Taking the flexitarian road?

[mudsticks]

That's been known for years. I was in New Zealand when there were almost no bananas available; some disease had hit the Aussie banana plantations, and the only banana boat still on the high seas (in that half of the world) was bobbing about somewhere in the Pacific awaiting an engineer with a spare part for one of the engines. My friend Barbara had a house in the Hokianga with banana trees in the large garden, and she had to pay for guards to stop the (very small) crop of bananas being stolen as she had promised them to ... someone? some children's charity? ... can't remember for their fund-raiser and they did indeed raise a large amount!
When I lived in the Middle East, we used to get pink, large-finger-sized bananas, seasonally from Oman - THE most delicious, sweet things you have ever tasted. Bog standard Cavendish were a huge disappointment after those!

Mmmm, and fresh dates off the palms....

My eldest boys first solid food was mushed up banana, straight off the tree in Northern NSW.

There were also avocados, and mangoes .


Oooh and fresh macadamias.

I wouldn't want to live there full time because of all the terrifying bugs, but those things were pretty good.

 

[KnittyNorah]

Mmmm, and fresh dates off the palms....

My eldest boys first solid food was mushed up banana, straight off the tree in Northern NSW.

There were also avocados, and mangoes .


Oooh and fresh macadamias.

I wouldn't want to live there full time because of all the terrifying bugs, but those things were pretty good.

Oh some of the date varieties ... there was one in the UAE outside my boyfriends house, right by the front door, that was only about 8 ft high and the dates on it quite honestly tasted like FUDGE. Date fudge. At date flowering time, there were men paid by the equivalent of the city parks department who used to go around on bicycles with big bunches of date flowers on poles to fertilise all the municipal date palms which lined the streets, parks etc. I understood that gave better dates. My boyfriend's landlord sent someone round with the bunch of date flowers to fertilise the tree by the door but unfortunately by the time of the next date harvest he'd moved.
I remember in NSW driving through Young and the boxes and boxes of peaches and cherries available for hardly anything at the 'farm gate'. I bought a crate of peaches and took them into work in Sydney the next day, we all had peach juice running down our chins!

 

[mudsticks]

You raise a good point.

However, getting people to eat soya direct in the form of meat alternatives requires about a 10th of the land required to feed it to cattle and then to humans. So that’s certainly a plus c/w meat.
Also there are alternatives to Brazilian Soya;
Wheat protein, Quorn and Pea protein is UK and EU sourced and the same rule of 10 applies, regarding the land area etc. required to feed humans.
Whilst we may be viewed as the spawn of satan, Big Food has done a whole lot to help move people away from everyday meat consumption.
Big food is also very energy efficient and probably produces kg’s of protein with a lower carbon footprint/energy use than small and local. It’s not perfect, but it’s not all bad either….

Your right it's not all bad, but certainly not all good.


I'd definitely take issue with 'big food' being more efficient.

Especially when you take a whole cost accounting approach.

As ever it's what you measure and how..

Nutrition isn't just about base calories produced.

Big food mainly turns fossil fuel calories into human consumable calories.

Smaller , human powered mixed farms can produce a lot of nutrition.

On many levels, over a longer period of time.

And not just denatured calories, which can cause health problems as we know..

Smaller mixed, biodiverse farms produce complex fresh diets full of micronutrients for optimum human health and deliciousness .

And they can do it via nutrient recycling, minimal inputs, human craft skill, and with contemporary sunlight..

Ok plus a little bit of diesel for my tractor.

 

[gbb]

I always have great difficulty understanding or reconciling anyway, the fact some are so concerned about the environmental impact of some foods, yet we collectively buy mountains of utter carp from China, often useless,often single use, just for a moments 'pleasure'...or take flowers for instance, all the major supermarkets sell them now, many are Internet brought. Flown, not shipped, from various parts of the world,very labour intensive to pack, all the logistics and environmental damage from that....and no one bats an eyelid . Why is it we seem to over focus on food, yet we collectively buy mountains of stuff that has little benefit (other than a fleeting moment of pleasure)...but huge environmental impact.

 

[mudsticks]

I always have great difficulty understanding or reconciling anyway, the fact some are so concerned about the environmental impact of some foods, yet we collectively buy mountains of utter carp from China, often useless,often single use, just for a moments 'pleasure'...or take flowers for instance, all the major supermarkets sell them now, many are Internet brought. Flown, not shipped, from various parts of the world,very labour intensive to pack, all the logistics and environmental damage from that....and no one bats an eyelid . Why is it we seem to over focus on food, yet we collectively buy mountains of stuff that has little benefit (other than a fleeting moment of pleasure)...but huge environmental impact.

Not everyone does buy mountains of c@rp.

But certainly not everyone thinks so much about the origin, or impact of their food either

But given that food is something in we all consume on a daily basis, thinking about its impact would make some sense, surely.??

 

[gbb]

Not everyone does buy mountains of c@rp.

But certainly not everyone thinks so much about the origin, or impact of their food either

But given that food is something in we all consume on a daily basis, thinking about its impact would make some sense, surely.??

