Vegetarianism

Long overdue, I know, but better late than never. Today's topic will be what I promised in my last post: vegetariansim.

My sister became a vegetarian at age 9. Since she is ten and a half years older than me, I've never known her to eat meat and always grew up aware of the concept. By age 12 I stopped eating red meat (I was disgusted by watching the meat being prepared at the burger joint I went to once a week after dance class), shortly after I reduced my chicken consumption to Friday nights only since I disliked being fleishig (I keep kosher. If you're interested in more details leave a comment and I'll explain) and I stopped entirely bu age 14. One year later I decided that, if I were really going to be a vegetarian on principle (that principle being that I don't believe in killing unnecessarily) then I'd have to give up on fish, too. That one was harder, since I really liked fish, but nonetheless I stopped.

I know, I know some of you are going to say, "but those carrots are murdered, too!" To that argument I say, look, I've never once in my life tried to convert anyone over to vegetariansim. So keep your own damn nose out of my business if all you;re going to do about it is give me a hard time.

For the record, no, I don't wear leather/use leather products. I wore a silk wedding dress and have a huge amount of guilt over it. I don't eat marshmallows, candy corn, or other foods containing animal-sourced gelatin. I am not a vegan, though I was for a while in college. I do eat cheese, honey, and eggs, though on the later I am switching to organic free-range and yes, I know that free-range doesn't really mean free-range but it's the best I can do right now.

Here's where you'll really have an issue: my kids are vegetarian (though they have eaten marshmallows). It was never my intention to keep my kids vegetarian but when it came time to introduce new foods to them I simply could not bring myself to feeding them meat (and yes, as anyone who has been to my house for Shabbat can attest, I do cook and serve meat for my husband and guests). My reasoning is that, at this age I am responsible for taking acre of them and I really can not bring myself to make a choice for them that goes against what I would choose for myself. I do not eat meat for moral reasons and right now i make their moral decisions. When they are old enough to ask for a hamburger then yes, I will give them a hamburger. Till then the best I can do for them is what I would do for myself.

That being said, we're looking into daycare options for them next year, including places that cook and serve the kids meat, and I don't know if/what alternatives are.

By the way, when I say simply 'meat' I am including poultry and fish.

Long time, no cucumbers

It's been a long time since I updated this blog and I am sorry. Not for you, whoever you are, since I don't know if anyone is even reading this. But I am sorry for myself, because this blog is about a subject I feel rather passionately about, and I want to think these thoughts and have these ideas and this is my place for that.

But the thoughts are, nonetheless, still here in my head, so let me share a bit.

Since my last update I have read Michael Pollan's Food Rules, Lou Bendrick's Eat Where you Live, Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Alisa Smith and JB Makinnon's Plenty, and Nick Rosen's Off the Grid (among other reads, of course. These are just the one's most relevant to this blog.) We grew, ahrvested, and eventually (accidentally) killed several cucumber and cherry tomato plants. But the worm bin has been thriving and the compost mixer is, well, composting (though we haven't harvested the compost since we're using more as a waste management system than as a tool for the final product so we're still regularly adding more "garbage" to it).

I still haven't perfected all my advanced planning and occasionally find myself making unexpected trips to the supermarket and stuck either using plastic or buying new reusable bags each time (thus our huge collected of cloth bags at home). But I went to the store yesterday and remembered to bring the cotton mesh produce bags for the first time.

We're still cloth diapering, of course, though we need to expand our stash since we find ourselves running through all the diapers within three days then stuck with disposables for one day while the diapers are getting washed and dried (we sun-dry which saves energy but takes longer than a dryer. But the best part is that, as a result of all the sun bleaching, there is not a single stain on any of our diapers. Nearly two years of two babies in cloth with no stains, not bad I think!)

But all of the above has pretty much become second nature to us now. our biggest challenge is to keep up with our interest in buying only blue and white, ie, local. We are defining local not bu how long it takes to drive (not that we have a car anyways) nor by mile radius (since that would include a fair bit of Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea), rather by the borders of Israel.

So what is grown here? The answer is, a lot. The problem is, a lot of it is grown for export. And some staples just aren't grown here at all. We're not going to be as strict as they are about it in Plenty, but I'd like to at least do the research and see what is available. Rumor has it there are places in the country where they grow wheat and produce flour locally. The best part is due to our overall mild climate there are very often fresh produce year-round. Even tomatoes! Yes, you can buy the supermarket version, picked green and gassed to ripen after long storage. But we get ours farm fresh.

