On Day-30, I have to ask myself, would I rather TALK about sustainability, or would I rather LIVE it? I have to wonder, is it possible to be green, truly green, and still be part of society - and if not, which would I choose? 

I've never wanted to be an outsider - to live super green, but wholly outside of the culture that I was raised in. I like people. I like pop culture. I like being part of the zeitgeist, of the pulse of things. I like art, and politics, and vacations, and playing outside, and having friends and hanging out, and taking showers, and wearing cute clothes, and eating out. 

Even so, it sickens me to see the disposable culture that has been built up around our lives. There is massive debate around the issue of what sustainability means. When I define sustainability, I don't necessarily see it as me being personally responsible for meeting all of my needs - although, sometimes, I do. I think a better approach is to allow sustainability to take on a community meaning - a reliance on other trustworthy people and business to care for each other's health and needs. Sustainability in this way, is not about each person or family living in recluse and being responsible for all its own food, shelter and other needs. 

Rather, Sustainability is about living in a culture that provides for the health and stability of the people and at the same time rejuvenates the planet's natural systems. Whereas during the last 30-days I have felt somewhat outside of things, living in a CULTURE and community is the key. 

Our current cultural system systematically destroys both the health of the people and the earth's ecosystems. This is fundamentally where the problem resides: In the cultural view of the human role on earth. 

As a backyard agrarian, I want to live in a culture that is not so destructive and in which I can live and find healthy choices wherever I look. I don't want to have to live my life shunning the culture and practices around me. I want instead, for the society, the farming practices, the manufacturing practices, the building norms, and the habits of the people, to rise up to meet me and to meet all of the other people who are trying day-by-day-by-day to live more ecologically appropriate, healthy, happy lives that at the same time help improve the planet upon which we were born and on which we rely for every facet of life from beauty to sustenance.  

I guess what I want, is for the culture to shift - away from the blind destruction, and towards an understanding that we are big. That we humans are big - together - our culture has a massive impact on this precious world, and our experience in it. I want our culture to recognize that when we poison our food growing in the fields, when we spend our free time battling traffic, we are living in a culture that doesn't have to be this way - that can be better. I want our culture to recognize that when we go on a weekend getaway to somewhere beautiful, but we spend the weekend drinking out of plastic cups and gratuitously burning gasoline in recreational vehicles, we are ruining that very world we are trying to appreciate. 

The truth is, we are so deeply into this toxic manufacturing culture, that it is difficult to avoid it. Even going 30-days without packaged foods, I cooked my food with coal-powered electricity. I drove to the store or the farms to buy the unpackaged food in my car fueled by oil that has caused climate change and other horrors like the destruction of the Niger Delta and a decade of war in the Middle East. 

So, after 30-days of avoiding packaged food, here's what to have to say: I don't want to do it alone. It's no fun to do it alone, and also, it won't work if only some of us hippies and hipster foodies do it just us. I 100% support stopping by that organic farm stand and supporting that step towards the transformation - towards local sustainable food systems. As more of us do it, we will see more options, but farmland is expensive and developers will pay a high price for it - so how far can this really take us? 

They say the American Dream is dead, that we will no longer live better lives than our parents, that kids will grow up sicker than their parents and make less money. The health implications are devastating, but there's an opening here. If the white picket fence 1950s consumer model of the American Dream is dead, maybe it's time to develop a new one - A New American Dream where we don't value growth at all costs, where instead we value the things that really matter. 

Like the resurgence of Bossa Nova music, maybe we will get a little classier, get a little more in tune with what the world is asking and begging of us. Maybe after so much time on the convenience bandwagon, perhaps we can use that free time to see more clearly, to look into the world and see what needs to be done. Maybe all convenience all the time, isn't really the way. Maybe we pick and choose. Maybe I carry containers with me wherever I go and use them for take-out. Maybe I participate in modern society - but tweek it a little. Maybe our public policies could have some rational vision for a future that involves continued life on planet earth, rather than hand-outs to the biggest most destructive companies that have ever existed.    

After 30-days of no packaged food, I have realized that I can do a lot better in my own personal habits. I can personally have a much lower impact. I have also realized that I don't want to give up all of the benefits of civilization. That said, the culture of my home has been transformed. I predict this experiment will live on and we will continue to buy whatever we can buy without packaging. We both look forward to more meals out, more snacks away from home, more bottles of wine or cans of beer, but the rules have changed.  There's no doubt about that, and in this culture where anything and everything goes, the guy with the biggest toys wins, and all that, I think some self-imposed rules to bring about and maintain some level of sanity and rational behavior, some rules of engagement with this world, some redefining of possibility, some narrowing of choice, some rules that say, "This is how I live" are certainly a good thing. 