I rather think the opposite, food is the very sustenance of life, its utterly basic to survival but also meaningful pleasure, infinately more so than the fleeting pleasure people get (and often expect but don't get) from so much carp that's out there to buy.
Each to their own of course but I do my bit by refusing, whenever possible, to buy carp.

 

[All uphill]

I always have great difficulty understanding or reconciling anyway, the fact some are so concerned about the environmental impact of some foods, yet we collectively buy mountains of utter carp from China, often useless,often single use, just for a moments 'pleasure'...or take flowers for instance, all the major supermarkets sell them now, many are Internet brought. Flown, not shipped, from various parts of the world,very labour intensive to pack, all the logistics and environmental damage from that....and no one bats an eyelid . Why is it we seem to over focus on food, yet we collectively buy mountains of stuff that has little benefit (other than a fleeting moment of pleasure)...but huge environmental impact.

I agree.

So many areas of life where we can be wasteful. I am belatedly realising that lots of stuff, food or otherwise, gives me little pleasure and am working to do without.

Still looking forward to my unnecessary new bike though!

 

[mudsticks]

I rather think the opposite, food is the very sustenance of life, its utterly basic to survival but also meaningful pleasure, infinately more so than the fleeting pleasure people get (and often expect but don't get) from so much carp that's out there to buy.
Each to their own of course but I do my bit by refusing, whenever possible, to buy carp.

That's what I said.

That people should think about their food, and its provenance more, because we consume it daily.

But that currently many dont .

(I'm a farmer by the way, so I do have a vested interest in all this too )

 

[KnittyNorah]

I always have great difficulty understanding or reconciling anyway, the fact some are so concerned about the environmental impact of some foods, yet we collectively buy mountains of utter carp from China, often useless,often single use, just for a moments 'pleasure'...or take flowers for instance, all the major supermarkets sell them now, many are Internet brought. Flown, not shipped, from various parts of the world,very labour intensive to pack, all the logistics and environmental damage from that....and no one bats an eyelid . Why is it we seem to over focus on food, yet we collectively buy mountains of stuff that has little benefit (other than a fleeting moment of pleasure)...but huge environmental impact.

Not everyone buys 'mountains of stuff'; some people buy very little at all, and rarely if ever any stuff for 'single use'. I know that I am not alone in this! If ever I have a craving to buy 'stuff' I simply visit a charity shop, and drop about a fiver on pre-bought 'stuff' - depending on what I buy, I often recycle it back to a similar shop after a short time to continue its charity fundraising 'career' or actually use it in a useful way ...

And I always (well usually!) have flowers in my home, a few big dahlia tubers, which I save from year to year, and some annuals in pots in a sunny spot see to that from July to October; bulbs do the trick from about March - June. Oh, and the stupid eucalyptus tree that some dumbcluck planted, and that I had to pay to have cut down, now produces buckets-full of what appears to me to be florist-grade foliage which has to be cut back whether I want vases full of the stuff or not.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to live what passes for a 'normal' life nowadays without buying at least a few things made in places and by means I and many others would prefer functioned differently, but we surely owe it to the future, if there is to be one - not to say the abused and enslaved - to both minimise conspicuous and unnecessary consumption, and to be, let's say, as cautious and aware as possible of the origin of everything we buy.

 

[The Crofted Crest]

Well it depended on their former 'leanings' if we can call them that ...
Let me tell you about Marion. She was probably the colleague I was most friendly with. She never told me anything directly but there'd be little things I'd pick up on when she was conversing with other colleagues that told me she was from a family that hadn't exactly had it easy during the 'former times'. (I never let on just how good my understanding of German was; I let everyone think that my accent was appalling because of my poor standard of German not because I'd become fluent while living and working in the Tirol and the Sud-Tirol decades earlier ... a bit as if a German had learnt all their English from people speaking broad Geordie or Glaswegian really!)
Anyway, one day I was walking from work to the tram stop and Marion was walking with me. When we got to the tram stop there was some delay or another, due to an accident on the line, so I suggested we go and get a coffee and a cake. It was a nice sunny day and we could sit outside to keep an eye on the trams. I forget what we got, some delicious kaese-sahne-kuchen no doubt.
A child walked by, eating a banana and Marion suddenly said - out of the blue, it seemed at the time, that she always got horrible cold goosebumps up and down her back whenever she saw someone eating a banana on the street. Even seeing someone buying a banana from a street fruit stall made her stomach churn.
Huh? I said, or words to that effect.
And Marion explained that all during her childhood and teenage years, right into her adulthood, someone having a banana was a blatant, boastful sign that they were either high in the Stasi, had family who were, or had been given a 'reward' by the Stasi for really useful information ...
She was not the only person around to have this visceral reaction to various (odd and unexpected to those of us who had never lived under the privations of the East German regime) things; the 'ghosts' of the past were all too recent - and thus strongly felt - in the early - mid 1990s.
Bananas had been a rare luxury available only to the 'top' people and basically a label of the evil power of the Stasi. I imagine the few bananas available pre fall of the Wall would come from Cuba, perhaps. Or maybe Angola or somewhere like that. Certainly precious things and not for the likes of 'ordinary' people.
,

I was in Berlin when the Wall fell. So dangerous, the streets were lined with banana skins. One girl I spoke to said she thought bananas were made up by Western propoganda.