Our other big consideration now is to face the ethical dilemma. Dairy, poultry and fish (the only "meat" my husband eats, but both my kids and I are vegetarians, though not vegans), end eggs. We must research how they are raised, which/what we choose to buy, where we will get it from, etc. It's not a step I look forward to but, like when I gave up fish (the only thing I missed as a vegetarian, but knew I had to give up eating if I really did choose vegetarianism for moral purposes), I know it's necessary.

There's more I want to say about vegetarianism, especially after reading Kingsolver's book, but that will have to wait till my next update. For now I am going to pout my computer aside, open my book and finish my (delicious sweet potato, black lentil and goat cheese) salad that I bought as a treat to celebrate the first time in months that I am taking an hour to sit by myself at a cafe and eat a leisurely lunch.

Worm bin update

Circle of life

So our compost mixer has attracted flies (mostly our fault, since we didn't have a good ratio of greens to browns, about to be rectified now that we have borrowed my parents' paper shredder and all my old bank statements are about to be composted). With flies come maggots. Neither are really all that bad, I mean the bin is outside so the flies aren't a real problem and the maggots do help the food stuff decompose faster. The bigger problem is that there are so many maggots they fall out of the bin by the dozens every time we turn it. Gross, I know. So I set a sheet of cardboard with a large aluminum tray underneath the bin and now the maggots fall into that. But the best part is every hour or so the tray starts rustling and it turns out the birds have figured out that the tray contains free food. So the birds are eating the worms that are eating out garbage that is being tuned into compost. The circle of life indeed.

The update

Wow has time gotten away from me! I really didn't mean to go this long without any new posts. I guess right now I'll do some quick updates, and hopefully soon write some more thought-provoking posts.

Our compost bin(s) are up and running. The worms seem to be doing well and our mixer is filling up. I think soon we'll have to stop adding new items and leave it alone for a few weeks to really get cooking. We talked about what we'll do during that time and I think we'll try to save our compostables and make weekly trips to a local compost pile to dispose of them. What we discovered the last few weeks is that the majority of our waste is compostable, and since we've started these bins we've reduced our garbage output to about two bags a week, sometimes even less, down from a bag every other day or so, and actually daily during the weekend, when I cook more.

In other news, I've been very good about not accepting plastic bags at stores. I think I've only taken three in the last month: one when I bought a can of Raid (not very eco-friendly, I know, but that was before I discovered how effective peppermint castille soap is at killing ants) and wanted to separate it from my other food shopping, the other two times accidental by only realizing after I left the store that I didn't leave the bag. But I still carry my own shopping bag with me everywhere I go and a member of my synagogue sent out this link, which is something I have been looking for and am very excited about getting.

Let's see, what else. Oh, the gardening is moving along. The tomato and cucumber seeds have sprouted very nicely and it's time to repot them. The swiss chard seeds I tried never sprouted which is very disappointing since I really adore chard, but I am trying again. Our lemon tree is growing nicely though it has been infested with ants a couple of times. Some peppermint spray and a water moat around the base of the planter seem to have taken care of that (though they have since moved into our kitchen, yuck!)

Eating local has been going fairly well. It's really not hard once you get used to it. We do make exceptions, like if we want something that just is not grown/produced locally at all (like coconut milk). But overall it has kept us healthier I think since a large proportion of imported items are highly processed (like macaroni and cheese). We did cheat the other day and bought a box of Snyders sourdough pretzels. What can I say, no one's perfect.

That's about it for now. More to come!

Hot stuff

Thanks to our food scraps plus a pile of dead straw from someone's curbside and several generous handfuls of grass from the yard, the new composter is filling up nicely and now it needs to get cooking. It does seem to be getting warmer in there though it could just be that it's a black barrel on a hot day in a sunny porch. But hopefully it'll start steaming soon and then I'll know something is really happening.

I know the cycle will be starting over continuously as we add more waste, since we have no intention of getting another mixer and alternating, bit seeing as the compost itself isn't the whole goal then it really doesn't matter. As the material breaks down we can take out handfuls of compost, sifting through for whatever needs more time and using what we get, as we get it, on the plants.

Speaking of which, it's looking like some of my sprouts are ready for re-potting. I think it;s the chard though ti may possibly be the cucumber, and the tomatoes sprouts are on their way.

I love looking out the window and seeing the colorful cloth diapers hanging in the warm sun like Tibetan flags, the composter making fertilizer, the amaryllises nearly blooming, al with the backdrop of the city's main industrial zone. We're really our own little urban paradise here. At least, we;re on our way.

Happy birthday to you

I finally got my birthday present...er, five and a half months late.

Today my husband gave me this!

Updates to follow!