When you catch a cold in the middle of this, all you want is a big fat carton of orange-pineapple juice, and to curl up in bed.  Since that wasn't an option, crisp watermelon has been a great substitute. I've also been juicing carrots and ginger, and drinking hot water with honey and garlic. I have also been blowing my nose - a lot!

Obviously, I'm not eating my boogers, so technically, I COULD blow into tissues or TP, but that just doesn't seem right. So, I dug out my handkerchiefs. I find hankies to be the most civilized of items one can have in one's repertoire, and I do use them, but, I'll admit, not always. 


I hope you'll pardon the slight detour away from food and join me in thinking about the many wasteful ways in which we engage in life. Our culture, and the disposable product marketing within our culture, have somehow caused us to act like disrespectful assess. Booger management is just one of the many ways that we Americans could become more reasonable, and more civilized, in how we choose to live on this planet. Won't you join the Hanky Revolution? 

One of the reasons that I care so much about permaculture and other facets of developing local organic food systems is that I believe the current food system will inevitably collapse. When it does, I don't want to see people starving to death. I want to live in a resilient community that has the ability to feed itself and maintain some semblance of rational and peaceful behavior because it has used the human skills of foresight to develop the ability to care for itself. 

It's fun and safe to do a little project going 30-days without packaged food. Grocery stores are stocked. It's actually quite easy at this point in history.  We are living in bacchanalian times, but we are also destroying the very systems upon which our food production depends. We are destroying bee and other pollinator populations. We are killing our soil with poisons and just by letting it blow away. We are changing the climate and doing a miserable job at managing our water resources. Our out-dated food production, packaging and transport systems are entirely reliant on oil. And the food that comes out of this toxic system is killing us through the toxicity-diabetes-obesity-malnutrition epidemic. 

We are crazy if we let this system go on, and even if we do let it go on, it will self-destruct. Thus I ask you, do we act like rational adults with our miraculous powers of foresight and transform the system while we still can, or do we continue to march towards the collapse? 

I have been dying to bake something - actually, I did bake cookies but with olive oil. Not the greatest. I like baking with coconut oil but have not been able to find any in bulk. I did, though finally find Canola Oil at Alfafa's in Boulder! Betty Crocker watch out. 

I had my clean glass jar that had previously held a local BBQ sauce weighed at customer service on my way in. I filled it up, took a photo, checked to make sure the lid was screwed on tight, and chatted with one of the staff at Alfafa's - seriously, everyone's cool at Alfafa's. It's nice. 

Then it was on to the maple syrup dispenser. 

A girl's gotta go out on the town now and again, but out is where things get tricky. Boulder is full of brew-pubs so finding an unpackaged beer is easy. If I'm going to have a beer, I'd like to temper it with some food. The problem is that anywhere I can go to have a beer seems to lack unpackaged/unprocessed food options. 

Assessing what restaurants are within the rules, and what food items at those restaurants are acceptable is not clear-cut. I figure if it's local food, it might have come to the restaurant in a box or crate and definitely was not wrapped in small disposable packages.  Once there, I look at the ingredients to see what kind of packaged food went into the dish. I figure that if I am willing to buy something at the grocery store that came to the store in a package but is sold not in a package, that same reasoning can be applied to what I choose to eat at restaurants. 

This evening at the Southern Sun, I just couldn't find anything on the menu to eat that I felt met the rules. When everyone else ordered food, I just ordered another beer. I retrospect, I think this was probably a bad idea. Lesson Learned: Eat before you go out or bring your own food. 

Fully settling into the no packaged food lifestyle now. Eating has regained some level of magic and I have been massively appreciating how amazing food simply is. When you cannot take avail of the so-called shortcuts of the modern industrialized food system, your well-being requires that you take it down a notch.  But it also has inspired me to be even more intrigued about what good food does for me, how great I feel, how much I enjoy not reading ingredient lists, and not doing a single ounce of recycling. 

