed the pig than it would be to raise enough sunflowers or canola, for instance, to supply my fat energy needs.
So I characterize the environment as a pattern where my own body is woven through it like a single colour in a complex painting: biophysical, genetic, emotional, intellectual, energetic, input, output. My goal is to use my emotion and intellect and physical energy and I guess spiritual drive to bring all these things closer to a robust, sustainable, and pleasurable system. I've started fairly directly, with things I consume/eat, and step the process out from there. Eating is the most basic form of fitting something into my body, after all, and being able to obtain it through my personal characteristics is one step out from that. Then there's the downstream side, but I think maybe you get the point? It's easier to know all this about something that is grown by me or someone I know. Or, for instance, the vanilla co-op I buy vanilla beans from has tight direct relationships with their suppliers and they teach us a lot about the ecology and processing of vanilla too.
I just want to acknowledge how many core beliefs food touches on how our bodies relate to the world and its creatures, and how big and significant restructuring that relationship can be, and finding good meaning in a new type of relationship. Especially if it's been such hard work to preserve the old relationship for so long.
I've never been vegetarian or vegan. There were many years where I was known-source-animal-products-only, which many times looked like functional veganism.
Two things led me to my current system, which is to grow 75% of my calories and carefully source about 15%, then let the last 10% be what it will:
I've always had a very deep relationship to plants where eating their bodies and products feels equally significant to eating the bodies and products of animals. It feels more comfortable for me not to divide creatures into two categories and treat those categories differently, but instead to develop a relationship with each type of plant and animal and fungus and understand how it fits into the environment as part of it also fitting into my body.
I began to let go of 100%ism in everything. I'm allowed some softness and some ease. That roughly 10% is so I don't need to count my calories, go hungry when my mind or circumstances won't allow certain foods, or stand apart from social sharing. I've allowed myself to make choices that are easier sometimes. Allowing myself this grace changed my relationship with food from one of control and scarcity to one of recieving bounty.
When prompted further
It's not a stretch to think of the biotic part of the environment (plants, animals), myself, and the abiotic part (rocks, mineral dirt) as basically a flow of molecules through various patterns, enabled by solar energy that comes in from various routes (photosynthesis and then burned in mitochondria, water driven through heat energy into the air and then back down again, gasoline from so long ago). Anything I eat is a set of molecules that becomes part of my body because of the way it was previously part of the biotic (usually) world: genetics and sunlight and water and soil and heat work together to make specific plants and combinations of plants grow here, which are sometimes in turn eaten by certain animals, which are in turn eaten by me. The environment is always becoming part of my body through this process, and then my body is always becoming part of the environment in return.
Growing most of my own food it's easy to understand this because I can see it. I've been drinking primarily my own well water for over 4 years, and watering my plants and animals with it. "Extra" water ends up in the sewage lagoon on my property, where it evaporates into the air and then falls as snow. I'm not sure where my aquifer comes from but it may well be recharged by the snowshed that tends to concentrate moisture here. I've been eating my own meat for several years: a lot of that is a nutrient flow in the form of grain from the next town over but some is from local grazing etc.
We all know that this happens in an abstract sense. The relationship I'm developing is about knowing how it works in particular, starting with my body and tracing forward and back: both the flow of actual molecules and the diverse and amazing energy and pattern sources that allow patterns to perpetuate. So: my environment becomes really cold in the winter and a lot of energy is needed to store food to use during that time to keep the system moving. But also: animals use a portion their food energy to collect and store food energy in their bodies really efficiently; they can collect all the leftover cornstalks and tomatoes from the garden and turn that into food for me that's ready anytime I can do a slaughter, and they self-perpetuate and self-heal. Plus, my body itself prefers a lot of fatty and meaty types of energy to high-carb foods. Emotionally, I have a set of beliefs about evolution and life that includes the acceptability of raising animals for meat. The Ossabaw hogs I raise are particularly good at making use of the energy and conditions I have to self-perpetuate, unlike maybe pink commodity hogs would be. And finally, my body is more able to produce the right kind of energy to feed the pig than it would be to raise enough sunflowers or canola, for instance, to supply my fat energy needs.
So I characterize the environment as a pattern where my own body is woven through it like a single colour in a complex painting: biophysical, genetic, emotional, intellectual, energetic, input, output. My goal is to use my emotion and intellect and physical energy and I guess spiritual drive to bring all these things closer to a robust, sustainable, and pleasurable system. I've started fairly directly, with things I consume/eat, and step the process out from there. Eating is the most basic form of fitting something into my body, after all, and being able to obtain it through my personal characteristics is one step out from that. Then there's the downstream side, but I think maybe you get the point? It's easier to know all this about something that is grown by me or someone I know. Or, for instance, the vanilla co-op I buy vanilla beans from has tight direct relationships with their suppliers and they teach us a lot about the ecology and processing of vanilla too.