 

[gbb]

Not everyone buys 'mountains of stuff'; some people buy very little at all, and rarely if ever any stuff for 'single use'. I know that I am not alone in this! If ever I have a craving to buy 'stuff' I simply visit a charity shop, and drop about a fiver on pre-bought 'stuff' - depending on what I buy, I often recycle it back to a similar shop after a short time to continue its charity fundraising 'career' or actually use it in a useful way ...

And I always (well usually!) have flowers in my home, a few big dahlia tubers, which I save from year to year, and some annuals in pots in a sunny spot see to that from July to October; bulbs do the trick from about March - June. Oh, and the stupid eucalyptus tree that some dumbcluck planted, and that I had to pay to have cut down, now produces buckets-full of what appears to me to be florist-grade foliage which has to be cut back whether I want vases full of the stuff or not.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to live what passes for a 'normal' life nowadays without buying at least a few things made in places and by means I and many others would prefer functioned differently, but we surely owe it to the future, if there is to be one - not to say the abused and enslaved - to both minimise conspicuous and unnecessary consumption, and to be, let's say, as cautious and aware as possible of the origin of everything we buy.

Thats why i said specifically, 'we collectively' . I know lots of individuals who do buy mountains of carp, i know people that dont. Nevertheless, mountains of carp is imported at great environmental expense....for what ?

 

[gbb]

The bananas thing, id never have known but i think i might have a reason why (assuming its not a joke) they invoke such deep feelings...
I used to work with a German, born in what became East Germany, was in the Hitler youth (you had no choice), emigrated to the US qfter the war, settled in the UK.
I once asked him, pre fall if the Berlin Wall....why does everything look so grey and dull there ? Why dont they just spend a few quid and paint things up a bit.
His answer was immediate...
When you cant even put food on your plate...you dont worry what colour the house is.

I suspect they knew a thing or two about hard living (

 

[KnittyNorah]

The bananas thing, id never have known but i think i might have a reason why (assuming its not a joke) they invoke such deep feelings...
I used to work with a German, born in what became East Germany, was in the Hitler youth (you had no choice), emigrated to the US qfter the war, settled in the UK.
I once asked him, pre fall if the Berlin Wall....why does everything look so grey and dull there ? Why dont they just spend a few quid and paint things up a bit.
His answer was immediate...
When you cant even put food on your plate...you dont worry what colour the house is.

I suspect they knew a thing or two about hard living (

Definitely tough times in many, many ways. With bananas and oranges as exotic to ordinary folks in at least one part of northern Europe in 1984, as they would have been in 1584, it says something about a society - and not good things. That said, there was a certain security and certainty about life, too, which became (still is) the subject of a type of nostalgia - there's even a specific term for it - ostalgie, or its anglicised equivalent, ostalgia.

Many in East Germany greatly resented certain aspects of reunification and felt short-changed by it, likening it to a colonial takeover. As one of a large number of professionals from Western Europe who were 'brought in' in the short term to help upgrade all sorts of services, especially in Berlin, I can totally understand why they would've felt like that. Some of the Ossis would tell me they preferred by far to have Brits, Dutch, Scandis etc 'updating' and 'improving' stuff than to have their supposedly-fellow West Germans doing it, as we were, in the main, less arrogant and patronising than they claimed many West Germans were.
I had a flat in a building which had been modernised; all of us tenants were non-Ossis and of course we all had nice bathrooms, constant hot water, central heating, triple glazing etc etc yet next door was a building which had not been modernised - and in which people still lived with one cold tap and a toilet on every floor; I'm honestly surprised there wasn't more unrest. I always used to feel really bad walking past there and the smell of cheap disinfectant and damp that flowed out whenever a door was opened was something else.
The first, or perhaps it was the second, winter I was there, a decision was made to close the 'warming stations' which were scattered all over the city, we're all free now aren't we? Well that worked well - NOT - as about a dozen people died of the cold in the first bad storm of winter. Many people bemoaned the loss of the state-run, subsidised neighbourhood 'kantine' too; the meals might have been basic but they were hot, filling, cheap, served in the warm and dry and very convenient and sociable.

I've not been back and don't think I want to as it will have changed too much and I have a sort of 'ostalgie' too, for the way the new buds of freedom and change were only just showing above the surface when I was there. The local bakery still sold bread by the part-loaf, and the old signs for the Communist Party Investigations offices had not been taken down from the building kitty-corner to one I lived in; it won't be the same now!

 

[gbb]

I always had an uneasiness about seeing the flowers side of our business, the logistics of it all....and the packaging . Pallets, hundreds if them, of plastics, cellophane, elastic bands, cardboard, the water consumption itself is immense , buckets, hundredsnof thousandsnof them that get sent out on lorries go depots, used, sent to wash stations by lorry, then sent back by lorry,...these are just the bits i see, let alone what i dont.
I read, a kilo of beef produces around 35 kilos Co2.
A bunch of flowers, if they come from S America or Africa (as many of our flowers do)...can produce around ...over 30 kg Co2. Shocking when you think about it.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Unbendingatarian