I have spent more time cooking, but I have enjoyed it more. It's more fun. I like writing about it and taking pictures of it. It has forced me not to hurry - but to wash the lettuce with care and store it in the spinner, to simmer the oranges and nutmeg and mint and honey in the homemade almond milk for sorbet, to roll out the pasta, to make fresh juice. 

It seems, that when I take more care in how I purchase the food, I also take more care in how I prepare and eat the food. I feel closer to the food or more respectful or something. I feel like we have a more workable relationship this way: me and the food. Like we could go on this way forever. I also enjoy grocery shopping more -  I love skipping all those packaged-food isles! Just going for the good stuff! 

Anyone want to take on this challenge - torch? 

The truth is, I do want the planet and  civilization to be saved - in the most peaceful and painless way possible. The question hanging in the air is: Is it too late? The climate crisis in full swing. Our rivers are toxic, our oceans are dying. Our forests are decimated, the people are sick from the toxic malnourishing "food" they eat. But you know all that. 

Here's my answer: Nurturing ecosystem gardens, creating habitat that will support a flourishing local food system, learning to eat well and to eat and grow a diverse array of options, creating massive diversity and localization of our food systems, is the only way I see for the possibility of a pleasant survival in a post-excess world. 

The truth is, corporate food and corporate medicine are making us sick and we need to learn to take care of ourselves again. We need to remember. For our own health, for the health of the planet and because this oil thing is precarious and the whole system is on its way out. I'd like to be prepared, and I'd like our civilization to be prepared, and for us all to enjoy ourselves and be healthy and well fed in the meantime. 

If we continue to rely on giant corporations to manage the planet's highly mechanized, highly chemicalized, highly genetically modified food system, if we cede this basic human right to grow our own food, then we put the health of the planet and the health of our own selves in major jeopardy. 

It's not too late to bring the power back down to the people, back down to the land. But we are getting there, and if each of us continues to rely on packaged food, then each day we are putting more organic farmers out of business, more local farmers out of business, more heirloom seed companies out of business. Each day, as a senior citizens passes on, we are losing the knowledge about how to feed ourselves without the multinationals mega-food giants.   We are creating the future with every bite we take. 

This project of going 30 days without packaged food was a recognition that we need to experiment with and practice and discuss the methods for living well in today's world. If we want to change things,  we need to change things. Simply not grabbing for the plastic produce bags at the grocery store, in the sea of people grabbing for them, is changing my perception of the food I eat, and what is required for me to get that food into my belly. The thing about this experiment is, it's so easy. It really is so easy. 

So, why bother? Why bother becoming a Backyard Agrarian? Eating and nurturing yourself and your land and your food system and your ecosystem like an agrarian? I'd say, because it's our only hope - our only hope of staying healthy, of saving the planet, and of weathering this storm: and from the looks of things, it's going to be a doozy. 

We all fall off one wagon or the other now and again, and this weekend, I did. Back in Ohio for a whirlwind 20th high school reunion weekend, I decided to not be a freak and just go with the food provided. This isn't quite as much fun as it may sound because I have a dairy allergy, so a lot of food is off the table so to speak. 

The big lesson is: I wish I hadn't. I really wish I hadn't. I feel sick and malnourished and I couldn't wait to get home for some REAL FOOD Feasting! The truth is, I always feel poorly nourished after being away on vacation - away from my kitchen - away from the possibility of eating real food at every meal. 

Even so-called luxury hotels and resorts like the Biltmore in Coral Gables, Florida where I visited a couple of months ago,  serve the same Sysco crap that you are subjected to anywhere you go. Even luxury in America has forgotten the most luxurious of things - Food!

Through Backyard Agrarian, I like to talk about learning to live well in order to teach others to live well in order to create a society that lives well.  Who cares if you have a slate tiled shower with double shower heads if you are suffering from the frantic feeling caused by malnourishment? Who cares if you sleep in a fluffy feather bed if your body aches anyway because the food you eat causes inflammation and pain? Who cares if you can spend $100 on a 5-star meal if that food causes you to feel guilty about eating it? 

Real food is beautiful and creates a sense of well-being and contentment and I am so glad to be home enjoying it once again. Unpackaged, guiltless, nourishing. A handful of macademia nuts, some wild rice with garlic and truffle oil and sea salt, sautéed veggies, beans and potatoes. I am so back on board with this project and so highly encourage others to try it out. 

To make amends, I will be adding 3 more days onto the 30-days without packaged foods.