I appreciate this video by Tim Keller – connecting the dots between Justice and Justification by Faith.
Check out this great new video by my friend Tim Nelson on our new Lahash partner – Savior’s Home. You can visit Lahash.org to sponsor one of the kids at the home.
Savior’s Home from Lahash International on Vimeo.
I am dead set against trash. It’s difficult to reorient my life after being immersed in a society and way of life that thinks nothing of using and disposing of “consumables.” On trips to East Africa I’ve noticed that often times a house will have no waste baskets or trash cans in the entire house. The average American generated 4.5 pounds of waste per day in 2008 according to the EPA.
When Erin and I first did our test week of Rice & Beans month back in December of 2008, we realized how little trash was created when eating fresh raw foods. At that time we were regularly filling up 4 entire black trash cans every month (1 per week). Since then we’ve altered our way of living and have gone down to 1 trash can per month!
During this month of eating from our garden – our waste problem has improved even more. We’ve had a couple of side projects that have produced a small amount of waste, but the trash from our homegrown meals is… totally gone! We’ve had zero waste and only about 5 or 6 items to recycle for an ENTIRE month of meals.
The picture to the left is an image of what the “waste” after a typical day of cooking looks like. It’s just heaps and heaps of great material that is headed right out the door to the compost heap. Within a couple of weeks the “waste” ends up as nutrients that we dig back into our soil.
The final picture below is of our dual track compost heaps. We compost all of our garden “waste” into these piles and mix them with chicken manure and grass clippings and even wet gDiapers from Talia that decompose quite quickly. I read a quote in a book recently that said the point of a sustainable life was to “get to the point where the garbage truck never has to call.” We are taking steps in that direction.
We’ve just completed three weeks of our Homegrown Produce month! It’s been a great journey. Our garden supply is just beginning to dwindle – our lovely hens have decided to take a little break and are laying an average of about 1 egg per day. So it’s not certain we’ll make it through the full month.
The other day Erin and I went on a little date and watched the movie The Help. It’s ultimately a movie of hope – but I felt awkward in my white skin during some of the parts as the story unfolded with pale-skinned characters treating their darker-skinned house servants with despicable unkindness. I’m grateful that so many worked to upturn the injustices of that time period. But… the honest reality is that this hideous system continues today. Our food, clothes, electronics, shoes, and pretty much everything else we “consume” as a society are produced out of sight. Too often these products are created using slavery, injustice, oppression, and violence. It was all the more thought-provoking while spending this month eating food that I knew so intimately and could honestly thank God for in entirety.
Links:
Let us know what happens behind the curtains – and move our mouths, our families, and our communities toward the light.
My friends from college recently made a movie called “Dive” Jeremy Seifert, Noah Smith, Mark Kulakoff and others make appearances in this film about food waste in the United States.
You can buy it here on iTunes
What does it look like to eat straight from the garden for five days? Well – here you go!
We have a variety of reasons why we are growing produce in our backyard. But it all started when I read an article by a local Portland professor that questioned why Americans spent all of their energy on green lawns when they could have beautiful homegrown produce instead. The article had some good points!
When we decided on “food not lawns” we also made the decision to go organic. It’s been an interesting journey learning more about the harmful effects of the industrial agricultural system and about the creative and viable alternatives that can replace that old creaky system.
There are several strategies we’ve been exploring in order to minimize the pest invasions.
So far things have been working really well with the organic system. I’m not worried that I’m killing off bees, birds, or beneficial insects. And it’s great knowing that Talia can play in the yard without the danger of the negative effects of pesticides.
Organic gardening isn’t quite the full solution to the problems of our modern food system, but I’ll write a bit more about that in an upcoming post.
