MAKING CHOICES ABOUT WHAT WE EAT

It is interesting to ask people why they eat what they do. A friend of mine says she grows and cooks only what she knows her children will eat. Some others I know go out shooting feral animals and eat them. Another grew up on a Pacific island, eating plants and animals from the sea. Others are vegetarian for various reasons - some don't like the idea of killing animals, some think it is healthier not to eat meat, others say they feel it is less destructive to the earth to only eat food from plants, for several it is a religious decision and so on. Eskimos eat a lot of fat and blubber to get through the extreme cold. Australian Aborigines eat whatever they can get from the environment through hunting and gathering. All these are perfectly legitimate ways to make decisions and none of these are better per se than another, in my opinion.

As I wrote in the previous post about fish and in the comments between Patrick and myself, I eat anything that comes my way in a natural and /or sustainable form and I think that, where I live, this is the best option. I have been out doing all sorts of things today but this whole topic keeps creeping back into my mind and I have come to a kind of proposal. It emanates from a book I read a few years ago called "The Future Eaters" by Tim Flannery, about humans consuming the resources they would need for their own future and how Australia fits in. It is still a very thought-provoking book but was even more so in 1994 when it was written and when I read it.

When all is said and done, we should eat what suits our environment to produce. That is my suggestion. Pretty obvious isn't it?

The English who settled in Australia from the 1770's onwards completely disregarded the environment in which they found themselves and proceeded to clear land, plough fields, sow European seeds and farm European animals to the exclusion of all else. And, what is more distressing, on the whole they still do. Massive amounts of our limited water resources and huge amounts of chemicals are given over to producing crops of food from every corner of the earth but our own. Animals raised for eating in Australia are still primarily sheep, cattle and pigs. Every grazing property in Australia would have its share of several different kangaroos, wallabies, emus, feral goats, pigs, rabbits, deer and even camels - 1,000,000 of them in the Northern Territory alone - and all these meats are edible and desirable. However, farmers shoot, poison or trap these animals and leave them to rot and persist with the traditional European species. Huge tracks of land are planted with irrigated grapes - as much as whole European countries, in total, to make grape wines. The whole length of the Murray River's 5,000 km is flanked by plantations of citrus and other non-native fruits which are now dying in the drought that is also killing the Murray itself and the water source for many towns and cities, including Adelaide.

Australia is enormous - bigger than all of western Europe combined, but we only have a population of about 25 million people and most of these live around the coast. This is for several reasons but is basically because of the extreme heat and lack of water supply over most of the inland areas. Why then haven't we as a nation taken to growing some local, native foods which have much more appropriate needs and can survive these extremes? I can picture readers of this post screwing up their noses and saying things like - what fruits....oh I tried something once and I didn't like it...my children wouldn't eat it.....you couldn't produce enough...and so on.

Our state of South Australia is 1 1/2 times the size of France....just think about that for a minute.... and because our population is less than 1.5 million.......yes, that's right, 1.5 million people in a state 1.5 times the size of France...... we would be best to be opportunistic, like the Aborigines were. Every person who lives in South Australia could get almost everything they need from their own gardens and sustainable growers in our own state, and often from just outside the city or town. A little bit of this and a little bit of that, whatever is in season. Our mediterranean climate has set us up to be self-sufficient year round and it would not take much of a change for it to happen but people would have to accept a seasonal and varied diet of European fruits and vegetables that could be grown with little extra water as well as local, native plants and feral and native animals including fish and seafood. I am discovering more and more local plants that are perfect for salads, plus some berries, seeds, spices and nuts that are delicious. What about lilly-pillies, quandongs, muntries, desert raisins and native limes, sea parsley, wattle seeds? See the Outback Pride website for more. I really enjoy the variety I can buy of feral and native meats and fish and because I consider it an ingredient, like any other, when we eat meat it consists of very small portions compared to the volume of vegetables I grow and cook. Our small population can harvest all these things sustainably and even sell some but our environment must come before profits or there won't be any profits or environment left and diets must be adjusted back to a sustainable amount of animals and plants.

I feel certain that this would be the best way for us to do least harm. If we were all vegetarian, for example, there is no way we would have enough water to provide all the food nor can we continue on the way we are going but given our huge tracts of arid and semi-arid land and the suitability of some native and some feral animals to survive there unassisted by humans but hunted by humans, then some kind of equilibrium could prevail. Combined with our vast ocean resources and an adaptation to eating more native vegetables and fruits I think if push came to shove, we could survive anything on this diet and this diet alone. In fact it puts us in a unique position to survive and thrive when all we hear is doom and gloom, if we continue to follow along persisting only with exotics and forgetting about native foods.

For other, more densely populated countries this would not work but here, in South Australia (and probably all of Australia) it would be the ideal way. Let's stop following Britain, America and Europe and start to make our own decisions based on what would suit us. No-one who has not been here can ever understand how much space there is outside the cities, you can drive the equivalent of the whole length of England and Scotland and barely see another human (or a drop of water!). So we have to set our own agendas and take the best of what we can learn from others then use the information to do what is necessary to ensure our future food security.

In a couple of weeks our seedsavers group is going to a native-foods grower to see what we can grow locally. The details are in the side-bar. The overwhelming response I have received to this suggestion by Maggie has been an indication of interest in moving into this way of thinking and I am sure many of us will come home with local food plants we can grow for ourselves. It has to be the way towards a better future for all Australians.

I would be interested to read what ideas people living elsewhere have for their countries and how they view Australia and its similarities and differences.