By Lisa Caron
Sustainability Studies student
The Japanese may be food parasites1 but they are efficient. When I was living there in a rented home in Aomori Prefecture, Japan, I found so many neat things that saved money and helped lower the need for wasting earth’s resources. For example the floor in my kitchen had a hidden trap door that revealed a cooler box to keep things cold using the winter air from under the home in the crawlspace. It was great for beverages and we didn’t need to waste energy opening the refrigerator every time we wanted something to drink. Some may think that having a crawl space in the first place sounds inefficient, but to them I would point out that Japan is smack dab in the middle of earthquake country and most homes are built on rollers.
My first experience with an earthquake gives another opportunity to share an unusual food story. After the initial violent shaking, the house rocked from side to side for what seemed like hours. The power was out and I heard a man yelling and ringing a bell outside. I went out expecting to not understand some vital emergency information in a foreign language, but was pleasantly surprised when my neighbor told me that he was yelling “hot yams”. He had roasted sweet potatoes for sale out of the front of his tricycle driven cart. It was such a lovely treat to have on a cold night when it was dark and difficult to cook while being sea sick from the house rocking back and forth and back and forth. Talk about comfort food.
I’ve eaten so many different things in so many different places in so many different situations that I feel authorized to say that food really “feeds” (punny?) a huge portion of the social needs of human beings all around the world. In every country, town, city, neighborhood around the world if people gather there is food2 (if possible). But I wonder what will happen to society when the foods that we are all used to runs out. I wonder if humans will remain civilized.
The scariest aspect about this whole global sustainability issue is that it is a thing that (like it or not) every person on Earth will have to someday wrestle with and act on (sooner or later). The solution is not something that we can miscalculate. If we fail, the human race will become extinct. It is frightening to me to realize that a great deal of science fiction has already become truth and there are so many graphic doomsday novels and movies about the details of the humans end. Like people roaming around dirty and scared searching and fighting for food and water – (that is if they are not already practicing cannibalism). I do not wish this life on my descendants, so I would really like to do my part in helping to find some solution.
Whatever the solution ends up being I am sure that everyone will not like because it is not just related to food. It will break down into what human has the right to live, and should a person of privilege &/power (i.e. money or influence to obtain resources) have a higher priority. This basic human dilemma has been rolling around for thousands of years. Didn’t the French Revolutionary War spark because one of the royal women remarked that if the poor were hungry “let them eat cake”? Many of the major religions have been trying solve these issues for thousands of years. They’ve compiled written guidelines about how things should be, but it is not working. If everyone shared with their neighbor and was humble, meek, unselfish, modest and kind-hearted, the earth would not be in the condition it is in today. I see now, why my professor brought up Dr. Martin Luther King in class the other day. Food Justice is about human justice.
Trying to figure out what my role should be to help protect the resources and related ethical issues that humans require of the Earth is no easy dilemma for me. In just the few months I’ve been learning about sustainability, my mind has change so many times I cannot count. One week I think I’ll only eat local, and the next I’ll change my mind and think maybe it’s cool to supplement some foods with fairly traded globally transported foods. Omnivore vs herbivore? Only tofu or should I consider the kind hearted farmer .that raises livestock in an ethical manner. But where does my loyalty lie? In the un-known farmer down the road or the truckers and supermarket employees I know personally? Do I have to choose? Decidedly not. Why? Because being too extreme about anything often leads to prison time, and sitting in a cell wasting time and energy would be no good for my family or the earth.
Taking a sustainability course has enlightened my opinions about so many things. One of the most surprising things to find out was that my refrigerator was the negative “cook print” 3 culprit in my kitchen and not the transportation nor the processing costs. I’ve been shaking my finger all over the place when I should have been looking in the mirror. Isn’t it strange when you realize that some of the old-fashioned sayings you heard as a youth are the truths of life.
In the future I will take on a more conscious approach to food purchases, storage and values. Stay educated on developments. Keep goals simple, only use what is needed, and need what will be used. Continue to enjoy my family garden. Share what I have learn with others. And Above all…always stay adaptable, hell I’m turning 42 next year maybe an alien space craft will take us all away right before the Earth is destroyed to make room for the galactic super highway. (Hopefully you’ve read or seen Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy).
Sources Cited…
- Thompson, Claire. “Local Haterade: Authors Say Locavores Do More Harm than Good.” Grist. Accessed November 18, 2013.
- Flammang, Janet A. The Taste for Civilization: Food, Politics, and Civil Society. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.
- Heyhoe, Kate. Cooking Green: Reducing Your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen : The New Green Basics Way. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Lifelong, 2009.
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